What's the stupidest answer you've given on an exam question?

Paddy Cow

When I was doing the Leaving Cert mocks, biology was my last exam and then we were on Easter Break. There were many questions that I couldn't answer but near the end of the exam I just didn't give a fcuk and wanted to be out of there and I wrote down some sh!te.

On returning from Easter break, reality set in when we were getting the results. The biology teacher left mine till last and all my pre-easter bravado had gone. She wasn't impressed with one of my answers and made a holy show of me in front of the class. It went something like this:

Question: When inoculating bacteria, why is it important to invert the petri dish?
My answer: Because bacteria are like bats, they like to sleep upside down.

As long as I live I will never forget the real answer:
Some bacteria use oxygen to respire and this produces water. Inverting the petri dish means that any condensation will fall to the bottom of the dish and won't contaminate the results.

My sister who was five years below me reliably informs me that the teacher used this answer as an example of how not to answer an exam question.

So Ah'ers, what is the stupidest answer, whether intentional or unintentional that you will admit to putting on an exam?

MS.ing

"I. dont know"

oh wait you said stupid answer

Knex*

Not quite a proper exam, but remember those General Knowledge quizzes they used to give out in Primary Schools, and the the highest few in the class would go off to compete against other schools?

Well when I was around 9 or 10, I was asked, "What are Granny Smith and Bramley?"

I answered with, "An old lady and her dog".

danniemcq

Probably one of the answers I gave when i sat my mates biology test having only done basic biology before the Junior Cert.

Can't remember any of them now though.

osarusan

I did mechanical drawing, or 'technical graphics' as i think it was called then.

Some of the questions involved drawing the shadows the sun would cast on a building, and the difficult part was to locate the position of the sun (or angle of the rays) from some information you were given.

I hadn't the slightest notion of what I was doing, ever, and in the exam I just guessed a point on the paper at random, and then put a few little compass marks and lines at various points to make it look like there had been some rationale to how I'd arrived at that point.

I got an F.

danniemcq

osarusan wrote: »

I did mechanical drawing, or 'technical graphics' as i think it was called then.

Some of the questions involved drawing the shadows the sun would cast on a building, and the difficult part was to locate the position of the sun (or angle of the rays) from some information you were given.

I hadn't the slightest notion of what I was doing, ever, and in the exam I just guessed a point on the paper at random, and then put a few little compass marks and lines at various points to make it look like there had been some rationale to how I'd arrived at that point.

I got an F.

I don't think there was a difficulty gap as big between ordinary and higer level as there is/was in Technical Graphics. Maths wasn't far behind though

razorblunt

Leaving Cert, Irish, Higher back in 2002.

Misread an essay title as "ireland is a country falling apart". Spare 15 minutes left at the end was re-reading and realised I had misread it and it was actually (I think) Ireland is a country through and through".

Somehow managed to rewrite/amend the opening and closing paragraph meaning the body would remain the same, though I had to pretend it was falling apart.
Whomever was correcting it must have thought I was going mad as that was the Celtic Tiger. Got away with it a little, think I got a B2.

efb

Where are the islets of langerhans?
Me: Rome.

(Correct Answer is pancreas)

I hadn't a clue so I just put Rome down

Biology teacher saw the funny side so any answers I didn't know elicited a humorous repost (IMO)

Paddy Cow

danniemcq wrote: »

Probably one of the answers I gave when i sat my mates biology test having only done basic biology before the Junior Cert.

Can't remember any of them now though.

How on earth did you end up doing your mate's exam?

poundapunnet

when I was in primary school, about 7 or 8 I guess, we had a test on a science class but I'd been sick that day. One of the questions was 'does water expand or contract when it freezes? why?'

Now obviously that meant 'why do you give that answer?' and it was supposed to be something about it bursting pipes or whatever that had been covered in the class. I was quite a bookish kid and was good at school, but I got really frustrated very easily if I didn't understand things quickly or if I thought I was going to do badly; I thought they were expecting me to know the actual chemical or whatever reasons that caused water to change. So I put down something like 'It probably stays the same size, I can't think of a reason why it would change, can you?????'

I was really pissed off at that point because it was towards the end of the test, I can remember putting the load of question marks after it and thinking 'yes, I've made a good point here, I bet Mr Hyland can't think of a reason either'

Or in secondary school on a history test, being asked what a naomhóg was and drawing a blank, took a chance on 'young saint'. My logic was not very apparent to my American teacher.

Donkey Oaty

If you have lots of time on your hands, some good ones here (four parts) with some great teacher responses.

Alf. A. Male

One of my best mates in school hadn't a clue in Irish, so for a written paper he drew the Little Mermaid statue. It was really good, so he got an F.

Another fella went on Murphy's Micro Quiz and got the question "Name a city in South Africa". Full of confidence, he says "Calcutta".

Hard to believe it wasn't a special school.

PizzamanIRL

In my driving test, before we got to the driving, one of the questions was:

"What do you do when a car is coming towards you with their full lights on?"

I said "Flash them back"

I was wrong. I still don't know the real answer. It's what I do to this day.

Knex*

I also once, when asked in a 1st year Geography exam to illustrate the results of the Greenhouse Effect, drew a picture of a Polar Bear crying while trapped in a glasshouse.

Teacher was less than impressed, to say the least.

Aglomerado

I wrote a load of gibberish in a college exam about how crap the course I was doing was. Truth was, I did feck all work during the year and then panicked at the end. Naturally, I failed.

Cue a big fat juicy F and me having to go back in with my tail between my legs that summer to repeat. I studied then... and got a C for my pains.

I got the qualification. But I still cringe when I think about that exam. I have visions of it being read out in front of classes years later.

Galwayguy35

"Describe the events that happened during the Plantation of Ulster".

"Lots of trees were sown", it was only a christmas exam in Inter Cert though, I did get it right for the real thing.

danniemcq

Paddy Cow wrote: »

How on earth did you end up doing your mate's exam?

He was off that day and i was doing nothing (i think i was in Transition year) so i went in to class and said nothing thinking feck it i'll just chat with the mates.

Then there was a surprise test. Signed his name on it and handed it in at end of class.

There was much confusion the next day when she gave them back and gave him a score.

sara1

This post has been deleted.

Richard Hillman

What is the difference between hard and soft water?

Hard water is frozen, softwater is normal water.

kiffer

PizzamanIRL wrote: »

In my driving test, before we got to the driving, one of the questions was:

"What do you do when a car is coming towards you with their full lights on?"

I said "Flash them back"

I was wrong. I still don't know the real answer. It's what I do to this day.

I had one when getting a driving lesson...
Driving instructor asked "What makes the car go?"
I said "The engine."
"No" he said, "more basic than that."
"Petrol!"
"No, more fundamental than that..."
So there I am thinking, what's petrol made of... oil, what's the oil made from? Dead plants, under heat and pressure but Fundamentally the energy comes from sun light...
So I hazard "... the sun?"

There was some slight confusion after that but we got it sorted out. Slight rephrasing of the question as "What do you do to make the car go" and I got that he wanted me to say "press the accelerator".

Smart is the new stupid.

Deise Vu

By a considerable distance the dumbest thing I ever did in my life was in a Statistics exam for FE 1 in accountancy. The exam paper was one large sheet folded into the middle third from the left and in from the right to make an A4 size paper with questions on the first three pages and formulae on pages 4 & 5. (I hope I described that correctly – you were looking at page 1 when you received the paper, when you turned over page 1 you saw page 2 and 5, when you opened out page 5 you were looking at pages 2,3 and 4 with page 1 at the back of page 2 and page 5 at the back of page 4).

There was a simple question on rank co-relation of two sets of statistics. Funnily enough the formula for rank co-relation wasn’t included and I wasn’t sure if you squared the rank differences or not. So I did it with differences squared and didn’t like the answer I got so I did it again without squaring the differences. Then I did the narrative part of the question based on the second answer.

Immediately after the exam I was discussing the paper with another student (always a fatal mistake that) and mentioned the absence of the formula, whereupon he turned the paper over. There was a page 6 and the only thing on it was the formula for rank co-relation. Needless to say, you need to square the differences in rank.

I narrowly failed the exam (getting zero for that question) and had to re-sit the exam which meant studying through the Summer, I had to curtail a Summer job to sit the exam, I missed my job induction which would have been my ever first trip abroad and it was a black mark on my exam record which some employers frown upon.

Over 30 years later I still get flashbacks and cold sweats. And I have never in my career used or even seen the application of rank co-relation.

Apologies, if that is TLDR, I am hoping by writing about it the nightmares will end soon!

Ficheall

During my viva, I was asked whether a certain (very important) aspect of the phd research was a new idea or whether it had been done elsewhere before. It was original stuff done by the supervisor and myself, but for some reason I said it wasn't, and the examiner just said "Right, well you'll need to put a reference in for that then" and we carried on, but my supervisor, who was sitting in on the defence, looked visibly uncomfortable and had to leave the room for a break, understandably worried.

Maybe you would have had to have been there... but it was pretty f*cking stupid all the same...

Paddy Cow

kiffer wrote: »

I had one when getting a driving lesson...
Driving instructor asked "What makes the car go?"
I said "The engine."
"No" he said, "more basic than that."
"Petrol!"
"No, more fundamental than that..."
So there I am thinking, what's petrol made of... oil, what's the oil made from? Dead plants, under heat and pressure but Fundamentally the energy comes from sun light...
So I hazard "... the sun?"

There was some slight confusion after that but we got it sorted out. Slight rephrasing of the question as "What do you do to make the car go" and I got that he wanted me to say "press the accelerator".

Smart is the new stupid.

Have you considered auditioning for TOWIE? A scene like that would net you adoring fans and a massive pay check.

McChubbin

I did Higher Level English for my Leaving Cert and during the Mocks, I was so sick and tired of hearing about bloody Hamlet that I just put down my sumation of the film version we watched ad-nauseum for weeks on end.
Went something like this: "Hamlet shouts a lot in a series of scenes remniscent of The Lion King." Luckily, my tutor saw the funny side and I eventually got an abridged copy of Hamlet translated into modern day English. Still can't hack Shakesphere, though...

hfallada

I went to a school with serious high achievers (like 5 of my year went to do medicine and whole year went to third level with most in tcd or ucd). But there was a lot that didnt give a ****.

For junior cert religion mocks a ton of people thought it would be funny to anwser a 3 page essay with "that would be an ecumenical matter". The religion teacher seriously lost her **** with us. We got a 30 mins lecture on how "that what no in anyway ****ing funny" and "father ted is so ****ing 15 years ago". She also called out the grades and half the class failed and most of the others got As.

beano345

Junior cert Irish exam I forgot the word for apple so I drew a little picture of an apple in the sentence.

Crumpets

Question: Where is the Sea of Tranquility located?
Me: Japan

Ficheall

hfallada wrote: »

"father ted is so ****ing 15 years ago"

Your teacher was a fool.

Robert McGrath

My brother did Classical Studies for the Junior Cert.

Question: "Write what you know about Alexander the Great"

His answer: "His name was Alexander and he was great"

He was disgusted not to get a higher mark because as far as he was concerned, he'd accurately written all he knew ...

martingriff

PizzamanIRL wrote: »

In my driving test, before we got to the driving, one of the questions was:

"What do you do when a car is coming towards you with their full lights on?"

I said "Flash them back"

I was wrong. I still don't know the real answer. It's what I do to this day.

Nothing and do not flash any car yourself as if it to warn of gards you can be done

AnonoBoy

martingriff wrote: »

Nothing and do not flash any car yourself as if it to warn of gards you can be done

The question wasn't even what to do when someone flashes you, it was just what to do if they come at you with full headlights.

The answer is don't look directly at the lights I think.

shruikan2553

A wrote an essay for my Irish mocks about a fight between a dragon and a jedi which lead to the jedi stealing my bike. The jedi made a return in my letter home while I was on holidays.

calanus

In science class in first year - might have been the first week also. The teacher is asking us a few basic questions. She asks a few to identify a few elements from the periodic table that are gasses.

"Name a type of gas, Calanus?"

Me : "huh" - completely not paying attention

"Name a type of gas"

Me : "ehhh, Calor gas?"

Tasden

kiffer wrote: »

I had one when getting a driving lesson...
Driving instructor asked "What makes the car go?"
I said "The engine."
"No" he said, "more basic than that."
"Petrol!"
"No, more fundamental than that..."
So there I am thinking, what's petrol made of... oil, what's the oil made from? Dead plants, under heat and pressure but Fundamentally the energy comes from sun light...
So I hazard "... the sun?"

There was some slight confusion after that but we got it sorted out. Slight rephrasing of the question as "What do you do to make the car go" and I got that he wanted me to say "press the accelerator".

Smart is the new stupid.

I had lessons in one of those driving campus things with the fake roads done out so I'm driving along and the instructor is giving me directions as we go.

I had been with the same instructor a few times so we were quite chatty, so we're chatting and he says "ok so now just go right through this roundabout up ahead" and then continued on with the conversation, I was kinda confused about his instruction but didn't want to interrupt him talking so when i got near the roundabout I drove onto the opposite right hand side of the "road" and drove around the roundabout the wrong way and then back onto my side of the road! he was like "wtf was that?!" And then I realised what he meant! :pac:

languagenerd

I did both French and Spanish in school. In the Spanish mock, you had to write a "note" to an exchange student staying with you and "ask if they could pick the cake up from the bakery on the way home". I must have been thinking in French (gateau) cause I asked them to collect the "gato". Gato means cat in Spanish :P

Femme_Fatale

"He defecated" instead of "He defected".

And it was college, not school. :o

orangesoda

A-Level Biology, I didn't bother revising the Genetics section as it was way beyond my capability, 1/2 of the exam paper was about Genetics so you can guess the rest

beano345

Art exam in secondary and I got stuck on this question

"What language was the book of kells wrote in?"

So I whispered to a mate psst what's the answer?

"Dutch" he says

A week later and its all forgotten about,,,until the art teacher is reading back over the questions and picking people at random he comes to the question and asks my mate who answers "Latin"

Very good says the teacher....unlike some people who wrote Dutch isn't that right beano.

Zed Bank

During my religious mocks for the junior cert. I had been stressed out all week, it was Friday and religion was my last exam.

I had a certain amount of contempt for religion as a subject, and my teacher was a bit of a Jesus freak so you can imagine how a young 15 year old felt the uncontrollable urge to vent my fustration.

I had answered all the other questions fairly well but there was one I had skipped and needed the come back to it was something along the lines of "Christians have faith that Jesus is the son of God, define some of the morals and values attributed to Jesus"

I thought "yes lets have some fun"

I started "that would be an ecumenical matter, however Christians have been deceived in their belief in Jesus Christ. In fact the one true Lord and savior is Nicolas cage...."

I continued in that manner and thought that I was honestly going to win a ****ing award from my creativity. I ended with "I know this is true as I am the high wizard and prophet of the church of Cage and my lord has revealed this to me, together we will defeat the evil that is Tom cruise, HAIL CAGE!"

The examiner saw the funny side and awarded me attempt marks. Needless to say my religion teacher was not happy. Got a C all the same :O

Blue giant

One of my friends for the junior cert history mocks. A question was why would Christopher Columbus not like Amerigo Vespucci and he said because he was a bad was man who didn't take nothing from nobody. Needless to say he didn't get any marks for it. Also one of the boys drew a picture of a cow for the greenhouse effect with gas coming out of its ass. There was also a random pic in which he asked for marks for it. Another one then was the last page On the paper said blank page on which he wrote not anymore. Also the inexcusable mistake if writing orgasm instead of organism in science in first year.

PizzamanIRL

martingriff wrote: »

Nothing and do not flash any car yourself as if it to warn of gards you can be done

Sorry but if some incompetent driver is coming towards and not realising that he's blinding me then he'll get a friendly flash. If I happen to flash the Gardai I can always say oh it was a mistake I hit off it by accident blah blah blah

B_Rabbit

Talking about heterogenous and homogenous mixtures in Chemistry in secondary school.

Teacher asks me what's the difference between the two, and I didn't know.

"B_Rabbit, you should have studied, hetero means different"

"Jaysus miss, I thought it was the homo's that were different"

Bubbaclaus

Biology exam had to draw and label a diagram of the Kidney. Didn't have a clue.

So I drew a kidney shaped pool with some guy swimming in it, pointed an arrow at him with the label 'Michael Phelps'.

pharmaton

not an exam but was filling out my cv and couldn't remember the names of the modules I'd covered on a course I completed over a decade ago, off the top of my head I wrote down what I could think of with the intention of editing it at some stage when I had all the details. In the place where the modules should have gone I put 'drugs & administration'. I forgot to fix that up and only copped it today. Yes sir that's right, I'm an expert in drugs and administration.

pat_cork

I once wrote stupidest instead of most stupid in an English essay.

whupdedo

martingriff wrote: »

Nothing and do not flash any car yourself as if it to warn of gards you can be done

I just knew some eejit would comment on it :pac:

noveltea

It was a primary school table quiz. My question was, what does FBI stand for. I now know it is the Federal Bureau of Investigation.

BUT at the time there use to be an advert on tv for Batchelors Beans and I am 99% certain the advert said "Batchelors Beans, the finest beans in Ireland"

And that was my answer FBI, Finest Beans in Ireland.

martingriff

AnonoBoy wrote: »

The question wasn't even what to do when someone flashes you, it was just what to do if they come at you with full headlights.

The answer is don't look directly at the lights I think.

And my stupid answer to a question. Kids lets that be a lesson always read before answering. Doing that a lot recently

robindch

In a religious exam years ago, a classmate answered thusly:

Q: What is the Angelus?
A: "Bong, bong, bong. Bong, bong, bong. Bong, bong, bong. Bong, bong, bong, bong, bong, bong, bong, bong, bong, bong, bong, bong."

Another guy in the class was hopeless at Irish and spent his lower-level leaving cert exam drawing pictures of Peig engaged in a range of household chores next to a fireplace.

titan18

Had a question in college about what's used to communicate a project's tasks and timeline, draw a diagram.

Had no idea, so I started talking about Instant Messaging, including drawing diagrams of the old MSN chat window, and how it can be used for projects.

Dirty Dingus McGee

In a woodwork Mock exam for the junior cert one of the questions showed a picture of a tool that is used to hold wood together after applying glue and asked "What type of Cramp is this?"

The answer my friend wrote down was **** Cramp.

Unfortunately for him our teacher ended up checking the exams and not someone from outside the school and he got a bit of a telling off.