Genius College Student Hilariously Took Advantage Of A Loophole In His Teacher’s Exam Instructions

• By Sara Salman
• September 29, 2017
• 3 minutes read

This is Rob Beatty, the assistant professor at Anne Arundel Community College in Maryland. He is teaching Financial Accounting this year (A subject he has taught for many years).

Each year, Beatty allows his students to bring a 3×5 inch notecard when he gives the class their first exam. The notecard may contain any information that could fit on it.

Beatty explains the importance of this first exam. According to him, it tests the students on “the foundational information that all students need to learn to be successful … in future accounting courses.” 

“I have allowed a 3×5 notecard for years.”

So, a student named Elijah Bowen realised that the instructions regarding the notecard were unclear as the unit of measurement was not specified.

So, exploiting the situation, Elijah showed up for the exam last week with a 3×5 feet long notecard. While joking about it, Elijah also said that at first, he was going to bring a board which was 3×5 metres big “but I wouldn’t be able to get it in the door”, he quipped.

“My initial thought was that he wanted to get a few last minutes of cramming in before the exam started…after approximately a minute I realized this was 3×5 feet, and he had the intention of using it on the exam,” Beatty said.

He said he referred back to the syllabus and all the other places immediately “where I provide test instructions” just to find that he had never specified “Inches” anywhere.

Bowen said that the entire class was laughing and giggling as Beatty “frantically” searched through his course material. “He looked at me and said, ‘you are right,'” he added.

Sadly, Beatty had to allow him to continue using his enormous poster of notes. Beatty wrote in a Facebook post “Well played and lesson learned” which has now gone viral.

Beatty said that this never happened to him before in all these years of teaching.

But, Bowen really earned it, he said: “I appreciate someone who A)had the intelligence to recognize this loophole and B) the audacity to put that together and bring it in.”

However, Professor Beatty made sure that none of the students would ever plot such an ‘evil’ scheme against him again “I have updated the syllabus and the course instructions”, he said.

Even after all of this, Beatty still says that he would continue to let the students to “think out of the box.”