Excuses
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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