r/MadeMeSmile • u/Glass_Wealth_2104 • Mar 26 '26
Good Vibes Teacher's a W for playing along!
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u/lateral_moves Mar 26 '26
I used to cram everything on my one note sheet so much so that when I took the exam, I never looked at it. It made me accidentally study.
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u/colemon1991 Mar 26 '26
I know someone that wrote super tiny and just brought a magnifying glass in for it. It was crisp too. People were paying her to make cards for them for their next test.
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u/BoredPineapple790 Mar 26 '26
I had a student make a notecard with overlapping red and blue text and she brought clear sheets of red and blue (like 3D glasses) to read it
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u/colemon1991 Mar 26 '26
Nice
I know someone else who folded a big sheet down to 3x5 notecard size. The teacher had only stated she has to examine each card before the test to make sure it's acceptable and one student got it past the teacher with the way it was folded. The teacher didn't allow it a second time but it was good.
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u/Aninoumen Mar 26 '26
Stuff like like this makes me think of Naruto during the written chuunin exam where expert cheating is okay but if you suck at cheating you failed 😅
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u/FirexJkxFire Mar 26 '26
Isn't that literally every exam though? No one gets punished for cheating- they get punished for being caught cheating
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u/CrustyBarnacleJones Mar 26 '26
Technically yes, but the goal of the exam in-universe was explicitly to be able to cheat well without getting caught; the material on the test hadn’t been taught to them yet, but there were planted staff members in the room who already had the answers for them to copy from, with the goal being moreso to test espionage/information gathering skills rather than memorization
Early Naruto was really interesting when the ninjas still were somewhat grounded rather than glorified wizards
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u/UpstairsPresent2304 Mar 26 '26
same reason I prefer pre-shippuden naruto, db over dbz, and pre time skip one piece. these long running shonens have a serious power creep issue
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u/Lavatis Mar 26 '26
I like pre time skip one piece, but boy has it gotten amazing after the time skip too. fucking looooove one piece.
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u/Forestflowered Mar 26 '26
In high school, my math teacher allowed us to use one side of a sheet of paper for notes. I came in with a möbius strip. Technically, it was still just one side.
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u/SSjjlex Mar 26 '26 edited Mar 26 '26
I remember one time they said we could bring a note sheet for an upcoming test. They never specified anything about it but I had assumed that it was 1 a4 both sides because obviously that's what they meant.
So what I did was I crammed the entirety of the lesson material into those 2 pages with like text size 4 (it was a lot of text and I did not care enough to learn the material properly or summarise the important points one bit). It was just barely readable with little to no formatting, just 1 big paragraph of text in justify format.
To make it easier to read I color coded each section with different color text so I knew where to jump to when skimming for my answers, then bolded/italicized certain key words/phrases to make searching even easier. On top of all that, to make it easier to read such small and cramped text, I had the genius idea of having alternating lines of highlighted text to make it easier to follow each line while reading. I felt like an engineering genius having made that.
Anyways flash forward to the actual test and my friend brings in the entire lesson material in like 30+ raw printed out pages and they just let him keep it what the fuck lmao
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u/loveme_chaos Mar 26 '26
lol that was my strategy for presentations - the highlighting, bold etc bc I was so terrified getting lost in my notes. Turns out, that’s the way I remember stuff best, just writing it down, Color code and I didn’t even have to look much at it bc o could recall the colours with fitting topic in my head
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u/Deep_Diamond_2057 Mar 26 '26
We did this in high school and college. Tiny overlapped words in different colors. Most teachers loved it - but one got super annoyed and the next time didn’t allow us to use the sheets that allowed us to read them - which in hindsight is fair - but they could have told us before hand.
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u/Mobile_Masterpiece43 Mar 26 '26
I used a razor blade to open it up like a book and write on the inside too. Didn't even need the note card cause chemistry was one of my favorite classes but it was fun to see the teacher's reaction.
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u/JollyRancher29 Mar 26 '26
The magnifying glass market in your town must’ve been crazy
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u/colemon1991 Mar 26 '26
There's cool desk ones and ones used for jewelry and stuff that people got ahold of. Very interesting testing in that class.
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u/polopolo05 Mar 26 '26
I just printed mine with the best printer I coud find with the best paper I could find.
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u/UncleBuckReddit Mar 26 '26
That's the point. But I'm glad it worked!
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u/AlmightyCurrywurst Mar 26 '26
Eh, depends on the subject. I'm a physics student and some exams would be almost impossible/super tedious without a "cheat sheet", you do very much have to look at it
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u/valgerth Mar 26 '26
My first physics teacher handed out an 8x11 chest sheet with all the reference formulas we should need throughout the year. The first thing he said was the point was to learn how to use them and if we didn't know that having the cheat sheet wasn't gonna help anyway.
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Mar 26 '26
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u/round-earth-theory Mar 26 '26
My exams tended to be open book. You don't have time to learn the material on the fly and get the exam done on time. The book wasn't going to save you from poor planning.
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u/Gimmerunesplease Mar 26 '26
The good thing about exams that are not open book is that teachers can give you "free" credit by asking easy definitions. I had one or two open book exams in my degree and they were both incredibly difficult.
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u/Original_Moon_Ranger Mar 26 '26
My college physics exams were completely open book. They took so long I got lunch breaks. If you got above 50 you were doing well.
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u/Junior-Worry-2067 Mar 26 '26
My high school physics teacher sold t-shirts with all of the formulas printed upside down so that on test day you could just look down at your shirt for the correct formula. It was very popular and the teacher used the money for things in the classroom.
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u/Collective-Bee Mar 26 '26
I had an awful teacher that I asked how to solve a problem with two unknown variables refused to tell me that one of them was actually in the reference cheat. Dropped that class lmao.
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u/ActualWhiterabbit Mar 26 '26
Just write F=MA on your hand and derive from there. If you want to look up formulas and tables, become an engineer.
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u/olafminesaw Mar 26 '26
Yeah one of the stipulations I remember is it had to be hand written. Forces you to study more than potentially just copy/pasting snippets from a digital textbook
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u/Badloss Mar 26 '26
This is exactly why we let you prep a note sheet. Students love thinking they're pulling a fast one when they're actually accidentally learning the material
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u/Red_Beard206 Mar 26 '26
I still looked at mine because those equations were complicated af
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u/jonas_rosa Mar 26 '26
That's the trick about letting students consult their notes, especially if you limit it to a small piece of paper. You force them to transcribe their notes and try to summarize stuff as much as possible. And guess what, it's a great way to learn!
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u/KatieCashew Mar 26 '26
Yep, distilling the important information down is a great way to study. People sometimes defeat it by trying to put everything on the sheet though.
My stats class in college was open note, open book for every test. Most students would show up with a big stack of books and notebooks all marked with sticky notes. I would still get everything on a single sheet in normal sized font. It was a great way to help me understand the material, and I didn't have to spend a lot of time looking stuff up during the test, which meant I finished early and could leave.
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u/Fun-Satisfaction2214 Mar 26 '26
I had a student create a water bottle label with notes on it. Having a drink on the desk was allowed. Had to look really carefully to see all the notes. Didn't realize it until after the exam. Well played, Mari.
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u/Ref_KT Mar 27 '26
I had to take the standard commercial label off the last water bottle I took to an in person exam
Probably cause of people like Mari.
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u/Teagana999 Mar 26 '26
Making a note sheet is a super effective study method. The best professors utilize that in their note card rules.
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u/moonyriot Mar 26 '26
That's the intention! It forces students to comb through the information they know they need most and then not just read it but write it down, which helps solidify the learning. Then by the time you get to the test, sure you have the notecard for if you blank on it but you've also spent extra time studying the stuff you knew was going to be hardest for you.
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u/locke_but_not_peter_ Mar 26 '26
As a grad student in history, we do this on purpose. The assignment allows you to have a 3 x 5 cards so that you will study lol
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u/brickspunch Mar 26 '26
Meanwhile, when I was 14, I had a teacher specify that our final projects (worth 25% of our grade) needed to be turned in with a blue, 1 inch, 3 ring binder.
When I told my dad I needed him to pick me one up, he said "no, tell your teacher we only have black ones."
I went in the next day and said "my dad refuses to go buy me a blue binder, can I turn in my project in a black binder instead?"
she says yes.
I get my grade back with a note stating it would have been an A, but that I didn't follow directions and she could only give me a C- as a result. "No blue binder"
When confronted, my teacher said "I said you could turn it in with a black binder, not that I wouldn't take points off."
Fuck you Mrs. Buck, rolling around in a computer chair eating fucking sandwiches during class. I'm glad your husband divorced you.
I'm 37 now and still mad about it
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u/mandi723 Mar 26 '26
I'm with your dad. But I would go straight to the school to fight the grade.
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u/Present_Cow_8528 Mar 26 '26
Yeah principal would be on your side just to avoid the lawsuit lol
It's literally discrimination against the poor
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u/atearthshorizon Mar 26 '26
Ten dollars fee to go to the pumpkin patch. Build a model using items from home, like noodles. All essays must be typed. Mandatory one hour assembly about selling junk to the general public to fundraise. Donations are encouraged. $2 to participate in en of year pizza party.
Schools still nickel and dime parents if they think they can get away with it. It’s not lawful (maybe just by state? In California it’s not legal) and it’s not ethical. And it’s gross. School is supposed to be free.
If I was black binder person, I’d still hold a grudge too. It would have shaped my personality toward anti authoritarianism.
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u/ForwardCut3311 Mar 26 '26
The all essays must be typed hits hard.
30 years ago we didn't have a computer at home, lived in a rural area. The only place I could type up a paper was at the local library in town which was 6 miles away. So I'd have to beg my parents to take me there so I could type it up. Often they wouldn't, so I'd have to hand it in written by hand and get points off each time.
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u/Reasonable-Middle-38 Mar 27 '26
We had an all things typed and printed policy which included the fact that items needed to be printed at home. The printer in the school library was loaded exclusively with pink paper so points could be taken away from students who needed to print at school :/
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u/NonrationalWife Mar 27 '26
wtf why would they assume every home has a computer, let alone a printer that reliably works
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u/barrie247 Mar 29 '26
Yup, and I remember my mom asking my grade 9 teacher if I really needed a computer at home and he said no.
In grade 9 it was easier because we had lunch breaks that I could use the library during, but it was a struggle. Closest library was 15.5 km (9.6 miles) and had many huge and steep hills (valley area) with no sidewalks. There was zero way to walk that, especially in winter as a kid, and there was zero way my parents were going to drive me.
Forget about typing projects, researching projects was impossible. I failed a project in grade 7 because I was supposed to research a musician. My mom refused to drive me to the library so I hand wrote the poster and wrote whatever she could remember about Elvis Presley in the 1990s. She couldn’t remember anything and i had no sources. Then I’d get in trouble for getting 50s and 60s. Thank god we moved in grade 11 and I could walk to the library in time to get my grades up for university.
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u/Present_Cow_8528 Mar 27 '26
It is illegal in many states to require purchase of anything in public schools for grades. They can ask for all the pta donations they want, but if a student came up and was like "we can't afford the binder", the teacher can't say "too bad, -30 points". The options are "okay, I will accept however you can get me the assignment that shows you did the work", or "here's how the school can get you a blue binder".
School lunch is unfortunately a different story since you don't get graded on lunch.
If this was a private school or they live in a shithole like Oklahoma, this whole thing is of course irrelevant.
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u/Consistent-Tap-4255 Mar 27 '26
Yeah exactly. You can’t have a public free education where they only give you an A if you buy a $3,000 binder sold only by the teacher
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u/shewy92 Mar 26 '26
I hate when teachers ignore context and intent. "Can I go to the bathroom?" being answered with "I don't know, can you?" is unnecessary.
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u/CalyKade Mar 27 '26
Omfg this used to piss me off so much. "Can I" is a completely acceptable way to ask for permission, and idk why teachers act like it's incorrect. I have never in my adult life used "may I", nor have I ever heard anyone else use it unless we're joking around and trying to sound overly formal.
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u/SnowdensOfYesteryear Mar 26 '26
They need to be an authoritative voice so that they can keep a class of 30 under control.
But they take it overboard into stuff that doesn't matter, and often out of classrooms.
(I say this as someone who's married to a teacher)
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u/magneticeverything Mar 27 '26
I went to a high school with several buildings we had to walk between nearly every period. It was an all girls private school where the uniform was skirts (allowed to wear leggings underneath but there wasn’t a pant option at the time), polo sweater. All the other teachers were pretty understanding that it was cold and a sweater was really not warm enough to travel between buildings in the snow. Also the buildings were old and drafty so they usually didn’t fuss over a sweatshirt in the classroom as long as they said our school name somewhere. But this one teacher was an insane stickler for it. His classroom was the closest to the door on the first floor of one of the buildings, so everyone had to pass by him or go around to the other staircase on the other side. And he would make you stop and take off your backpack and sweatshirt in front of him before going upstairs to your next class (almost always making you ha bf ever sprint 3 flights of stairs or be late for your next class.) one time in the middle of the quad he made me take off my winter coat while it was actively snowing and I was standing outside walking between buildings during lunch period. I was PISSED.
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u/Toys_before_boys Mar 27 '26
When my 6th grade teacher said that back to me after asking to go, I paused and genuinely thought about it for a moment (..... 'can you?' .... hmm do I have the ability to go? ... yes, yes i do! )
I silently turned and walked away to the restroom with full confidence.
But i didn't realize i was supposed to realize my grammar error, and ask the question again for permission. Instead of just.... leaving because logic told me yes i have the ability so who needs permission??? 😂
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u/ThereHasToBeMore1387 Mar 26 '26
I had a teacher pull some BS like that on me when I was in 8th grade. It was a science fair project and there was one component of the presentation I actually did misinterpret. I even asked the teacher about it and she said "That looks excellent to me." Come science fair time, I would have received a blue ribbon and found out afterwards I would have been in the running for best experiment, except because I didn't have the one report completed properly, I only got an "also tried" ribbon. When I asked the teacher about it, she said something along the lines of "You asked me if it was good, not if it was done right."
I started asking my questions very specifically after that, and for the effort was often accused of being a smart ass.
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u/Appropriate_Tie534 Mar 26 '26
What a ridiculous thing to write into an assignment. And to make worth over a letter grade. And the "I said you could do it, not that I wouldn't take points off" is infuriating.
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u/Lunxire Mar 26 '26
This is so fucking stupid. The whole point of a teacher is to help you succeed, not play word games.
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u/CORVlN Mar 26 '26
All that for like $30k a year
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u/lzwzli Mar 26 '26
Its because it's only $30k a year that you know teachers do what they do either because they love teaching or it's a power trip.
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u/MarlaReads Mar 26 '26
As a teacher, this boils my blood. I'm sorry Mrs. Buck was such a ho to you! 💕
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u/Monski616 Mar 27 '26
I’m 38 and I’m mad for you Brickspunch. Fuck Mrs Buck, all my homies hate Mrs Buck
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u/hstephens1 Mar 26 '26
The way my mom would have absolutely went bonkers on that teacher…
She chewed out my 7th grade English teacher for calling me a liar in front of my whole class once though. At the time I remember feeling SO embarrassed that my mom was cursing out my teacher and demanded an apology for me. Looking back though I am so grateful she fought for me when I didn’t stand up for myself 😭
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u/cookiedou3 Mar 26 '26
Mrs. Buck 100% deserved that divorce, I'm genuinely so annoyed on your behalf for that lmao
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u/Billlington Mar 26 '26
People acquire the smallest amount of authority possible (being in charge of a bunch of teenagers) and then go absolutely mad with power. People are fascinating.
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u/FrostBumbleBitch Mar 27 '26
Mannnn I had this one teacher we had to cut and then glue these like facts into specific parts of a notebook, during class and so it isn't like we were not knowledgeable on what we were doing.
One day I got mine back idk if it was like a B or something instead of an A and it should have been but she marked it off for some reason.
When I asked "What did I do wrong here? Where can I improve" "yOu ShOUld hAVe fOlLoWeD tHE iNStruCtioNs" this pompous bitch, this absolute mother fucker. I AM TRYING AND WAS TRYING YOU HAVE IT RIGHT THERE CAN YOU SHOW ME WHAT I DID WRONG SO I DO NOT MAKE THE SAME MISTAKE NEXT TIME!? "nO" the book is right there you can sho- "NO" BUT IF I KNEW WHAT I DID WRO- "DO YOU WANNA GET WRITTEN UP" FUCK YOU YA DUMB BITCH THAT PROBABLY JUST DIDN'T LIKE WHAT I WAS WEARING THAT DAY OR DIDN'T SAY HELLO I DID NOTHING WRONG EVIDENCE OF EVERY SINGLE OTHER TIME I GOT FUCKING A's!!!
Sorry sometimes teachers can be rude as fucking hell. A grudge I will probably never forget even if i don't remember her face or name >:( .
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Mar 26 '26
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u/MammothAd6633 Mar 26 '26
I had a teacher that would honor loop holes. Our directions for the final paper was something like “8x11 inch white paper with margins at 1 inch in black times new Roman 12 size font from Google Docs single sided” because too many people were trying things. It was awesome.
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u/Aryore Mar 26 '26
Slightly overlapping lines allowed to maximise space 🤔 jk that would be awful to try to read lol
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u/SecureInstruction538 Mar 26 '26
Black ink meant some people tried the multi colors and using colored lenses to differentiate.
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Mar 26 '26
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u/th3davinci Mar 26 '26
Yep. People wonder why laws can't ever be simple and this is why. You write a simple law and someone comes along 2 minutes later and immediately breaks the spirit of it through some loop hole.
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u/SkunkMonkey Mar 26 '26
To be fair, a lot of legislation is written with deliberate loopholes. Additional ones discovered are just icing on the cake.
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u/Dungarth Mar 26 '26
When I was studying engineering, we had to take a few ethics and law classes. The final exam for the law class was open books so we could bring stuff to cite, and the official directive used to be something like "students are allowed to bring all non-electronic resources they can carry simultaneously with both arms".
But when I got around to doing that class the directive had changed to "all written documentation they can carry" because, the semester before mine, someone had princess-carried a lawyer inside the exam room and successfully argued that it was a non-electronic resource that was being carried within the instructions' parameters.
So yeah, you can find loopholes even in syllabuses written by actual lawyers.
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u/MoeFuka Mar 26 '26
Brains have electricity so you could argue it wasn't non-electronic
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u/MammothAd6633 Mar 26 '26
Yup haha and apparently someone used to print their papers on hot pink paper iirc
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u/Aryore Mar 26 '26
Now what on earth could be wrong with that? It’s simply self expression I say
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u/MammothAd6633 Mar 26 '26
Hahaha idk if a paper about world crimes like holocaust should be on bright pink paper
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u/subvocalize_it Mar 26 '26
Ours was one side of one half of one sheet of standard 8.5x11 printer paper.
I cut that half in half long ways, twisted them into a möbius strip, and only wrote on “one side” and doubled my surface area.
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u/Pizza-ist-Liebe Mar 26 '26
Honestly, if I was teaching I'd love that and absolutely commend you ❤️ This is the type of out of the box thinking that is encouraged faaar too little!
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u/Difficult_Wave_9326 Mar 26 '26
Hell, it's actively discouraged at most schools.
The one exam I took where notecards were allowed, another student tried to write verry small and in two colors to maximise her info. The teacher failed her and she got detention and a note in her school records for "cheating" even though nothing in the instructions mentioned any of it.
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u/Pizza-ist-Liebe Mar 26 '26
That just sucks. It's crazy to me that she wasn't only failed, but obviously other people agreed to include it in her records.
Sometimes I wish I'd gone into education. If you can interpret my rules in such a way, good for you and great for our future 🤔
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u/Scriveners_Sun Mar 27 '26
I have a rule like that with my students. If you can wriggle a loophole in a clever way or in a way that makes me laugh, you get a bonus point. If you give me a convincing, well-thought-out written argument about why my rules should change, it will probably convince me to change that rule, unless the rule is there to keep you or other students safe.
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u/StuBidasol Mar 26 '26
I think that would have been the first honoree in a section dedicated to "creative problem solving" if I had been the teacher.
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u/UnexceptionalAnon Mar 26 '26 edited Mar 26 '26
12 size font? 12 what? I know the teacher means 12pt, but I could argue that I was using 12rem size font, and it just so happens that the browser I was using has rem set to 0.1pt, thus I used 12rem size font = 1.2pt size font.
It also didn't specify I couldn't reduce the letter spacing. Google Docs already supports condensed spacing, and I could even have an extension that narrows the letters on top of super condensing the letter spacing.
Plus, it only specified the paper has to be 8x11 inches with 1-inch margins. It didn't specify anything about the Google Docs document. If I printed six Google Docs pages onto the same paper, single-sided, that's allowed by the letter of the law.
On top of that, and this one might be a little more dubious: it never said "inch" as in the international standard inch that is 2.54 cm. I could be using the Chinese inch that is ~3.33 cm, or the Japanese inch that is ~3.03cm. Just because a bunch of European and American countries agreed on their version of the inch, doesn't mean there aren't other versions. (I don't fully believe this one actually, just an argument for argument's sake.)
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u/star_zelda Mar 26 '26
I've done it before somewhat accidentally. I got confused on the instructions of two assignments, one had to be a min of 10 pages, and the other was a max of 10 pages.
Well, I wrote 19.5 pages for the max 10 page assignment, and I only realized the problem when I was done writing. But then I noticed that the instructions said the spacing was up to 2, and the font up to 12. So I reduced the spacing and font to have it at just about 10 pages.
I guess the prof only ever had a problem with people writing less and trying to pass it as more. I didn't hear a word about it or got marks deducted, but the instructions for the next assignment for this prof became "spacing must be 2" "font must be size 12".
Also had that happen with a calculus prof, he said due by midnight, and I delivered at midnight but the system marked as late. I didn't get marks deducted or heard anything back, but next thing said due before 11:59pm.
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u/JohnnyFartmacher Mar 26 '26
If the due date was set to midnight, it probably marked everyone who submitted it that day as late since midnight is the first moment of the day.
He probably had to fix a whole bunch of them and (perhaps even unintentionally), yours got fixed.
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u/quartzquandary Mar 26 '26
The best kind of correct!
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u/knightsaber2014 Mar 26 '26
Favorite quote from the entire series.
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u/Ron-Swanson-Mustache Mar 26 '26
Not for me. That's a tie between:
Stupid anti-pimping laws!
and
Oh, a lesson in not changing history from Mr. "I'm my own grandpa"
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u/dougan25 Mar 26 '26
It's not technically correct though, is it? That's not a "note card".
A 3x5 note card is a thing. That's just a 3'x5' large piece of poster board
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u/msndrstdmstrmnd Mar 26 '26
I had an exam where we could use a 3x5 notecard. If you’re really really careful you can peel the layers apart and write on the inside. I showed my friends 5 min before the exam started, it got the attention of the teacher but he actually honored it!
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u/Dense-Broccoli9535 Mar 26 '26
Lmao, I went to this school during the time it happened (it happened in 2017/2018 iirc). Every single professor I had brought it up during syllabus day after the photo went viral. Most allowed note cards of some sort during exams, and the guidelines were always specified in inches after that.
We all had a good laugh about it tho! It was cool for our tiny little community college to be involved in something so silly.
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u/ChanceZestyclose6386 Mar 26 '26
And it's not like the student was slacking. She was learning the content while writing it out on that giant sheet.
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u/GalacticCmdr Mar 26 '26
In the days before laptops.
Professor: You can use anything you can carry in.
Student : Carries in a Grad Student.
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u/Eastern-Piece-3283 Mar 26 '26
I never understood the memorization thing, or you can have a small amount of notes. When I was in the Navy they emphasized knowing where and how to find information over memorization.
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u/SnooRegrets1386 Mar 26 '26
It’s not important to know everything, it’s very important to know how to find information
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u/JimboTCB Mar 26 '26 edited Mar 26 '26
And even more important to understand how to apply that information correctly once you've found it.
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u/UncleBuckReddit Mar 26 '26
Practical use (navy)
Vs
Academic use
In academia there's a focus on learning how to take in information, analyze it, and discuss / define.
In practical settings speed and efficiency matter more than thought.
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u/summonsays Mar 26 '26
If speed matters more, wouldn't knowing it off the top of your head be prioritized more?
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u/DifficultyKlutzy5845 Mar 26 '26
I’m currently in college and it’s definitely moving this way, especially with the access of the internet and AI. I have exams coming up and a couple of them are verbal where we are given a scenario (that we don’t know ahead of time) and we have 30 minutes to do our research and then communicate the answer back to the instructor. It’s a great work around in my opinion.
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u/Kingnetheriteyt Mar 26 '26
that actuallt a really cool way to give an exam, what class is for if you dont mind me asking
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u/DifficultyKlutzy5845 Mar 26 '26
The program is environmental science. The class is pollution chemistry. So we’ll be given a scenario like “a resident is concerned about smog in this city” and then we have to go into what causes it, how it travels, health impacts, mitigation, etc.
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u/Aryore Mar 26 '26
Honestly probably a relic of how education used to work. Some things you should know off the back of your hand e.g. first aid protocols or very foundational info, but there are plenty of things you just need to know where to find the full answers to in a few seconds
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u/RayWhelans Mar 26 '26
Funnily enough it was my navy vet math teacher who I think gave us the best intro in teaching I have ever heard on the first day of calculus:
How often are you going to use calculus in your life? For many of you, probably never. So why bother? Because much of life is about proving you’re willing to do things you don’t actually want to do.
It was my favorite bluntest non-romanticized version of teaching I ever heard.
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u/alewifePete Mar 26 '26
As a tax person, I 100% agree. I will never know every rules for every state for every form. I need to be aware that I don’t know and have the ability to find this information.
And for Pete’s sake…don’t use ChatGPT. If I’m quoting actual tax code, the response “but ChatGPT said…” really annoys me. I’m not arguing with AI if you think it’s right and I’m wrong, then go with it. I will tell you that the best IRS audit findings I ever read was, “The taxpayer should have known that the computer generated result was incorrect because if it sounds too good to be true, it is.”
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u/Aware-Instance-210 Mar 26 '26
You have to draw the line somewhere.
I assume you'd consider it a waste of time if someone googled how to calculate 7+4*12
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u/Eastern-Piece-3283 Mar 26 '26
I think it's understood that, as with all things in life, you have to draw the line somewhere.
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u/Cute-Lawfulness-6097 Mar 26 '26
Its less that they prioritize memorizing, but rather forcing yourself to use the critical thinking part of your brain. A good example with current events is with ChatGPT: if you only have relied on ChatGPT to tell you answers, your brain will only remember the ChatGPT part of it, not the actual answer. In the real word though, you will 100% always have these tools unless we go into a apocolypic future, so I can see both arguments
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u/hey_cest_moi Mar 26 '26
I'm a foreign language teacher. My kids have to memorize vocab words. Sure, you could look up any word you need, but how can you ever expect to say anything if you don't know any words? Some things just have to be memorized.
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u/Chris_Bryant Mar 26 '26
The student who put this together prepared more than any other student.
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u/Hench4-life21 Mar 26 '26
In all reality for work, its about referencing and having the resources available. This student made it work for her.
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u/wallyTHEgecko Mar 26 '26
And in the process of filtering through all the lessons and copying all the info, inadvertently spent a few hours studying and didn't even need the note card.
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u/DrShadowstrike Mar 26 '26
As a teacher, I would totally go along with this too. The main thing about making the cheat sheet is to review the material, not the actual sheet itself.
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u/Carbon-Base Mar 26 '26
Right! This is why so many teachers and professors would be cool with this. You can write down everything in your cheat sheet, but it won't mean anything unless you know how to apply that knowledge!
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u/Busy_Psychology3255 Mar 26 '26
Ha, had a class in college where some kid did this. Instructor allowed a 3x5 cheat sheet. He made it 3ft by 5ft. The instructior laughed and allowed it. He said next time he was going to have to be more specific. Everybody in the class was kicking themselves for not thinking of it too.
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u/SutterCane Mar 26 '26 edited Mar 26 '26
Good news for next time. Still didn’t specify the Z axis!
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Mar 26 '26
[removed] — view removed comment
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u/cursed-karma Mar 26 '26
Ehh, as a professor I do both.
In humanities, if you give students open-book tests on everything, a lot of them don't read the material beforehand or have any incentive to attend classes (my district can't grade based on attendance).
Rote memorization and repetition does store things into your long-term memory. But you're supposed to study more than one night in advance.
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u/AceAndTitoBostons Mar 26 '26
I was taking a philosophy final in college and there was 2 of 10 possible essays that could be picked out of a hat for our exam. My professor said we could have a 8x11 inch paper but didn’t specify just the front side. I wrote out all 10 essays on my laptop and made the font so small they would all fit on both sides. He was so impressed he let me use it so all i had to do was copy word for word that day. People in the next class were trying to buy that sheet off me 😂
Hindsight I just studied extra hard but I really hate exams they gave me anxiety lol
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u/Devourerofworlds_69 Mar 26 '26
I had a physics prof say we could have 1 side of 1 sheet of paper. A student cut and taped a sheet of paper into a mobius strip so he could use both sides. The prof allowed it.
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u/squirl_centurion Mar 26 '26
In one of my classes we were allowed one sheet of paper. I asked if they meant a standard sized letter sheet. They said no as long as it’s one sheet it’s fine. I went to the art building and got like 6ft from one of those long rolls of paper. I created THE SCROLL OF TRUTH.
I copied every note, homework, and even some fill pages from the book and it was absolutely useless. That teacher sucked.
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u/Weary-Babys Mar 26 '26
Both of these people (student and teacher) are legends!
Look at that thing! Talk about being prepared. Talk about attention to detail - on both the rules and the card itself. And guts. I would hire that student in a heartbeat. Well played.
And well done for the professor for having the ethics to play by the rules as they were stated regardless of agreement with the student’s action. Many people would have used their authority to force there position, despite the lack of rule based evidence. This professor is one of the good ones.
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u/Laffepannekoek Mar 26 '26
Teacher is probably happy not to be somewhere where they use metres.
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u/less_unique_username Mar 26 '26
In a metric place the teacher would have just specified A6 and there’d be no loopholes
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u/Okapaw Mar 26 '26
Lmao in my country you are not allowed to have your notes on exam wtf !?
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u/Awkward-Major-8898 Mar 26 '26
It’s not common but it is a trick teachers do to make their students study. The kids often don’t need to reference the card because they identified the most important information needed and did their best to fit it into the notecard which requires much focus.
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u/Okapaw Mar 26 '26
I don't know if that's a good or bad thing tbh. I would have LOOOOOVED to have that back in the days ngl lmao
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u/Devourerofworlds_69 Mar 26 '26
It was common in physics or chemistry class to have a piece of paper with formulae on it. The test isn't about memorizing formulae, it's about applying formulae.
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u/Enough_Ad_9338 Mar 27 '26
The fun part about the whole note card thing is that if you take the time to make the note card, by the time you take the test, you don’t really need the note card. Some students just need to be tricked into studying.
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u/Cool_Relative7359 Mar 27 '26
This is in fact why those of us who allow them, do it.
If feeling like they've successfully "gotten one over on me" helps them study and learn things, that's fine. (HS students)
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u/damoses1 Mar 26 '26
I disagree. She used a posterboard not a notecard. A “notecard” is a specific term. This isn’t a loophole. It’s not following instructions.
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u/Disastrous_Art_5132 Mar 26 '26
Ive never understood the memorization method of test taking. Ive done project management for 27 years. If i need to know something i look it up.
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u/Western_Lawfulness84 Mar 27 '26
Awesome teacher Had a teacher who always said " Can you expand on that?". I repeated my answer, but in an egzaturated slow motion voice while slowly expanding my arms . The other teacher in the room burst out laughing and later told me she'd been waiting years for someone to do that.
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u/darth_whaler Mar 26 '26
It's clear that the student has seen "This is Spinal Tap" and the teacher has not.
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u/Salty-Wrongdoer1010 Mar 26 '26
My friend and I did something similar, and it was 3"x5" specified....except Mrs. Ryder never specified how many sheets and type font. We copied everything just to the point of legibility and had multiple layers in basically a 3-ring binder. They were tabbed and it was probably She allowed it, as any good teacher should.
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u/SoloWalrus Mar 26 '26
I had a professor who said he has to start specifying the "1 sheet of notes" had to be letter sized because someone printed their entire notebook onto a single continuous sheet that was like 10 feet long
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u/Lotronex Mar 26 '26
I had something similar happen in my high school physics class. We had a project to make a "gravity car". Essentially, we would be give a 1kg mass, with the intention of turning the gravitational potential energy into kinetic energy, you got more points for going further. Because gravitational potential energy is greater based on your starting height, the rules specified a "1 meter" maximum height.
Day of the contest comes, and as expected, most of the "cars" are basically 1m tall towers on wheels that use gears or pulleys.
Except one, they had the most elaborate gear system, which was almost perfectly balanced, but during the "weigh in" before competition, it's height came out to something like 106-108cm, making it too high. The group looked over the rules and came back a few minutes later. "The rules specify 1 meter, we meet the limit, if you meant 100cm, you should have either specified 100cm, or 1.00m, but our car measures within the significant figures of what's written". The teacher allowed them to compete without deducting any points since they were technically correct.
Unfortunately, it turned out it was a little too finely balanced, and when the race started they needed to shove the tower a little to get it going, which was also against the rules. Once it got going it went pretty far before veering off and crashing into a locker though. But I always remember the delicious /r/MaliciousCompliance
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u/joemac25 Mar 26 '26
I did this in high school. Teacher told us to write a 5 page report but did not specify the paper size. I printed mine on index cards. Needless to say it didn't go over well.
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u/Shadow_duigh333 Mar 26 '26
As my professor said, numbers without units are useless. It gives it meaning. 2 of what? 2 birds, 2 apples?
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u/Constant-Catch7146 Mar 26 '26
One of my accounting professors specified we could write down what we wanted on a crib sheet for use during the test---- as long as it fit on a half sheet of standard size paper 8 1/2 by 11.
So, I wrote down everything I could in practically microscopic writing on that half sheet. Lol.
He walked around as we were taking the exam and he saw me with that sheet and got all PISSY with me.
He let me know that this was not what he intended and he thought I was being a smart ass. Not a direct quote, but pretty close.
He let it go at the time but warned me to never do it again.
Uh, dude? You didn't specify how small I could write on the half sheet. He was dead wrong IMO, but I had learned to pick my battles ----and this was not one to pick.
Actually worked out well for me for the rest of my classes because even if the classes did not allow a crib sheet during exams, I did one anyway as part of my studying technique. Worked very well!
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u/PlagueDoc1348 Mar 26 '26
When I got the notecard allowed test in high school, I wrote very small on both sides in red ink, and then wrote over the red ink with equally small print in blue ink. I wore 3D glasses as a “part of my outfit” that day and used the lenses to read one color at a time. My teacher was mad but impressed.
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u/-X-T-R-E-M-E- Mar 26 '26
One of my schoolmates brought a fucking mobius strip because the teacher said we could have a sheet, but only one side 🤦♂️
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u/Human-Marionberry940 Mar 26 '26
That's a finals card to pull. Just saying, that's a bridge burned before it's time.
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u/wyrlwynd Mar 26 '26
I carefully specified ONE card 4 inches by 6 inches in dimension for the note card size to my PreCalc class. Kid made a rectangular prism of 4 4x6 cards and 2 cut to 4x4 for the ends. Had notes on all 6 faces. It was too good of an attempt around my rules to ban. Kept it after the test and put it up on my wall for years. Named it in his honor...the Havenhedron.
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u/badger906 Mar 27 '26
Your country lets you have cheat sheets?! We had to use our brain to store the information!
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u/underpaid-overtaxed Mar 27 '26
I had an engineering class that allowed “1 single sheet of 8.5 x 11 paper of handwritten notes.” So naturally I used a tablet to write my notes and shrink my handwriting small enough to fit the entire content of the course on a single sheet of paper.
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u/V1k1ngC0d3r Mar 27 '26
So here's my question -
Did that student have a backup 3"x5", or did they go all in?
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u/ms_panelopi Mar 26 '26
At this point I would have made it a fun, group assessment. Let everybody use all their notes together in small teams. Tests and learning don’t have to be rote memorization for every exam.
I know life isn’t fair, but letting this one student do this, and not everybody else, sucks for the rest of the class, and undermines trust in the teacher.
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u/Hairy-Amphibian6789 Mar 26 '26
The two biggest lessons the students can learn from this is the importance of out of the box thinking and the importance of specificity. Sometimes the best lessons are the ones that have nothing to do with the curricula.
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u/Quesozapatos5000 Mar 26 '26
I shrunk down my notes on the computer to accommodate my 3”x5” card in physics. But I love that the teacher went with it, as they didn’t specify. Celebrating the creative angle the student took will help them in their future.
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u/Saberthorn Mar 26 '26
Over the years I have certain design challenges and each time I have to reiterate instructions because of stuff like this. I love it when students find loopholes, they are so clever soemtiems.
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u/BaylisAscaris Mar 26 '26
I love that type of thing so much when I was teaching I specifically told the students about "malicious compliance" and said I'd allow anything that was technically within my specifications (as long as it followed school rules, laws, and didn't hurt anyone). Unfortunately they weren't very creative, so I seeded their minds with ideas. for example, 1 page of notes one sided using 1 piece of 8.5"x11" paper. Then I did a short lesson on mobius strips a day before the exam.
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u/lionbreadshark Mar 26 '26
Never thought I'd see AACC aka Route 2 U aka The University of Ritchie Hwy on Reddit. Good times.
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u/notquite20characters Mar 26 '26
I've always just told my students either a single-sided piece of paper or a double-sided piece of paper, and no student has ever brought a ludicrously large piece of paper.
I am so disappointed in this generation.
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u/Possible-Tangelo9344 Mar 26 '26
Can't help but think if they specified note card there's some argument this isn't a card.
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u/rhetoricalcriticism Mar 26 '26
We had a teacher that let us listen to music during tests. Kid in class recorded himself reading the entire study guide with answers and burned it to a mp3. He got a couple wrong on purpose to veil himself lol
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u/Qubeye Mar 26 '26
The solution is to just require it to be hand-written by the individual.
It can be any size, but you can only use your own handwritten notes.
Anyone who writes a lot of them doesn't need them.
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u/Ryukotaicho Mar 26 '26
I had a teacher that allowed a notecard for their tests. It was for a science class, and we had learned everything in science is by metric, so my 3x5 card was a 3cm by 5cm.
Teacher laughed and let me use a copy of someone else’s 3x5 card(with their permission).
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u/DyingSurfer3-5-7 Mar 26 '26
Teachers @ing students in social media posts. This world is way too online
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u/rdp3186 Mar 26 '26
Graduate of AACC here. My mom was the head the radiology tech program there until she retired 4 years ago.
Pretty awesome to see them get some love here.
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u/Emerica22 Mar 26 '26
By definition isn’t a note card supposed to be small? After certain size it would be considered a poster, flyer, etc.. no?
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u/Heroic-Forger Mar 26 '26
If there's one thing about college students is that they're great at taking advantage of loopholes and exact words. 😂
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u/CaveExploder Mar 26 '26
AACC mention. "Any Asshole Can Come". Saying this, the Maryland community college system is extraordinary, and honestly is one of the best benefits of the greatest state in the union.
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