Every spring and fall, professors try to one-up their colleagues by exchanging unintentionally hilarious sentences from students’ exams and final papers. Some of our readers have been kind enough to share the best ones on a lengthy thread in our Forums section. Below, a few gems:
- Marie Curie invented oxygen.
- The Glorious Revolution was when John Donne changed religions so he wouldn’t have to have any more children.
- Olympia has a cat near her, which was shocking to people because cat has a similar word for a woman’s love center.
- The Restoration fixed the Greek manuscripts and stuff.
- Monasticism are monk’s who enter a monastery for the soul purpose of God.
- Officer Ryan pulled over Cameron who was a black man riding with his white wife Christine who appeared to be performing flatulence.
- But dealing with technology I have realized that you have to be patient and both student and teacher have to leave a margarine for error.
- This period of climate change was caused by the collapse of the Mayan Civilization.
- Tin Pan Alley published his first song in 1982.
Follow Tweed through your favorite RSS reader: 
11 Responses to Exam Howlers, Fall 2009 Edition
landrumkelly - December 18, 2009 at 4:15 pm
I tryed.
newyorkyankees - December 18, 2009 at 5:56 pm
My english ayn’t too goode, so i became a accountant.
yashowada - December 19, 2009 at 1:42 am
Education knows no limits, upwards and downwards.
akprof - December 19, 2009 at 2:38 pm
My all-time favorite came when I asked students to list the five levels of Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs in ascending order – one student name the first four in correct order (Physiological, Safety, Love & Belonging, Esteem) and then added this as the fifth and highest stage: Self-Ejaculation! (I gave her credit, though one could argue that this really went with the first stage!)
prjacoby - January 4, 2010 at 7:26 am
One of my favorites I found at the end of the spring term as I was grading a “graduating senior’s” term paper: “…we tend to put celebrities on pedal stools….” I couldn’t make that up, sadly….
mprofw91 - January 4, 2010 at 8:42 am
In a paper addressing gender issues, one of my freshmen described a mysogynistic military general as “egotesticle.” Some errors can be right on the money…….
12049089 - January 4, 2010 at 9:59 am
at least you know the work wasn’t plagiarized.
cordelia - January 4, 2010 at 11:49 am
“It was important that women in Shakespeare’s day be chased.”
22122118 - January 4, 2010 at 12:40 pm
On a question asking students to identify two images, one of the Boulevard de l’Opera in Paris and the other of Andrassy Avenue in Budapest; re the latter: “The large building at the left is the Oprah House.” You can’t make these up.
22122118 - January 4, 2010 at 12:44 pm
Here’s another, even better. After watching the film “Downfall,” on a question asking students to compare the fall of the Mussolini dictatorship with the collapse of the Third Reich: “The Italian people got fed up with Mussolini and threw him out. The Germans stayed loyal to Hitler right to the end. He only lost the war when he didn’t have any more soldiers to fight the Red Coats.”I’ve always pointed out to students that even today, you can find the pock marks of musket balls on walls in Berlin.
tatanka - January 4, 2010 at 4:12 pm
“Dante stood with one foot firmly planted in the Middle Ages, while with the other he saluted the dawn of the Renaissance.”