Dear Class,
I hope everyone is super excited to start their spring break! I know how much fun it can be for college kids, and I hope nothing spoils the next week for you guys.
On an unrelated note, today is my last day at the office so I decided to post the midterm grades.
Here’s all I have to say:
Wow.
And:
Holy crap you guys.
Actually I have a lot more to say. You guys really screwed this one up! The average score was a 53%! Jesus Christ!
….Oh my god, a 53% was the freaking average. 53%!!!!
I can’t tell if you guys are joking. Like, if this was some sort of practical joke, where all 157 of you decided to completely bomb the midterm just to see my reaction to it! I mean, honestly, I couldn’t possibly imagine how else everyone could simultaneously become so stupid.
Can someone explain this to me? I rescanned the tests 9 times. I checked to see if I accidentally wrote the exam in some other language than English. I looked at the building security tapes to see if maybe all of you had gotten 6 year-olds to take the exam in your place. I just can’t find a reason for why all of you sucked so much!
But wait, it gets so much better. As a little experiment, I read the multiple choice questions to my dog, and based on how he reacted (bark = a, scratch himself = b, wag tail = c, walk away = d) I noted a letter and graded his response. Guess what? He got a 56%!!!! I kid you not, a 56%!!! Hahahaha, oh my god. Would you guys like my dog to hold office hours for the rest of the semester?! Hahahahaha.
Now, not everyone did poorly. Jared Feldman managed to get a 94 on the exam! Congratulations Jared! You clearly know the material very well, and you absolutely deserve the grade you got!
Oh wait, did I congratulate you Jared? Because I mean to say: NICE TRY YOU LITTLE CHEATER!!!! Oh, how I wish I could see your face right now. Some advice: if you’re going to try to convince me that you’re smart, I would recommend not doing something as stupid as leaving the freaking cheat sheet in the room with your FREAKING NAME ON IT! Hahahaha, come on, man!
Thanks to Jared’s little mishap, I have decided to give him a 0 on the exam and drop 2 percentage points off of everyone else’s. So, uh, yeah, the class average is now a 51%. If you’d like to file a complaint with Jared, his home address is 1222 Lakeview Blvd. Lansing, Michigan 48901.
Now I’ve been around this place long enough to know what comes next. You guys complain to the department, or the administration, or whatever. Well guess what? I’m miles ahead of you guys. I’ve already taken the exam and the results to the department chair and the university president. Not only did they both find the exam perfectly reasonable, but the president laughed so hard that snot came flying out of her nose! It was hilarious!
After consulting with the top guys in the statistics department, I had come to the conclusion that it must be chance alone that produced these results. I happen to have been given the dumbest students at this university. But after checking the student database, I found that only 12% of you are athletes, and 8% have legacy. Clearly that’s not the answer.
So as a gift to you, I have decided to give an extra credit assignment over break. To any student that manages to explain to me how on earth the average for a midterm exam in an Ivy League University class was a 53 (51)%, I will add 10 extra percentage points to your exam score. So basically, with 10 extra points, you could up your score to, oh, something like a 61%. Bwahahahaha!
Anyway, I hope this information doesn’t prevent you from having an enjoyable spring break.
Best,
Professor Jacobs