At my undergrad we had to take a year of foreign language, even though I took three years worth of Spanish in high school. Fortunately, taking just second-semester Spanish fulfills the requirement--we didn't have to take the full year.
I decided to take Spanish at a community college. But it was going to be hard to make it to class, so I worked out something with the professor. Since I already had three years of Spanish, she said I could just show up on test days and get credit for the class that way.
So I show up for the first test, about a week after class starts. I felt fairly ok after the test. Certainly not an A, but I thought I did decently.
I asked her later how I did, and she said to stop by her office. So I stop by, and she asks how I thought I did. I said "I think I did OK--maybe a B or B-."
Her response was "You failed. You failed abysmally."
I scored a 26%. 26%! That's one thing for a 5-point quiz that you just write off, but for a test, that's pretty bad! And, rather embarrassing, especially considering the professor worked out a special arrangement for me to not have to attend class.
Fortunately, this failure turned into a great sense of pride. The professor told me I should start with intro Spanish, but I convinced her to give me one more chance, and if I didn't get at least a C, then I'd drop the course and start w/ the intro level. She said yes, but I had to come to class, which I was able to work out (and the classes were great too and one of my favorites in undergrad--and the professor was a wonderful teacher).
Anyway, I got a B on the next exam, and also ended up with a B in the class. I was pretty darn proud of that--I had to get a lot of A's to compensate for a 26%!!!
I kept the bad test for two reasons 1) as a source of inspiration to show how hard work really does pay off and 2) if I'm every feeling cocky or sure of myself, I look that that test for a big slice of humble pie.
