Kids Write the Darndest Things Part II

Oh Hai!

Every time I give a test someone writes something hilarious.  It never fails.  The last test of the year in my American Social Studies class was about the differences between the North and the South prior to the Civil War.  I gave what I thought was a gimme question, but it didn’t turn out to be so.

T/F: The invention of the locomotive made river travel much easier.

Of course the correct answer is false, the steamboat made river travel much easier.  Unfortunately, a good 40% of the students answered true.  I can think of a few reasons for why that might be:

A. They did not actually read the question because reading the question would make the test to easy.

B. I am a horrible teacher because they did not learn that locomotives run on tracks not water.

C. They did not know what a locomotive is.  I clearly should have used the word train.

D.  They were answering true to all of the true/false questions because anything else required too much effort.

Only one student pointed out the absurdity of the question when he wrote:

LOL – Locomotives can’t run on water silly.

See they do run on tracks silly!

I also learned from a student that slaves often melted in the heat.  Huh, It must have been pretty hot in the South back then.

Coming Soon – More absurdities from the end of the year tests.

Thank You For Your Consideration,

The Graham Ten