Having a bit of craic with your exam answers..

Croppy Bhoy

How is this viewed? Say for example, you have no idea what the answer to a question is but want to kill time, so you write something humorous? What if you answered as much as you could and threw in something light hearted at the end?

Is it frowned upon? Would the marker penalise you or just ignore it, or would they welcome a bit of a break from the usual answers?

theintern

Technically they can't mark you down for it, just give you a zero for the joking bit.

It really depends on who's correcting them. It might give some correctors a smile, but from chatting to a couple of people who mark scripts, they just want to get through your paper as quick as possible to get to the other 200 they have to do, so your piece of humour is likely to be seen by them as a waste of their time.

Having a pissed off lecturer mark your paper probably isn't the best idea if you're looking to get those extra couple of 'benefit of the doubt' marks.

Ficheall

I'd see no problem with it at all provided what you wrote was actually funny.
That said, don't go looking up jokes with the intention of including them and don't go out of your way to try to be funny.

A bit of a laugh might put the examiner in a better mood - but more than likely that will benefit the person whose paper is being marked after yours.

I once got an A in some financial economics 'dissertation' nonsense we had to write largely on the basis that the examiner thought it was funny.
I've had a lecturer compliment me for including a joke at the end of an exam.
You have to judge the examiner though, if possible. Some people mightn't "appreciate your sense of humour".

Pinturicchio

You know those questions that ask you to state any assumptions you made?

I know a guy who wrote "I assume that'll do ya as an answer".

It didn't go down well with the examiner.

StupidLikeAFox

Just put a disclaimer at the end:

"In relation to the area highlighted in yellow in Q1 part (b), I have run this scenario by forum members on boards.ie and deemed the level of funniness to be an adequate level to include as a humourous aside to the exam as a whole. Please note this section is not intended to be a serious response to the relevant question."

LadyMayBelle

I think you need to look at why you feel the need to put in a joke or a humourous answer; what are you looking for in return? I doubt someone's god honest intention is to make life a little brighter for the person correcting the paper.

I say just leave it out.

Ficheall

Spread a little happiness.

Croppy Bhoy

LadyMayBelle wrote: »

I think you need to look at why you feel the need to put in a joke or a humourous answer; what are you looking for in return?

Whoah that's pretty deep... or not. I was just looking to kill some time because I didn't know the answer.

Sometimes it's just something about the question that bugged me. Like in my Law exam it mentioned a guy selling whiskey to the first 6 callers from Friday 10am, but when they rang up he had decided to drink all the whiskey himself. I put a little bit in and the end asking why he didn't just lie and say they weren't the first 6 callers, thereby avoiding any sort of legal hassle whatsoever...

Doesn't matter either way

I'm correcting exams now (128 in all) and it wouldn't make me revise my opinion either upwards or downwards!

Croppy Bhoy

Deleted User wrote: »

Doesn't matter either way

I'm correcting exams now (128 in all) and it wouldn't make me revise my opinion either upwards or downwards!

Can I get you anything?

joeKel73

It's risky, if you get a fun-loving correcter they'll have a laugh at it. If you get a cranky old bag at the end of a pile of corrections... it will not go down well!

MissMoppet

One of my mates added the lyrics to 'Diamonds are a girls Best friend' on his Chemistry paper when they asked a question about Diamonds.

JohnCleary

There was 1 question I couldn't answer in my Macroeconomics exam today, something about Say's Law. I answered "Say's only a bollix"

Couldn't take a pic as i'd have been chucked out of the exam for it. Fu(kit, it gave me a chuckle, which I needed (I don't care if it even made the paper be graded harder, i'm not doing this course for credentials)