Apart from the Toast Throw, Hey Day, and pissing on statues, one of the most time-honored traditions on Penn’s campus is complaining about midterms. According to the Oxford English Dictionary, “midterm” is a U.S.-specific word meaning “A mid-term examination or election.” The OED was clearly written by morons as midterms are year-round, incessant, and all-knowing. The midterm is love; the midterm is life. To professors, it means creating a challenge for young scholars to reach their true academic potential. (Just kidding, they’re designed to weed out pre-meds. Good luck getting into med school with that BBB major, Rodney.) To students, midterms are something to bond over through mutual complaining.
College sophomore Andrew Gomes took this complaining to the extreme as he bitched through his Biology midterm last Thursday. “It was amazing. I’ve never seen anything like it,” said exam proctor and grad student Abigail Johnson. “The exam was given out and he just complained the whole way through. I would have stopped him, but we were all mesmerized by how valid his complaints were.”
According to eyewitnesses, Gomes first began by berating the multiple choice portion: “5 choices? Are you kidding me? Well, there go our odds. I mean, this is literally one of the worst exams in Penn history. I mean, with 4 choices, we at least have a shot of passing – no, we shouldn’t do 3 choices, that’s too easy – but this is absolutely the worst.
“Wait, we only have 90 minutes to finish the quiz? Okay, it’s not like we have better things to do. I mean, it’s 11 AM, but there’s so much more to do outside than be stuck inside taking a midterm on a beautiful fall day. I could be apple picking right now. Have any of you ever been apple picking? Me neither, but it’s something that beats taking this midterm.”
“Free response questions? A short essay? Excuse me, I thought this was a science class? Now I know this test is catering to the humanities majors. This is absolute bullshit. Why is this class open to humanities majors? They should take their writing skills and employment opportunities elsewhere.”
“You? Yeah, you in the blazer. You’re done already? Are you kidding me? I haven’t even started. This writing portion is just so hard. This test is just plain ridiculous. I can’t believe I put in all that time looking at Vines, BuzzFeed articles, sending Snapchats, and checking Facebook just so I could not finish this test.”
It was reported that Gomes did finish the test on time. He immediately messaged one of his classmates: OMG that test was so f’ing hard.