This past fall semester, at Duke University, there were two sophomores

who were taking Organic Chemistry and who did pretty well on all of the

quizzes and the midterms and labs, etc., such that going into the final

they had a solid ‘A’. These two friends were so confident going into the

final that the weekend before finals week, even though the Chem final

was on Monday, they decided to go up to University of Virginia and party

with some friends up there. So they did this and had a great time.

However, with their hangovers and everything, they overslept all day

Sunday and didn’t make it back to Duke until early Monday morning.

Rather than taking the final then, what they did was to find Professor

Aldric after the final and explain to him why they missed the final.

They told him that they went up to UVA for the weekend, and had planned

to come back in time to study, but that they had a flat tire on the way

back and didn’t have a spare and couldn’t get help for a long time and

so were late getting back to campus.

Aldric thought this over and then agreed that they could make up the

final on the following day. The two guys were elated and relieved.

So, they studied that night and went in the next day at the time that

Aldric had told them. He placed them in separate rooms and handed each

of them a test booklet and told them to begin.

They looked at the first problem, which was something simple about

free radical formation and was worth 5 points. “Cool” they thought,

“this is going to be easy.” They did that problem and then turned

the page. They were unprepared, however, for what they saw on the

next page.

It said: (95 points) Which tire?

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