Legend: Faced with a test question he cannot answer, a student tricks his instructor into believing that one of his exam booklets was lost.
Example:[Dale, 1978]
A student has to write two essays, but can only tackle one of them, so he writes what looks like the ending of the first (the one he can't do) essay at the top of a new page, rules it off, and then does the second. The instructor doesn't like to admit that he's lost half the answer paper, and marks him double on the 'second' essay — top grade.
Variations:
A variant of this legend has the student simply turning in a blank blue book (which is discarded by the grader), then successfully claiming that his blue book was lost.
Origins: This tale (which dates to at least the 1930s) is one of several collegiate legends featuring students who cheat on exams through the mechanism of substituted or switched test booklets, such as the Paginal Exam and Mother Knows Test. This one plays on an instructor's reluctance to penalize a student for something that was seemingly his own fault, and (as usual with this type of legend) the dishonest student receives an undeserved A.
Last updated: 22 March 2007
The URL for this page is http://www.snopes.com/college/exam/lostbook.asp
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