# Ever gotten a good grade on an assignment you did while high or drunk? **URL:** \ **Category:** In My Humble Opinion\ **Created:** [October 31, 2007, 3:43am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ever-gotten-a-good-grade-on-an-assignment-you-did-while-high-or-drunk/424669 "2007-10-31T03:43:12Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![lizardling](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/f4b2a3/32.png) [@lizardling](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/lizardling)\ **Post date:** [October 31, 2007, 11:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ever-gotten-a-good-grade-on-an-assignment-you-did-while-high-or-drunk/424669/21 "2007-10-31T23:34:27Z")
I wrote a paper on some 18th century American novel while sick, having nothing in my stomach but cold medicine and chicken bouillion soup made from insta cubes. I basically sat on the floor with a blankie on, shivering, and pounded on the laptop until I couldn’t do it any more and fell over. Fourteen pages of me rambling on, and the result was me blowing the curve in that class. Color me VERY surprised once I got sleep (and recovered)! ---
**Author:** ![Hostile\_Dialect](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/e495f1/32.png) [@Hostile\_Dialect](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hostile_Dialect)\ **Post date:** [October 31, 2007, 11:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ever-gotten-a-good-grade-on-an-assignment-you-did-while-high-or-drunk/424669/22 "2007-10-31T23:56:30Z")
Are you kidding? How do you think I graduated high school? Ironically, I once got an A on a final for English class (first semester of college) in the form of a cocaine-fueled critique of _Requiem for a Dream_. The next year, I showed up to Chem class one day after having smoked pot for the first time in 9 months, and let me tell you, it was good shit and I was _ripped_ and a half. I mean, I had just blown out the last exhale about 5 minutes before walking into class, only to discover to my horror that we had a pop quiz. I got a 100% and decided to become a Chem major that day. Didn’t end up working out in the long run. Maybe it’s because I stopped smoking weed again, and I’m really only good at it when I’m high… One of the more memorable related episodes (though it didn’t involve a graded assignment) was when my friend and I were tripping balls on DXM in American Lit. When everyone in the class had to take turns reading “The Yellow Wallpaper” out loud, the symbology just got too strong for my friend and she “peaked” all over again, with intense open-eye visuals: she _became_ the woman inside the wallpaper, crawling around and trying to free herself. It came to be her turn. We were both sitting on the couch (yes, our English teacher was awesome, there was a couch in the classroom) and I knew _exactly_ what was going on, so I said, “Kira’s feeling a bit under the weather today. Should I just read her portion for her?” She barely managed to mouth “Thank You!” to me before she fell right back into Tripsville. At the end of the semester, we told the teacher what had happened that day, and that we were tripping balls more often than not in her class. You should’ve seen the look on that poor teacher’s face. > [@ignis\_glaciesque](#): > > I also delivered a presentation in German while rather drunk. Apparently, my foreign language competence becomes amazing when I’m drunk. I picked up a hot Mexican girl who would later become my girlfriend while I was drunk. Apparently, with a little liquid confidence I become hot stuff in Spanish. ETA: Just today I delivered a presentation on linguistic theory which I mostly prepared after hanging out with a visiting Englishman and consuming quite a bit of the ol’ cerveza in the process. ---
**Author:** ![Spezza](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/a698b9/32.png) [@Spezza](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Spezza)\ **Post date:** [November 1, 2007, 1:32am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ever-gotten-a-good-grade-on-an-assignment-you-did-while-high-or-drunk/424669/23 "2007-11-01T01:32:06Z")
I spent high school stoned; and while I didn’t actually graduate high school, I’m currently in grad school. In high school the better question would have been, _what haven’t I done stoned?_ Honestly, we smoked up before everything. Parties, movies, video games, skiing, etc. We also smoked up around 8:00 AM each morning as we arrived at school. Some of us then proceeded to go to class, others continued to smoke. This continued throughout the day as some went to class and others joined, skipping their own classes. Generally I was the only constant. (Though I mention only marijuana consumption here, don’t let that fool you; we were doing pretty much whatever you can imagine.) And if you are wondering what happened when I did show up in class… well, I only showed up for tests, and I never knew what they were asking. However, I did know about the subject and would scratch out their questions, inserting my own, and I’d answer it. (I read my parents and sisters university texts while high and laying in bed.) History teachers always got incredibly angry with me because I’d write an essay about the Battle of the Bulge, in great detail, and they’d have to do their own research to find out what I was writing was actually right. Then they’d accuse me of cheating. In undergrad I switched drugs to alcohol. Only difference was this time I did read what they were feeding us. Did much better than in high school. University is much more accepting of functional addicts. In grad school. Well, not much feedback yet. Got a B+ on my first assignment, which is basically a fail in my book. I’ll keep you updated. Oh, you were asking if I ever did well on an assignment while high? No. Never. I may have done well on stuff, but in general, intoxicating substances only hinder. Lesson to you all, winners don’t do drugs. ---
**Author:** ![Katriona](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/katriona/32/113_2.png) [@Katriona](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Katriona)\ **Post date:** [November 1, 2007, 1:34am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ever-gotten-a-good-grade-on-an-assignment-you-did-while-high-or-drunk/424669/24 "2007-11-01T01:34:37Z")
I aced my Comp II (2nd semester basic freshman English) exam still drunk from the night before. Then again, I was majoring in English, so I may have had an advantage there! ---
**Author:** ![Fretful\_Porpentine](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/fretful_porpentine/32/2873_2.png) [@Fretful\_Porpentine](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Fretful_Porpentine)\ **Post date:** [November 1, 2007, 1:50am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ever-gotten-a-good-grade-on-an-assignment-you-did-while-high-or-drunk/424669/25 "2007-11-01T01:50:10Z")
During my one required American lit class in college, I was forced to write a paper on _Moby-Dick_. I never did make it to the end of that novel, and I felt like I couldn’t face the task without proper fortification, so I spent an evening gulping down vodka screwdrivers, watching _Pulp Fiction_ out of one eye since my roommates had decided to rent the video, and writing a paper about Allusions to Shakespeare in _Moby-Dick_. (When all else fails, relate everything to Shakespeare.) By the end of the evening, I was so drunk that I had given up on the task at hand and started trying to remember the names of as many of my second-grade classmates, which I then typed into my paper because it seemed like a good idea at the time. In the morning, I deleted the list of second-grade classmates, pounded out some sort of conclusion, and handed in the paper. I got an A-. A month later, I wrote a paper about a couple of Poe and Hawthorne short stories that I really liked, thought hard about them, spent hours polishing the final product. I got another A-. Guess I might as well have gotten drunk the second time. I was also fairly drunk (and not at all happily so) when I assembled most of my grad school application packets, but since that didn’t involve any actual writing, I guess it doesn’t count. ---
**Author:** ![Caffeine.addict](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/f475e1/32.png) [@Caffeine.addict](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Caffeine.addict)\ **Post date:** [November 1, 2007, 2:09am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ever-gotten-a-good-grade-on-an-assignment-you-did-while-high-or-drunk/424669/26 "2007-11-01T02:09:17Z")
Not me personally, but my buddy used to get high before taking exams in Econometrics. Worst part was that he got a 96 which was the highest grade in the class. During the exam, I glanced at him and he had a permabake smile on his file. It made sense since he was smoking while we studied for it. ---
**Author:** ![Phantom\_Dennis](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/51bf81/32.png) [@Phantom\_Dennis](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Phantom_Dennis)\ **Post date:** [November 1, 2007, 2:21am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ever-gotten-a-good-grade-on-an-assignment-you-did-while-high-or-drunk/424669/27 "2007-11-01T02:21:40Z")
I think I wrote a few term papers while inebriated. I don’t remember any specific details, but I don’t think I’ve ever gotten less than a 90% on a term paper, so I doubt it hurt me much. To this day, I think I write better after I’ve had a few beers. I wish there was a better way to get the words flowing. I wouldn’t mind writing a book someday, but I feel like I’d have to become an alcoholic in order to actually finish it. ---
**Author:** ![George\_Kaplin](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/3e96dc/32.png) [@George\_Kaplin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/George_Kaplin)\ **Post date:** [November 1, 2007, 2:25am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ever-gotten-a-good-grade-on-an-assignment-you-did-while-high-or-drunk/424669/28 "2007-11-01T02:25:36Z")
I blame (or should that be credit?) my lit. professors for making me a stoner in the first place. The very first module of my BA was all about the philosophy of language and narrative and from it I retain but one insight: Boredom can’t kill you, but sometimes you’ll wish it could. And so it came to pass that while trawling through the nonsensical screeds of gallingly pretentious French (and they Were. _Always._ French.) literary critics, I discovered their inanity became far easier to bear while comfortably stoned. It got to the point where I couldn’t even _contemplate_ attending a lecture or seminar, or knocking up a presentation or an essay without skinning up beforehand. It seemed to work, though, because I got a 2:1 for the module which wasn’t bad considering it was the very first one. Frankly, I doubt I would have finished uni if I didn’t have easy access to weed. ---
**Author:** ![Boyo\_Jim](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/87869e/32.png) [@Boyo\_Jim](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Boyo_Jim)\ **Post date:** [November 1, 2007, 2:47am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ever-gotten-a-good-grade-on-an-assignment-you-did-while-high-or-drunk/424669/29 "2007-11-01T02:47:38Z")
Odds are I was stoned when I wrote the winning sentence to the Bulwer Lytton Fiction Contest, but I don’t quite rememer ---
**Author:** ![matt\_mcl](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/7ab992/32.png) [@matt\_mcl](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/matt_mcl)\ **Post date:** [November 1, 2007, 4:05am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ever-gotten-a-good-grade-on-an-assignment-you-did-while-high-or-drunk/424669/30 "2007-11-01T04:05:11Z")
One time I took way too much cough syrup by accident (me: “I don’t get it. I stayed up all night.” dr\_mom\_mcl: “Well, how much did you take?” me: "Like it says on the bottle. Two tablesp - " dr\_mom\_mcl: “TEAspoons!!”) while putting together a presentation for my linguistic theory class. I was still hopped up when I gave the presentation. (I joke that I did an hour’s worth of material in 20 minutes.) Got a good grade, too. ---
**Author:** ![Cyn](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/a88e4f/32.png) [@Cyn](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Cyn)\ **Post date:** [November 1, 2007, 4:05am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ever-gotten-a-good-grade-on-an-assignment-you-did-while-high-or-drunk/424669/31 "2007-11-01T04:05:15Z")
Second semester of RN school and I was pulling straight Bs and I\* reeeeallly \* wanted to go to a concert I won tickets for but it was on a school night, out of town and I had an exam the next day I hadn’t studied for at all. My friend agreed to drive so I could at least sleep on the way home. We had an amazing time and I drank too much and this concert was at a casino and we played the slots and I was lucky I got home at 5am and hopped in the shower and made it to my 7am exam. And got a B. ---
**Author:** ![St\_Ides](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/ccd318/32.png) [@St\_Ides](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/St_Ides)\ **Post date:** [November 1, 2007, 4:55am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ever-gotten-a-good-grade-on-an-assignment-you-did-while-high-or-drunk/424669/32 "2007-11-01T04:55:12Z")
[QUOTE=Epimetheus] I can code better when I have a little bit of alcohol. I am not a logic type of guy so programming is not my forte, but when I have a beer or a glass of wine, I think more logically and linearly. After two or three though and I can’t concentrate enough, or care enough to continue, so I don’t do it often because it is hard to maintain the balance of one beer within X amount of time is good, but 1 beer and then another within that same X period of time and I surf the internet too much. [/QUOTE] You’ve discovered the [Ballmer Peak](http://xkcd.com/323/) ---
**Author:** ![elfkin477](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/a9a28c/32.png) [@elfkin477](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/elfkin477)\ **Post date:** [November 1, 2007, 11:14am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ever-gotten-a-good-grade-on-an-assignment-you-did-while-high-or-drunk/424669/33 "2007-11-01T11:14:31Z")
Nah, I was a good girl. But when I was a college freshman we had to workshop each other’s english papers in small groups. The guy, Jon, had written a really funny paper about why Little Debbie’s oatmeal cream pies were the best food on earth. It was odd though, because in one sentence he’d strung 3 dozen adjectives together (with flawless use of serial commas no less). We asked him what had possessed him to write a five page paper about snack food. Totally high, he confessed. He got an A on the paper. He deserved it too, it was the best essay on little Debbie ever written. ---
**Author:** ![Oregon\_sunshine](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/o/50afbb/32.png) [@Oregon\_sunshine](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Oregon_sunshine)\ **Post date:** [November 1, 2007, 12:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ever-gotten-a-good-grade-on-an-assignment-you-did-while-high-or-drunk/424669/34 "2007-11-01T12:34:41Z")
I scored a 29 on the ACT while really, really hung over and quite late for the exam. Does that count? 🙂 ---
**Author:** ![3acresandatruck](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/3/e79b87/32.png) [@3acresandatruck](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/3acresandatruck)\ **Post date:** [November 1, 2007, 1:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ever-gotten-a-good-grade-on-an-assignment-you-did-while-high-or-drunk/424669/35 "2007-11-01T13:04:56Z")
Well, I did almost all of my college homework stoned. I got 2 B’s in college; all my other grades were A’s. For a specific incident: I took my first semester physics final absolutely wasted, to the extent that my roommate, who was in the same class, could tell the moment he entered the room. “3acres! Man, you should see your eyes…what have you done!?!” I calmly replied, “I did 2 doobies”. :eek: It was some _really_ primo stuff, too. He was aghast, but impressed that I wasn’t unconscious. According to my roommate, I finished the final before the test period was half over; everyone looked up in astonishment as I turned it in and left. He also reported that nobody else finished the test in the allotted time, but had to stop when time expired. I got a perfect score on the test, even got the extra credit question, and a nice little note from the professor, who was amused by the little physics-related cartoons I’d drawn all over my test. ---
**Author:** ![VunderBob](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/v/839c29/32.png) [@VunderBob](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/VunderBob)\ **Post date:** [November 1, 2007, 1:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ever-gotten-a-good-grade-on-an-assignment-you-did-while-high-or-drunk/424669/36 "2007-11-01T13:09:18Z")
I took the final for my high school physics class straight out of an oral surgery appointment, and I was a bit loopy. Best grade of the semester… ---
**Author:** ![Madd\_Maxx](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/5f9b8f/32.png) [@Madd\_Maxx](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Madd_Maxx)\ **Post date:** [November 1, 2007, 2:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ever-gotten-a-good-grade-on-an-assignment-you-did-while-high-or-drunk/424669/37 "2007-11-01T14:22:46Z")
It’s has been my past experience that smoking a few bong hits before a test reduces any anxiety I may have had about my knowledge of the material. In fact, it doesn’t seem to matter whether or not I even knew the material in the first place. It seems to me that if I had smoked weed in high school I may have had a GPA closer to my college average of 3.75 instead of the 2.5 I had back then. ---
**Author:** ![joemama24\_98](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/ce7236/32.png) [@joemama24\_98](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/joemama24_98)\ **Post date:** [November 1, 2007, 2:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ever-gotten-a-good-grade-on-an-assignment-you-did-while-high-or-drunk/424669/38 "2007-11-01T14:38:19Z")
Our 11th grade English teacher had a nervous breakdown in class one day. She came back several weeks later, very doped up on anti-anxiety meds. She’d spend the entire class rocking back and forth in her squeaky chair while we did group assignments that did not require any interaction. Freaky. Anyway, I wrote one term paper the entire year. And turned it in three times. She never questioned it. And I know she graded all of them - I got the same grade with the same grammatical errors noted on all three (at least she was consistent). She must of been really zonked - at least I was turning in my own work. Some of my other classmates were just trading papers to turn in. You’d think that at least some of them would have sounded familar the third time around. ---
**Author:** ![Omegaman](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/o/e480ec/32.png) [@Omegaman](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Omegaman)\ **Post date:** [November 1, 2007, 3:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ever-gotten-a-good-grade-on-an-assignment-you-did-while-high-or-drunk/424669/39 "2007-11-01T15:35:59Z")
A classmate and I recieved the highest grades on our finals in 12th grade US Government after smoking a skunk bomber before class. It was a C. Five students didn’t graduate that spring due to failing that class. That C gave both the other guy and I a final grade of a D. The teacher made a big deal out of it because he was used to pointing out to the rest of the class when we would come in stoned. ---
**Author:** ![JimmyFlair](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/ce7236/32.png) [@JimmyFlair](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JimmyFlair)\ **Post date:** [November 1, 2007, 11:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ever-gotten-a-good-grade-on-an-assignment-you-did-while-high-or-drunk/424669/40 "2007-11-01T23:28:27Z")
I did fantastically well on a Remote Sensing (essentially analyzing aerial photos / satellite imagery) exam. My friend and I both thought it started at 4:00, went for a drink, then two, then…??? We were chilling in the campus bar when another classmate walked by and said “What the hell are you doing? the exam’s in like ten minutes!” Oh %^&^$!!! We gulped down our drinks and scurried to class. I had a rather pleasant warm feeling and ended up with an A. My friend had a green look on her face, had to leave the room mid-test to hurl, and got a D. Sorry, Tamara! But for sheer alcohol/exam audacity, I have to had it to my friends who _brought a tray of jello shots to share with the class_ during a final. Yes, the prof had one, too. Good times! [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ever-gotten-a-good-grade-on-an-assignment-you-did-while-high-or-drunk/424669.md?page=1) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ever-gotten-a-good-grade-on-an-assignment-you-did-while-high-or-drunk/424669.md?page=3)