Claim: A
professor announces that the upcoming final examination is open-book and students may use "anything they can carry into the classroom." One student takes the instructor at his word and struggles into class hauling a graduate student on his back; the graduate student then proceeds to write the exam for him.
Origins: A sub-class of exam legends deals
with students who don't technically cheat, but who seek to gain the upper hand by interpreting a professor's instructions literally despite knowing they are violating his intentions. This motif is also featured in the
(I have to admit that I once employed this dodge in a college mathematics course: Told that we could use "anything but the textbook" as reference material during an upcoming test, I photocopied the relevant portions of the textbook and brought them to the exam instead.)
Last updated: 16 June 2011
 | Sources: |
Brunvand, Jan Harold. Curses! Broiled Again! New York: W. W. Norton, 1989. ISBN 0-393-30711-5 (pp. 284-285).