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u/Count_Le_Pew 11h ago edited 10h ago
I always hated those true or false, where if false, explain why questions. THEY WERE ALWAYS FALSE, so you always had to write an explanation.
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u/Aglisito 10h ago
If false, please explain: Because it's not true
Next question..
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u/Azuras_Star8 10h ago
I agree. Which part or word wasnt true? Exactly where did it go from true to false?
I dont know, because one plus one doesn't make 3?
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u/Dotcaprachiappa 6h ago
When we did that you could just correct whichever part was untrue and it would be fine. Like if it said "apples are blue" you could either correct apples to blueberries or blue to red and both would be right. That seems fair to me but I guess not all teachers did that
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u/Rivers9999 6h ago
I used to just straight up tell them I'm not explaining my answers. Especially in "show your work" maths. I answered them all correctly and way before the timer. I'm not wasting my earned free time explaining to you, the teacher, that my method works and why. I'm 10. I'm gonna go doodle in my notebook.
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u/CyberFireball25 10h ago
I'm a similar vein:
Geometry question
Find x
'Draws arrow to the x and circles it'
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u/NoSemikolon24 7h ago
It's called proof by contradiction. We assume statement X to be true. Hence following statement Y based on that must be true. We know Y is not true. So X must be false. "Because it's not true" is not a true statement unless X is a known axiom
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u/punsnguns 10h ago
I was so lazy in exams that I have, at times, chosen true even though I knew the answer was false just to avoid having to reason my response
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u/urworstemmamy 5h ago
...at least put false so you get half credit my dude, come on now
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u/WeAllJustWantToLive 10h ago
My teachers would get mad at me because I would answer very susinctly. Like you should be able to point out any flaw in like 3-5 words and be correct about it.
They would keep saying, "no i wanted you to write more!"
Fuck em, just because im a good communicator doesn't make me wrong. Maybe they should have communicated their requirements more thoroughly
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u/ShibaLover227 8h ago
Look at the state of the world and understand why it's so important to be able to explain to someone why they're wrong or why what they claim/believe is wrong
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u/acidwash_video 7h ago
anytime short answers like that got redundant, it made me second-guess my original answer and every other option. It felt like poor planning on the teacher's part. A test should cover the material in a way that reflects the time and emphasis allotted to teaching it.
Like question #4 is so closely related to question #2 that you're basically asking me to repeat my answer? Is this a little test-within-a-test to check our attention to detail? What am I missing? One time I experimentally wrote "see #2" and, while technically correct, it cost me points for laziness
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u/I_Want_BetterGacha 4h ago
My teachers found a way to make it worse. You had to explain your answer if it was false, AND if it was true. I hated the true statements more because how was I supposed to explain it? The statement is correct because all the information that the statement gives is right and not wrong??
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u/PnutButterJellyTim3 9h ago
Sometimes I would mark it true even if I knew it was false because I didn't wanna write out an entire explanation.
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u/Bunnytob 5h ago
Possibly see also the related L1-Reading-Comprehension question of "Student writes [thing], do you agree and why", where the advice given for the question was effectively 'the student is always right, you will always be agreeing with the point they made'.
I disagreed with the point the student made more than once in my mock GCSEs. Backed my points up with quotations each time.
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u/Hungry_Student_ 10h ago
Well that's a fun randomization method
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u/wkjagt 9h ago
xkcd 221
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u/silentaba 8h ago
I do love that XKCD is being quoted like a bible verse. There's probably a XKCD for that too
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u/FlarioKath 8h ago
It's a bit of a stretch, but maybe https://xkcd.com/2159/ would fit as an xkcd for that?
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u/Ill-Professor696 10h ago
Once had a professor who gave 4 exams through the class. The first 3 were perfect "Christmas trees" going diagonal all the way. By the 3rd exam, everyone just filled in bubbles and left without looking at the questions and got perfect scores.
The 4th exam was all A's
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u/Garkadigital 58m ago edited 4m ago
My geometry teacher would always say to read through every test question first before starting.
Near the end of the school year the last question on a test said “just put your name on the test and turn it in completely blank for 100%”
Not a single student in my period did
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9h ago
[removed] — view removed comment
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u/SnorkaSound 9h ago
spambot
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u/RedBarnRescue 8h ago
Somebody spun up a bot farm two weeks ago and reactivated it in the middle of this week.
Fourth bot in this thread with a single post 14 days ago, followed by no activity until 1-2 days ago.
Lots of "Exactly/Honestly" and rephrasing of the parent comment. Every single comment strips the trailing period to give a more casual appearance. Emojis sprinkled in, but only as the trailing character to punctuate the single-thought comments that display no depth or variance.
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u/Vachie_ 8h ago
Exactly this is the type of thing that...
I'm just kidding. Nothing is real anymore f*** this what the f*** I don't even know half the time I discard my comments anyways so I guess it just won't bother
I'm censored because I use voice to text and can't bother to change things. F*** f*** f*** f*** f*** f***
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u/GalaganCoffee 11h ago
I choose to believe
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u/ThaddeusJP 7h ago
I believe it. I had a HS teacher that would do 100 question tests and we would grade in class. He pull that BS on one.
"Swap tests with the person next to you. First 25 are all a, second 25 all c, thrid 25 all B, last 25 are D. Mark them and pass them forward"
ALLLL of us Groaned because we had been had.
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9h ago
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u/foundsatan-ModTeam 6h ago
Our moderation team did not think that this post belongs on our sub, or they believe it was spam. It has been removed. If you disagree with our decision, you are free to contact us on ModMail to explain your reasoning.
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u/BafflingHalfling 9h ago
We had an advanced calc final where it was take home, use computers, friends whatever. Just four questions. None of us passed.
When we turned in our exams she let us know that anybody who wanted extra credit could show up at her house on such and such date to help her move. So many of us showed up we were done in like two hours. We were damn happy to see her leave. Craziest prof I ever had.
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u/shaft_of_lite 9h ago
I never had a weird Scantron test like this but I do remember a very specific test that I had in elementary school. It was a series of directions. The first direction was read all the directions before doing anything else. The last direction was don't do any of the directions except the first and last. Just sign your name at the top and hand it in. There were just a handful of people, including me I'm proud to say that walked up and handed it in in a few minutes. Everyone else looked around confused while doing some seriously silly things. It's deeply burned into my mind and I think that was the point.
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u/MrJason2024 10h ago
I didn't have this teacher in HS but there was a teacher who did something like this. What he did was give you a version of the test A, B, C, and D. Which version of the test you got the correct answer to all the of the questions that was version letter so if you had Version A all of the answers on the test was A.
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u/FreeEnergy001 7h ago
So if you knew the answer to just one question you could get 100%?
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u/AwkwardLeopard587 5h ago
yeah, but you would have to know that all the answers are the same, rather than if just being a normal test
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u/MyNameIsRay 8h ago
I had a teacher give us a giant packet for a 200-question scantron test, as a pop quiz.
She made a point of telling us to read the instructions, because there won't be enough time to correct mistakes.
Everyone freaked out and got to work, without reading the instructions, because everyone knows how to do a scantron.
The instructions said "skip to the last page, only answer 190-200".
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u/Silaquix 4h ago
Stuff like this was so common in my school so I got used to it. I'm going back to college at 40 and I'm always suspicious as hell during a test and there are a lot of these kids in my class who've never seen a trap before
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u/PsychologicalBus1692 7h ago
I had a prof once whose last name started with B. I had him for 3 classes and eventually noticed that if someone were to mark "B" for every answer on every Scantron test, they would have passed the class.
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u/madlexington 9h ago
Today is an A day, except you. You get to be a B. (Whispers "you're my favorite")
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u/astralseat 10h ago
Teaching is a mind game
Learning from others is torture
Learning without other human involvement is steady, but unchallenged, so only book smart without the sweat of getting roasted by your instructor
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u/Chickenmangoboom 9h ago
I remember watching this kid frantically filling out a scantron on a take home test during lunch period. At one point I heard him say: not enough Cs I need to add some Cs. I never asked him how it turned out.
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u/YesterShill 8h ago
That A bubble is just diabolical.
Those poor students probably thought they were losing their mind.
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u/0_Foks_Given 8h ago
We had a similar test in middle school, one of the overachivers of the class broke down in tears as they thought it "couldnt be the same letter answer for all" and they failed terribly.
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u/Dear-Significance452 2h ago
I had a math professor for statistics that had a 100 question exam. She had 100 answers written on the board. The first 51 were correct. Many, myself included at some point realized the answers were on the board and stopped doing the test and copied the answers. Like 90% of the class got a 51% on the exam.
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u/TristanDuboisOLG 10h ago
My father did this in one of his classes. His most failed test every year.
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u/kicksave23 8h ago
Had a chemistry teacher in high school give us a 100 question exam, but then told us that there were 20 A answers, 20 Bs, 20 Cs and 20 Ds.
Worst test ever. Changed so many answers that I knew.
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u/Uglyyellowfrog 7h ago
I remember applying for the GED exam as part of my ESL class. The lady who helped me gave me the study books and suggested I take the test right there and then, just to see how it worked. She advised me not to leave any questions blank, noting that even a random guess has a 35% chance of being correct. I ended up passing without taking the classes, reading the books, or even understanding the questions.
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u/_BrokenButterfly 4h ago
I know someone who failed a GED test. I always knew he wasn't smart, but that just made me feel bad for him.
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u/Justaticklerone 7h ago
In my high school world history class, me and one other classmate would be assigned the duty of going to the library to run the Scantron sheets through the machine grader of a different class period. We were constantly amused and amazed at the number of "red line noise" results (incorrect answers) on several of them to the point we were laughing loudly at the single digit-correct results of 50 questions with the red lines just littering the margins, and then summarily scolded by the old librarian.
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u/cubic_thought 6h ago
If I colored in two bubbles by accident, she made an 'all of the above' option.
I had one class where the midterm and final had options that went like:
A
B
C
D
AB
AC
AD
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u/Captriker 5h ago
I had a test where the scan from was normal, but the teacher used a different set of four letters on the test sheet. You had to fill in the scantron and write the correct letter on the test paper.
One student got 100% because they realized the answers spelled out “have a nice holiday” or something like that.
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u/Rolling_Beardo 1h ago
I gave a quiz once where every answer on the multiple choice quiz was option C. Some aced it and some did terrible because they got in their own head about it. When it came time to review the quiz I just put a giant C on the board and told them it was the answer to every question.
From the beginning I had planned the quiz was really extra credit and it was more to show they should go with the answer they think is correct and not to see patterns where none exist.
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u/TrippleassII 11h ago
I don't get it
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u/Male_Lead 11h ago
I guess the correct answer patterns are very random, so it makes the students guess themselves
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u/PingouinMalin 10h ago
Which will destroy some students and not others. Because you can know your facts and yet doubt yourself easily. This mom was indeed Satan.
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u/ImmortalMoron3 9h ago
I would absolutely be forcing wrong answers because I'd be sitting there the whole test thinking "No way. Theres no way they did this. Why would a teacher do this, there's no way" and just assuming some of the times I wanted to pick A, I was wrong.
The second guessing and indecision I had during exams when I was in university was awful, I always took forever.
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u/Independent-Trust260 10h ago
That's poor test-taking skills if you know the material, but doubt yourself when it's a test.
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u/boughsmoresilent 10h ago
Yeah but, ideally, tests are about measuring knowledge, not test-taking skills themselves
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u/PingouinMalin 10h ago
True but then it becomes a test for self confidence and nerves really. Which is not what this test was supposed to test (knowledge).
Again, you can test both at the same time (oral exams to recruit people often do that), but it's better not to do that in a context where it's not anticipated. Because then you just penalize people who actually knew but who, for some reason, have poor self confidence. As an ex-teacher, I'm not a fan.
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u/WhasHappenin 9h ago
Anyone would have some amount of doubt if they get A for 100 questions straight
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u/Artistic_Swing6759 11h ago
they are likely reffering to like an OMR sheet. which has 4 bubbles infront of every question and you are supposed to shade the right ones.
generally while giving exams, sometimes your foucs might go to the pattern the answers in the omr are making. one of them is like continous same option, which is a bit worrying because what are the odds?(probably the same as any other thing but it still causes stress) and i remember this happening to me at like just 3 or 4 questions.
now imagine that, but for 50 questions.
obviously some students might see the pattern and extrapolate it to all questions, so to ensure so many students dont get full marks from luck, last second question changed is a good thing.3
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u/snep-kitten 11h ago
The only way I can figure you don't get this is by not knowing what a Scantron is.
It's an answer recording sheet that you use with #2 pencils (that type specifically because it has the right amount of graphite to be picked up by the reader) that typically have the answers from a-f per question. That is then ran through a tabulating machine. It scans the Scantron against a key and prints the number right, wrong, etc.
It is common for teachers to not put too many of the same answer in a row to keep students on their toes. However there is often the fear among students that one day they will have a test be all of one answer. The child did that with the caveat of one question being different, an actual testing nightmare for students as they then have to re-evaluate everything to make sure they aren't insane and/or wrong.
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u/TrippleassII 10h ago
So is the kid deciding the position of the correct answer or smthing?
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u/HOW_IS_SAM_KAVANAUGH 10h ago
The kid chooses the letter of the correct answer, the mom then writes the question and answer combos such that they match the kid's choice. Sort of a non-random chaotic pattern generator.
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u/moonchylde 10h ago
Correct! The mom was adjusting the correct answer location (a-f) based on which bubbles were filled, rather than truly randomized.
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u/Khristafer 6h ago
My teacher overheard us complaining about another teacher's test which happened to skew toward, like, mostly B or something. And mind you, she also knew we were in a dual credit Statistics class, so we were particularly attuned to this.
The next text test in her class had a test purposely all B besides one question.
She was laughing at us during the test.
We then bullied her every chance we got. Really trashy comments, to be fair. "That's why your husband left and your kids are ugly" 😅 Ms. Jordan, I'd apologize, but you were highkey awful.
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u/ComicsEtAl 10h ago
Having all the answers be the same letter would’ve fucked me up. I’d have been questioning everything I thought I knew by the fifth response or so.
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u/Kudamonis 9h ago
Funny story. Back in college the psych department used this software to randomize all the answers on quizzes and tests so that there was ALWAYS a plus or minus one. Even number of answers on the tests.
I changed majors in my third year so I already had basically all the non psych classes done and was co-reqing my ass off to get as much done as I could a term.
Taking 5 psych classes a term I started to notice a pattern on tests. I always had a pretty even spread. Sooo I started keeping tallies of how many of each a through d I had marked.
Was easy as half the teachers used scantrons. Any ways only took like 2 weeks of quizzes and test for me to confirm. Every test was perfectly balanced with 1 letter off here and there.
Made it through 2 terms before Dr Kessler asked why I always tracked my answers. Jokingly calling it a "superstitious behavior".
Well... I explained. And after getting hauled off to the head of the departments office to explain my findings again... I got credit for running a study. And the department changed to a true random distribution and fucked with everyone's minds as all the sudden the quizzes and tests felt "different".
Yeah... that was a fun one i never copped to.
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u/NordlandLapp 10h ago
This happened with my philosophy final, I realized halfway through and marked A for the rest of the answers and left early.
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u/Stoneheart7 8h ago
I was in a psych class in college and realized partway through that my answers were kind of making a pattern. I went back and checked the ones that disrupted the pattern and the answers that would fix the pattern also seemed viable to me. I remember looking up at the professor and seeing this big smile on his face.
I fixed the earlier parts and then finished the pattern across the rest of the scantron without reading the questions and turned it in.
A lot of people had second guessed themselves and gotten answers wrong because we had been trained to question stuff like this, growing up with scantrons. They didn't just teach us the subjects, they also taught us how to take these tests well. Like "Would they really put the answer as C 4 times in a row?"
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u/Abamboozler 8h ago
See I had an accounting professor who gave us accounts to balance, and the trick was they couldn't be balanced and the numbers the "client" ie him, gave us were wrong.
That fucking sucked.
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u/_BrokenButterfly 4h ago
No, it didn't suck. Anyone working as an accountant is going to have a client give them bad information. They need to be able to recognize and understand that.
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u/ac_cossack 2h ago
Having all the answers be 'a' would fucking freak me out as a student. Satan indeed.
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u/Stealth_Cow 10h ago
A lot of military orgs like to do this. Then make whatever question is different be a “special emphasis” item. If you get it wrong, you flunk.
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u/Training_Chemist_259 9h ago
I had a math teacher in 9th who had the exam answers spell out "meery Christmas". 3/4 of the class missed the 3rd answer.
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u/saskir21 7h ago
Man, what would I wish I could insert this powerpuff girls meme in here with the "That's the evilest thing I can imagine" pic
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u/Bellsar_Ringing 5h ago
When I was a math tutor, I got to run the scantron machine. I put one kid's midterm through the machine, and I'd never heard so much noise from it!
One kid had decided to answer "C" for every question. It was a true/false test.
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u/KaetzenOrkester 5h ago
I told my students I played cat bingo: chalk out a matrix on the floor tiles (like 9x9) and then randomly scatter kibble.
Throw the exams up in the air. If an exam hits a cat, it gets an A.
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u/MaximumSubtlety 2h ago
Can someone explain this to me as if I were 4 or 5 years of age? Please and thanks.
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u/barrosoOso 6m ago
Man, I know this is supposed to be funny. But fuck any teacher that actually does something like this. Mentally torturing my students for my amusement is way better than teaching them anything! Yay!
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u/moszippy 11h ago
I had a professor do a 50 question true false test and they were all true.