Everyone has made a memorable mistake on an assessment in school at some point. Sometimes, your mind blanks under pressure and you find yourself unable to even make an educated guess. When this happens, there really is no point in fabricating a legitimate response. You know you’re not going to get any credit on this problem, so let’s not pretend otherwise. These folks found themselves in similar situations and decided to at least laugh at themselves. If you’re going to fail an exam, you might a…

Most high-achieving students have had to deal with slackers in the class. They might ask for your input on a writing assignment, only to try to get you to write the entire essay for them. They might mooch off of your study guide. They might contribute next to nothing on a group project and attempt to take all the credit. And of course, they might look over your shoulder during a class test. Here, we have a student who understandably had enough of the slacker who sat next to him in class and rep…

Academia doesn't like liars, as one student found out the hard way. Colleges love to talk about how much they value original work: no cheating allowed! It's never been easier for students to lie about their work, letting computers write their papers for them. And a lot of those students get caught too, flunking their classes and sometimes having to drop out over that indiscretion. This student also lied to his professor, but it wasn't about a paper. Instead, this kid had gotten into that bad ha…

How can students be expected to follow the rules when their teachers refuse to do the same? Learning should be a two-way street, am I right, folks? Here, we have a student who promptly submitted their assignment 13 minutes prior to the deadline, only to discover later on that he was given a late penalty on his final grade. After confronting the professor about what he assumed was an innocent grading mistake, the professor dug his heels into the ground and refused to budge. In fact, he claimed t…

Being the nerdy kid in school had its pros and cons. It usually meant that you were smart, and did well in school. You actually enjoyed reading books and had no problem doing homework or studying for tests. Yet being the nerdy kid also meant that you weren't all that popular, and we all know how mean kids can get when they see something they don't like. Luckily, popularity in school doesn't really get you that far in life, but being smart and actually succeeding in school does, and this petty r…

Admittedly, this is probably the coolest way you could cheat on a test . It's certainly out of the ordinary! Students are endlessly inventive when it comes to their schoolwork. These days, kids are using the internet to guide them to the right answers and to write the perfect papers for them. But before that, they had to get creative with just a pen and paper. U/Sarcastic_Otter had a high school teacher back in the 1980s who was kind enough to let students bring a 3x5 notecard full of notes to…

Being a teenager is bad enough when you don't have a sibling who thinks everyone should bow down to them. And on that note, this story is about sibling rivalry at its finest. One 15-year-old uploaded screenshots of a baffling conversation he had with his condescending sister who left him stranded for 3 hours at school after an exam he had. Apparently, their kindhearted mother had given his sister some money to use to get an Uber for him once he'd finished his exam. The money was meant for that,…

Sometimes, there is no point in pretending you know the answer on a test. Perhaps you didn't study or perhaps you're just drawing a blank. For whatever reason, you have absolutely no idea what to say and you can't even venture an educated guess. At this point, you know you're not getting any points on this question (and maybe even on the whole test). So, what does one do in this situation? Do you leave the question blank? Do you waste time trying to fabricate an educated guess despite the fact…

I can't begin to imagine what it's like to teach nowadays. I witness kids' behavior in public and it already infuriates me. I can't fathom what it's like to teach them. Here, let me tell you a story. One day, I was ordering a hamburger at a place, and in the line before me was a tired, worn-out dad, and his obnoxious child with their eyes glued to the phone. The dad had to repeat, 'What would you like to eat' about ten times before the kid stopped ignoring him and mumble-replied. Then the kid b…

About 15,200 students got an unfortunate email from their college . After several semesters of college, it's that time of year once again: finals. Final exams are notorious on college campuses, and many of them build events around it. At my college, the campus coffee shop would remain open 24/7 during finals week. There were a surprising amount of students joining me at 2 AM to study and churn out last-minute papers. In addition, the school would hold events where you could destress by petting…

Students are not always the primary reason for getting poor grades. Sometimes, it can be stifling extracurricular commitments, overbearing parents, absent parents, a lack of access to proper resources and technology, etc. But sometimes the reason is even simpler. Sometimes, it's just the teacher. This could be the result of a professor doing a subpar job giving lessons or failing to give students a proper understanding of the course material prior to assessing them. In this case, the professor'…

Imagine taking a test where the factually correct answer was irrelevant and what actually mattered was saying what the majority of the class said. This might be a fun exercise. Perhaps it could be a lesson about plurality and group decision-making. However, facts should matter, and just because the majority of the students in a class may think that the U.S. Constitution was ratified in 1776, that doesn't make it true. Just in case you're curious, the Constitution was devised in 1787, ratified i…

We all remember that moment sitting in front of a final exam (usually it was math), and you're just completely stumped. You have absolutely no idea what to do or how to even pretend like you know what you're doing. You either didn't study enough and you start to regret it, or your teacher is being ridiculously unfair by putting this question on the exam and you start to resent them. Still, there's nothing you can do about it at this point. You know you're going to at least get points off on thi…

Not to be a rebel here, but some teachers have the most nonsensical rules that are almost begging to be challenged. Sure, there are some understandable classroom policies that make sense, such as rules about phones, laptops, and cheating (the lattermost rule being don't do it). However, when it comes to having to sit around and do nothing just because some teacher told you that you have to, it just feels like a waste of time and energy for everyone involved. It's a waste of the student's time,…

Lazy college professors should not be allowed to be strict. Like any social contract, everything should be a two-way street: if you're expected to deliver quality, they need to do the same. Otherwise, as far as we're concerned, the social contract is null and void. I remember when my high school teacher tried to solicit her students to contribute paragraphs that she would then compile into a research essay she was required to submit. We made sure that nonsense was shut down as soon as we could.

Teachers should be careful when assigning extra credit. They just might get exactly what they asked for… There will always be students in this world who work hard, who complete every assignment to the best of their ability, and who impress their teachers to no end. And then there are the students who don't work hard but who work smart . This Redditor certainly falls into the latter category. He also had a gift for memorization. So when his English teacher said that students would receive points…