Examination Bloopers

Long before I decided (read 'was forced'; but more on that later) to become a teacher, I had my very own collection of favourite exam howlers, carefully purloined from many an unsuspecting jokebook. Some of the out-standing ones were:

1.A census-taker is a man who goes from house to house increasing the population.
(No wonder India's population rises each time a census is taken!)

2.Crop Rotation is done so that crops may get the sun on all sides.
(And one thought that was why the Sun rotated..)

3.Cleopatra died as a result of being bitten by an ass.
(Still trying to picture that one..)

I will not insult your intelligence by telling you the famous Neils Bohr-John Rutherford howler. That email forward has been around the globe 10000000000000000000000000000000 times. (Clue: Barometer. If you still don't get it, go to the top of a really tall building and jump.)

Well, my students are not quite as enterprising, but their answer papers did provide their poor tired, humour-starved teacher a guffaw or two. Keep it up, kiddos!
Some of the best:

1.Q:What is a Guard Band?:
(To the uninitiated, this is a small no man's band of frequencies that exists between the frequency bands allotted to two adjacent radio/TV stations, in order to prevent interference)
Ans: The Guard Band is a band made out of elastic, sorta like the rubber band.. (This was accompanied by a diagram and around half a page of precise constructional details)

2.Q: List the limitations of the Zener Diode Voltage Regulator.
Ans: Very difficult to obtain output during lab examination.

3. Found in the answer booklet under a huge drawing of a transformer:
THIS IS A TRANSISTOR.

Yeah, it is a fun job!

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