I had my physical chemistry exam last week and, well... let's just say a quite unexpected and interesting turn of events took place at the end of class. I'm right on the borderline of an A/B with an 89.3% before this test. Our classes are normally 75 minutes long, except this time the fire alarm went off about 15 minutes into the test.
You know how the fire drill works so I'll spare you all the trivial details (ended up being a false alarm anyway), but it took half an hour for us to get back to class. The a-hole prof tells us to go back to finishing the exam despite the fact that we lost out on nearly half the time we're normally allotted. With basically 30 minutes left to complete nearly 3/4 of the test, I'm rushing just to make sure I finish on time and had to make several utterly blind and random guesses. More importantly, this was an unusually difficult exam, far moreso than any other I've taken, and even if I had the normally allotted 75 minutes, there was virtually no way I was getting an A.
At the end of class, no one is finished... not ONE person! After several complaints the prof finally comes to his senses and sees that we were all jobbed. He decides to let us finish the exam the next time we have class (which is 2 days later) and so instructs us to turn our partially complete exams in. Though this wasn't planned out ahead of time in any way, I decide to stuff the exam in my notebook and then wait until the line gets to be very long. Both the prof and the TA are busy collecting exams and don't have a clear line of sight on me. Plus, several kids who were at the front of the line and had already turned in their test were walking out of class, so I blended in with them perfectly. So I walk out of class with an exam I'm sure I would have gotten no better than a C on. My uncle happens to be a PhD analytical chemist, so I give him a call and tell him that I was really struggling with some homework problems and needed some help. He proceeds to breeze through the entire exam (which he believed was merely homework) in half an hour and I now essentially have the answer key to the test.
The key to this whole thing is that our exams are open notes, and so the next day that we have class, the prof and TA are handing out everyone's exams to finish... everyone's except mine. I told them I turned it in along with everyone else (when, in fact, I really took it home to find all the answers and wrote them all in my notes). Our prof is on the older side and our TA barely speaks a lick of English... point being that they're very "science smart" but a little slower on the uptake when it comes to street game, reading people, etc. They both look genuinely puzzled as to how my exam somehow vanished into thin air and offer to give me a brand new one of the same version, concluding that they must have accidentally lost my exam somehow. The most hysterical part of this whole thing was how guilty they felt, profusely apologizing for what in their minds was an injustice done to me, since everyone else had only half the exam left to finish and I had to do it all over again.
I tried my best to look genuinely frustrated and disappointed that I had to re-do the entire test and grudgingly accepted that there was nothing else that could be done. I played those suckers like a fiddle and I was now in possession of a brand new copy of the test along with the answer key in my notes.
Just got back the grade - 99% after the curve with a class average of 44%. I had to intentionally get a few questions wrong to avoid arousing unwanted suspicion (nobody gets perfect scores on these tests).
I've never done anything like this before in my life... mostly out of fear of getting caught and what the repercussions would be on my future.
Anyway... anyone ever done anything similar? And what are your thoughts on occasionally having to "play dirty" to win the game?
You know how the fire drill works so I'll spare you all the trivial details (ended up being a false alarm anyway), but it took half an hour for us to get back to class. The a-hole prof tells us to go back to finishing the exam despite the fact that we lost out on nearly half the time we're normally allotted. With basically 30 minutes left to complete nearly 3/4 of the test, I'm rushing just to make sure I finish on time and had to make several utterly blind and random guesses. More importantly, this was an unusually difficult exam, far moreso than any other I've taken, and even if I had the normally allotted 75 minutes, there was virtually no way I was getting an A.
At the end of class, no one is finished... not ONE person! After several complaints the prof finally comes to his senses and sees that we were all jobbed. He decides to let us finish the exam the next time we have class (which is 2 days later) and so instructs us to turn our partially complete exams in. Though this wasn't planned out ahead of time in any way, I decide to stuff the exam in my notebook and then wait until the line gets to be very long. Both the prof and the TA are busy collecting exams and don't have a clear line of sight on me. Plus, several kids who were at the front of the line and had already turned in their test were walking out of class, so I blended in with them perfectly. So I walk out of class with an exam I'm sure I would have gotten no better than a C on. My uncle happens to be a PhD analytical chemist, so I give him a call and tell him that I was really struggling with some homework problems and needed some help. He proceeds to breeze through the entire exam (which he believed was merely homework) in half an hour and I now essentially have the answer key to the test.
The key to this whole thing is that our exams are open notes, and so the next day that we have class, the prof and TA are handing out everyone's exams to finish... everyone's except mine. I told them I turned it in along with everyone else (when, in fact, I really took it home to find all the answers and wrote them all in my notes). Our prof is on the older side and our TA barely speaks a lick of English... point being that they're very "science smart" but a little slower on the uptake when it comes to street game, reading people, etc. They both look genuinely puzzled as to how my exam somehow vanished into thin air and offer to give me a brand new one of the same version, concluding that they must have accidentally lost my exam somehow. The most hysterical part of this whole thing was how guilty they felt, profusely apologizing for what in their minds was an injustice done to me, since everyone else had only half the exam left to finish and I had to do it all over again.
I tried my best to look genuinely frustrated and disappointed that I had to re-do the entire test and grudgingly accepted that there was nothing else that could be done. I played those suckers like a fiddle and I was now in possession of a brand new copy of the test along with the answer key in my notes.
Just got back the grade - 99% after the curve with a class average of 44%. I had to intentionally get a few questions wrong to avoid arousing unwanted suspicion (nobody gets perfect scores on these tests).
I've never done anything like this before in my life... mostly out of fear of getting caught and what the repercussions would be on my future.
Anyway... anyone ever done anything similar? And what are your thoughts on occasionally having to "play dirty" to win the game?
