Exam Graders Reveal The Funniest Things They've Seen During Finals
Finals are rough, and literally, nobody misses them once they're done. And because they're hard and stressful, test takers make some silly mistakes. Or we simply have no idea what we're doing. Who among us hasn't bombed an exam?
liam43981 asked People who mark exams, what is the funniest thing you've seen in an exam?
Submissions have been edited for clarity, context, and profanity.
Guy settled for a 1, and the answer turns out to be... almost 1.
On a quiz where the students had to fill in seven missing values on an array calculation, one of the students completely forgot how to do the calculations and so had no answers. My school grades on a 1-4 scale, so anticipating his failure, he wrote into the spaces
1) I
2) will
3) have
4) to
5) take
6) a
7) one
It so happened that it was a correlation coefficient equation, and the final answer was, in fact, ".998". I told him it was close enough, so I gave him credit for that one (he still only got 1/7, which was not a passing grade of course, but he had a good laugh).
No amount of help got me through chemistry. But at least we got to burn stuff.
I was the TA for a chemistry class. Someone who clearly had not studied for the exam didn't bother to answer any of the questions. Instead, he drew a car on the last page of the exam. It was one of the most beautiful drawings I'd ever seen, so beautiful I felt terrible giving this guy an F. The details, the shadowing, the curves, all was amazing. More so that he did that in 50 minutes!
He dropped the class halfway through the semester and I don't know what happened to him after, but I really hope he switched major to something more art-related.
Points for taking the instructions literally.
Final Exam on Macbeth: one of my friends didn't know how to answer a question but because we were told never to leave it blank, wrote a detailed instructional (with pictures) on how to draw a horse. He got partial marks for communication.
Might as well be...
There was always at least one chem exam that took a complicated reaction mechanism question and just wrote "magic" between the starting and ending compounds.
Disk-shaped, dude. DISK.
Red blood cells are described as disk-shaped in most books. One of my classmates had his test paper marked with a big "?" on that question because he wrote dick shaped cell.
What is the octet rule? Sometimes main-group elements in a molecule, such as carbon in CO2, have electrons arranged in the same way as a noble gas.
The question was "what is the octet rule?" and the answer was a drawing of a cartoon octopus.
Would it be a bad thing if we had courses on consumer etiquette?
In microeconomics, there was a question about consumer goods and this guy wrote an entire answer comparing and contrasting "consumer goods" and "consumer bads" which was basically a short answer of what you should and shouldn't do in a retail store.
R.I.P to your G.P.A.
Someone I know on their organic chemistry exam that they knew they bombed because they only answered 2 out of 5 questions, drew a tombstone with "R.I.P. my grade" in one of the blank question spaces. The grading TA drew bouquets of flowers at the tombstone in red pen and everyone laughed except for the guy whose exam it was.
Eyes on your own paper... because you have a different paper and you will fail if you cheat.
I once marked a Calculus test where a student scored 0%. Turns out the student copied the answers of the student next to him but didn't realize that there were 2 different versions of the test to prevent this exact scenario.
Honestly, I was impressed. Outside of submitting a blank test, I've never seen someone get 0%.
Edit for the aftermath: Teacher pulled the kid aside the next day and called him a dumbass. He told him he'd let him off the hook with a warning this time since he can't give him much lower than a 0, and he didn't think detention would help things.
A perfectly reasonable answer.
On a university level eco-toxicology exam where the question was: is the process slow or fast ? (no explaining required).
The student answered: Yes???????
Well, they aren't alive, so...
*answering for my mother.
The question was the following: Crash test dummies are made to be as realistic as possible to ensure that crash tests produce the most accurate results possible. State a feature about them that makes them realistic.
The students answer: It has the mind of a dead person.
Sometimes a pun is the only way.
In a year 10 history essay about the labor and liberal parties during the war period, talking about various scandals: "Including accusations of an affair with a secretary. The climax came in the party room," before going on to talk about how the coalition crumbled.
Damn sure it was deliberate. +1 point to you, student.
Professor knows what's up. Solid burn.
Reminds me of an exchange between professor and student during class:
Professor: "Only illness or death will excuse you if you miss this exam."
Student: "What about extreme sexual exhaustion?"
Professor: "No, you'll have to write the exam with your other hand."
Um... that's not at all how evolution works.
Evolution is false because all monkeys look the same but no two humans do.
Happy little ions, a positively beautiful relationship. Bob Ross style.
Not a teacher, but during a chemistry exam one of the questions was about the bond between 2 ions. The friend answered 'Friendship bond'.
"Temple of Doom" wasn't a documentary. Well, maybe at Trump University.
Obligatory "I'm not a teacher but..." When I was a freshman in high school, I took world religions and completely bombed the question on Hinduism. Having skipped that chapter, my only knowledge of eastern religions was what I saw in Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom. It was all there in my answer, Thuggi cults, Mola Ram, sacred stones, lava pits, hearts being ripped out, child slaves... It was a 20 point question, I got 0 points. The comment I got back was something like "This is the MOST wrong answer I have ever seen to this question."
Someone has a future in politics.
I'm nearly done with my Ph.D. and do a ton of grading as a graduate student. I always think it is so funny how people who never come to class/are clueless about content write complete bullshit essays so confidently. Last week I had someone write multiple pages about non-existent academic debates in comparative politics, the writing and structure were very strong but it was all just bullsh_t.
The question wasn't, "what did you take before this test?"
What do you take when you are ill? (4 Letters)
PAINKILLER.
The correct answer was pill (I don't remember if that was the exact question, but the answer was Pill)
Another future leader practicing word salad.
Personal apologies to me as their teacher. I remember one time a student skipped writing the final essay question and instead wrote a full page on why I should pass them regardless of the fact that they have no idea what the question is about.
I felt kinda guilty marking it zero lol
I've done this. I still passed the class. Senioritis is real.
I was proctoring for a statistics final exam, and five minutes past the start time a student stood up, gathered her things, and turned in the final exam to the professor. It was completely blank except for a little note on the top: "Sorry, I don't know anything :)"
