The most bullshit exam you ever took.

[Mr. Skeltal]

The single worst exam I've ever taken was my mineralogy lab practicum. There was a 4 hour time limit and after macroscopic identification (identify a big rock/crystal using your Mk. 1 Eyeball) you had to move on to thin section microscopy. Imagine sitting in those horrible lab chairs for 3-4 hours staring down a backlit monocular microscope on full blast with cross polarized light. What you're looking for is called birefringence to determine which minerals are which when cross polarized light shines through them. It looks like clown vomit in high-order birefringing minerals like muscovite. Rotation is also essential to determine crystal structure and orientation with "extinguishing" patterns; the habit of certain crystals to become opaque in cross polarized light as their structure rotates out of phase with the light. Quartz and plagioclase both look dull grey-white but when rotated the twinning of the plagioclase becomes much more pronounced, helping you identify it. Even better was that we had to describe and draw what we were seeing while identifying it, so I hope you like writer's cramp.

By the end of that exam I had eye strain, back pain, wrist pain, mental fog, and a strong desire to drink my sorrows away. The best part was my grade: C+ before the curve.

I'll have to echo any college-based literature exams are almost always bullshit. Doesn't matter how well you understand the themes the material presents, doesn't matter if you have an interesting analysis of the material to explain. What matters is whether or not the professor likes your input, or if it jives with their beliefs.

You can argue that Moby Dick represents harassment towards fat people, or Dracula is an allegory for trans rights and walk away with an A if the teacher (which most college profs are) is enough of a leftist.

I once wrote a paper for my Ethics course arguing modes of thought (deontological vs. utilitarian) presented in Godzilla and got an A+ for it.

 

[Friendly Primarina]

My fourth grade teacher was really weird for a vast and multifaceted variety of reasons, but this thread reminds me of something that I've only found more and more weird as I've got older and experienced higher edjumucations.
It was April 1st, which is very relevant to the story and she gave us this general knowledge proficiency test that she hyped up as being a really big deal and we needed to carefully read every question before answering. "No shit you should read the question before answering, lady!" we all thought. The test started out easy enough with questions like "list the colors of the rainbow" and "who is our current governer?" ("Isn't it Bill Gates? Definitely Bill Gates." 4th grade me thought.) There was some weirdness where we were given math problems that didn't have a sign indicating what we are doing with these numbers. Several people asked her what the missing sign was supposed to be and she said that if there was no indicated sign that means you add. To this day I've not heard or seen this situation again. But as the test went on, the directions started to get stranger. We were instructed to write our name on the board, go outside and jog around the building, and do a variety of other strange things.

At the very end of the test was a little note from our teacher saying that the instructions were obviously to read every single question on the whole test and if you made it this far, just write your name on the blank test and turn it in, as this is the teacher's idea of an April Fools joke. Unfortunatly we were all dumb 4th graders and that was still too hard of a concept to grok. She finally told us all, laughing, that this was an elaborate joke and that we should expect this sort of thing in our future education. She insisted that college professors do this all the time. Well I've been to college at this point and I can assure you that none of my professors would ever say, "Gee, I sure would like to spend a bunch of my time writing an entire fake test as an elaborate joke on my students." She pulled that on us quite a bit saying things like "in college they *insert thing a college professor would not ever do* ". Lady, this is 4th grade. Some of us can't read and at least one kid still shits himself. College prep can wait.

Yeah I had that one twice in my education. At least both times it actually said on the page "Make sure you read every question before you begin." Luckily you only fall for it once.

 

[Kiwi Lime Pie]

Let's go in rough time sequence. It's possible that some of these made it into my posts in the Share Your School Stories thread.

Spoiler: Elementary School

During 6th grade, our teacher gave us a gag test like the one @MerriedxReldnahc shared where you were supposed to read all the instructions before doing anything. Our list of "questions" had similarly bizarre instructions, such as removing the class flag and walking around the classroom with it before putting it back. I think I was one of only a handful of classmates who read the instructions properly and turned in an empty test with just our names on it. I believe our version's last statement was "Now go back and answer questions 1 & 2" which were instructions to "Put your name at the top" and "Turn in the test."

In 7th grade, our music teacher gave the junior high students a choice of being in the performing group that would be part of a musical performance at the end of the year or non-performing group where we studied music theory. After a bad experience with the class musical the year before, I opted for the non-performing group. Even though we had a review session the week before our first big exam, the exam we took the following week covered none of the review topics and seemingly had nothing to do with music. I still remember seeing the question "Why were the middle ages called the dark ages?" My teen self felt the best educated guess was to write down, "Because electricity wasn't invented yet." Later in the course, we had to correctly identify specific portions of Saint-Saens' Carnival of the Animals, which sounds similar to what @Princess Peaches had to do for a different course. They all sounded too similar for me to successfully pass that portion of the exam. By the time the year ended, I felt as if our teacher was trying to passive-aggressively shit on the class for opting not to be part of the year-end performance. How I managed to get "Satisfactory" as my final grade still baffles me.

The next year, our PE teacher gave us a written test on volleyball. All of us students looked at each other because we never had a written PE test before and never did for the rest of the year. Very few took the test seriously thinking it was some sort of joke. I bet even fewer passed.

Later that year, the PE teacher promised extra credit to anyone who attended either the boys or girls junior high basketball games held that weekend. I was shocked to see I got the equivalent of C despite doing so. I wanted to ask if she was going to fail me that quarter, but never had the nerve to ask. Luckily, my parents cared less about the marks I received in specialty subjects such as art, music, PE, etc. so long as I was marked "Satisfactory" and didn't cause trouble. (For those curious, the aforementioned subjects only met once a week, so we were marked satisfactory/unsatisfactory in lieu of actual grades.)

-----

Spoiler: High School

Similar to what @Wedge posted, I'd say that the PSAT exam was BS, namely how it was administered at my high school. The P stood for "practice," so I approached it as little more than a practice exam and put minimal effort into it -- especially since the colleges I wanted to apply to preferred results from the ACT. It wasn't until after we completed the PSAT that we were told that scoring high enough on the whole thing would qualify us for National Merit Scholarships. I wonder how many other people would have put more effort into the "practice" SAT had they known that before we began taking it.

The AP English exam I took near the end of my senior year was another BS exam. Similar to what @️ronic and @Jewthulhu stated, we had to read a short passage and answer obscure questions such as "Why did character X wear a green dress?" When a quick skim of the passage a second time didn't reveal an apparent answer, the initial knee-jerk reaction was to consider answering "Who cares?!" had that been an option.

Because of that and other issues that happened with the AP English class that year, I didn't score high enough to earn any college credit. However, everyone that took it (everyone but one person, if I recalled) was exempted from taking a final exam for the course. We deserved it for what we went through.

-----

Spoiler: College

The worst had to be the poetry class I took because it was the only option for fulfilling my Humanities requirement that sounded appealing in any way. @Boris Blank's glass eye and @Duncan Hills Coffee are correct that literature can be fun because written words can evoke different types of imagery in different people and still be valid. Unfortunately, our Poetry professor was an older guy who felt only his interpretations were the correct ones and expected students to parrot them back when asked about them on our exams. One one such exam, he wrote down, "You don't seem to understand the thrust of these poems." Sure, I did. I just didn't get what you got out of it . @Fistbeard_McThunderaxe , our poetry class' grading scale was stricter than any other with people needing 76% just to get a C; 75% was a D and 67% or lower was an E/failure where as most classes were graded with 70% needed for passing and anything below 60% an E.

Although not a BS exam per se, special mention goes to my Computer Architecture final exam. The class was a rather challenging one where we studied how logic chips and circuits function, and what operations got performed in various clock ticks of the main processor. By the end of the course, we were shown how to write out the long sequences of micro-operations needed for something as simple as adding 1+1 or multiplying two integers. We had the usual three hour block for our final exam. I didn't keep track of the time at all because I really needed a passing grade to ensure I'd pass the class. I managed to finish the last question, do a quick review to make sure I answered every question with answers I was happy with, and then turned in my exam. Immediately after that, the professor announced time was up. It took me the entire three hours to complete the exam. Everyone else hadn't come close to finishing and had visible/verbal "Oh shit!" reactions to the announcement. The professor promised us that he'd grade the exam on a curve based on whomever scored the highest. I think that was me because it's the only way I could end up with a B in a course where I was barely getting a C on each in-class exam. I'm also convinced that most of my classmates didn't complete as many questions as I projected I'd have correct.

-----

Spoiler: Beyond School

Although it's on hold until the start of the new year, I've begun studying for Enrolled Agent status which would allow me ceretain privileges with the IRS. During my brief time using the free study materials that came with my membership in a professional organization, some of the scenarios being presented were such that a tax preparer would rarely see them unless they either had a large client base or catered to people with the most unusual or extreme tax situations. It's my hope that the logic behind this is that knowing the correct way to handle these infrequent situations makes handling the most routine ones simpler. We'll find out when I resume my studies and purchase the full package of learning materials not provided with the free version.

-----

The #2 pencil requirement's so stupid, for fuck sakes it's been possible to use other types for ages at this point, why keep that outdated requirement?

I forget what class it was, but I threw the teacher for a loop when I showed that I was using a mechanical pencil instead of the usual #2 pencil. I believe the teacher told me I'd be using it at my own risk and would have to accept a zero score if the Scantron machine refused to read the markings. I had no problems with getting the proper score, so I've since assumed that mechanical pencil lead rated HB is equivalent to that found in a #2 pencil.

Eye exams.


Sometime I just can't tell if 1 is better than 2.

The optometrists I've had over the years also allowed "About the same" as an option when there's no apparent difference between the two options.

What college requires gender studies?

Sadly, more and more universities are requiring any student that attends to take an approved gender or diversity course in order to graduate. My alma mater's implementation of one played a big role in my decision to not go back to college for a second Bachelors degree and instead pursue professional certification.

 

[AMHOLIO]

If I wanted to take a math class in college that gave me credit, I'd have to pass out of boom boom math aka catch up math in ALEKs. To pass that course, you had to score a 30 on the last test... out of 30. I got a 28/30 the first time and didn't fucking pass. The second I couldn't give a shit and slept through the test (corona hit and it was online), so I just set up an appointment to retake the florida placement test again and got 125/150 on that (passing is 114 iirc). Whoever thought of a straight 30/30 should only pass should get their foot run over by a car, fuck off.

 

[JektheDumbass]

Am I the only one who never came across an English professor that graded you based on whether they agreed with your arguments? I was a literal English major and I never had that problem. I guess I was just insanely lucky, but that sounds like complete horseshit. The magical thing about literature is that it's open to interpretation, that's what makes it so fascinating. You could make the most bullshit arguments possible so long as you can point to examples in the text and articulate your points.

I've had one that gave me a C- for disagreeing with his opinion on Romantic era poetry (fuck you, old man. Lord Byron kicks Wordsworth to the fucking curb and you know it!)

I'm still pissed at the trade program I took a few years ago. I had completed the entire course and had a single one credit class left. Up to this point I had been on the Dean's List consistently even while completing a 2 year course in my third semester. So, piece of cake, right?

WRONG. Every test had nothing to do with either the assigned reading or the class notes. This was an e-learning course so every test was open notes and open book. I bomb the course and receive an F.

So what did my dumb ass do? Took it a second time. Same thing. I complained to the head of the department and she basically said "prove it fgt". At that point I was struggling to get financial aid (they were still pissed at me failing out of college 10 years ago). I was working a shit job so paying out of pocket wasn't working out either. Bitch kept sending me emails saying "I can't believe you're walking away with one credit left..." Fuck you, if you want me to take this bullshit class ahain you pay for it.

Luckily I've done alright since then. Still would like to smack that bitch though.

 

[Kiwi Lime Pie]

Whoever thought of a straight 30/30 should only pass should get their foot run over by a car, fuck off.

For a paying hobby, I have to watch a once-yearly online presentation which includes 2-3 quizzes of 3-4 questions each to be sure people are paying attention. Just one wrong answer on a quiz is automatic failure and puts you back at the beginning of that particular unit because you can't continue to the next one without a 100% score on the previous one. Thankfully, I learned that after being sent page to the beginning of the unit, one can skip ahead to the quiz again to retake it without watching the entire unit again.

I've had one that gave me a C- for disagreeing with his opinion on Romantic era poetry (fuck you, old man. Lord Byron kicks Wordsworth to the fucking curb and you know it!)

This may have also been in the School Stories thread, but i took 20th Century American Literature for one particular college semester because I needed to take one more class and nothing else looked interesting. My professor was a feminist who gave me a C on every single assignment no matter how much effort I put into it. The essay I wrote for my final exam must have impressed her somehow; she gave me a C+ for the final grade. It was one of the most hard-fought C grades I earned in my college studies.

 

[Vlinny-kun]

If I wanted to take a math class in college that gave me credit, I'd have to pass out of boom boom math aka catch up math in ALEKs. To pass that course, you had to score a 30 on the last test... out of 30. I got a 28/30 the first time and didn't fucking pass. The second I couldn't give a shit and slept through the test (corona hit and it was online), so I just set up an appointment to retake the florida placement test again and got 125/150 on that (passing is 114 iirc). Whoever thought of a straight 30/30 should only pass should get their foot run over by a car, fuck off.

God fucking damnit I hated that shit when I took a math placement class to get into college. I know math is far from my best subject but the practice questions made me feel like I was stupid because you had to write out the answer and if you did not put it in the exact way that they want, even if it is technically right (ex: 24.5 instead of 24.50) then you had to do that whole section again. They didn't even explan how to do it correctly iirc. I went into the test somewhat confident of my knowledge of the material and even took in notes and a calculator since the professor didn't give a shit and still somehow failed. It's like the whole thing is an elaborate joke to fuck with people.

 

[Orion Balls]

I once had this professor that would make several versions of the test. My version had an All of the Above, but it wasn't at the bottom. There was another answer below it. What made this evil was that the one below it sounded wrong while all the above the All of the Above sounded correct. When I saw that, my first instinct was that the All of the Above only accounted for the ones above it and ignored the one below it. Why wouldn't it? It's called All of the Above, and it seemed as though all the above answers were correct.

Turns out it was wrong, because All of the Above doesn't mean All of the Above.

Had a teacher that would consistently have three choices, followed by D) All of the Above and E) None of the Above. The amount of times it was E) was kinda great.

 

[Kiwi Lime Pie]

I went into the test somewhat confident of my knowledge of the material and even took in notes and a calculator since the professor didn't give a shit and still somehow failed. It's like the whole thing is an elaborate joke to fuck with people.

Tests set up in a way that they feel like they're full of "gotchas" to trip up the test-taker versus questions that are intended to test what the person's knowledge and how to apply what's been learned suck. It's one thing to emphasize some importance to detail, but not in a way that deliberately trips up the average test-taker.

 

[drtoboggan]

Any English class test after you finished reading a book. It's basically a bunch of questions about which personality trait belonged to which character and "In chapter 6, what was the color of the vibrator that Mary Sue decided to fuck herself with?".

Just stupid shit that you were supposed to memorize. How is knowing this stuff supposed to increase my ability to analyze literature?

I need to read whatever book has Mary Sue and the vibrator.

 

[bluegenius8585]

I once had to do a course in General Studies, it was vague, colleges don't accept it as a real subject and a waste of time. I ended up just drawing a cartoon during the exam since I was made to be there.

I then withdrew from the award so I didn't even get a grade for it

 

[Sage In All Fields]

Every single one without fail was a waste that could have been better spent elsewhere.

 

[Big Brown Schlub]

Statistics 2, the exam itself wasn't hard but the computer I was assigned to was some piece of shit that kept crashing when I tried to solve some of the problems so I had to do split up the documents we were given into smaller chunks so the toaster I was given wouldn't have an aneurysm. I bitched about it as soon as it crashed the second time on the same document and the professor just told me to keep doing it and that if I fail the exam he won't mark it as a failure for me and that I'd be able to show up next week. Thanks asshole, that really helped me out dramatically.
Ended up barely passing it.

 

[Damien Thorne]

I took a writing exam as a junior in high school, and I got an A out of it. I had to retake it as a senior because of optics, as in the teachers did not want to appear to give me preferential treatment over having taken the exact same exam already.

 

[PaleTay]

One exam had a study guide which said information from the 12 labs might be on the exam, it was the lab title and blank space to rewrite every section of the lab.

Another professor had 8 TAs who would write his exams, 2 of them could write in normal English, 6 of them wrote in their native language and tossed their questions into google translate so you wound up with many different variations of broken English. One TA would routinely change her questions at the grading stage of the exam to make them harder.

 

[drfuzzyballs]

My test for autism specifically asked me if I was transgender. I was 13