F for Effort: More of the Very Best Totally Wrong Test Answers by Richard Benson
My rating: 4/5 cats
i am going to let you in on a little secret. this is how it works: publishers want you to buy books. barnes and noble wants you to come into the bookstore to buy books instead of buying your books online. so books like this exist. they are lures – you come in to the store (probably to use the bathroom) and you see a table full of books like these and you grab a bunch and go sit in a chair, and you flip through them, have a laugh, and it puts you in a good mood and then you spend money because you are in a good mood and then you see all sorts of other books in your journey to the exit. and you buy them. you don’t buy this book, because it is just for in-store reading, and you are already over it, and you have probably damaged it because you have this misconception that since you are reading it, it is yours, and you can just fold over the pages or splay it open while you tap out your veryimportant text messages or whatever. so, in the interests of protecting these books from your carelessness, i have selected my favorite entries, and am putting them in this review. and i swear to gum i wrote a review for the first volume of this book, but it seems to have gotten eaten by goodreads monsters. karen’s reviews: get ’em while they’re hot. and while they exist.
the first part of this book is not very funny – they are “elementary school” answers whose humor comes from children mistaking one word for another, like “dread” instead of “bread” and “porcupines” instead of “concubines.” i am not overly amused by “pasketti” humor, so i am only going to focus on the high school portion of this book, because i think they are more interesting, more creative, and the respondents show great promise at evasiveness and feigned innocence of the question’s intent. this skill will take them far.
some of the responses, although not the intended answer, cannot be denied:
-how is the brain like a cantaloupe?
-it is delicious
-in what circumstances does the fourth act of hamlet begin?
-it starts immediately after the third act.
-how would you keep wine from turning into vinegar?
-drink it
-a train is blowing its whistle while traveling at 33 m/s. the speed of sound is 343 m/s. if you are directly in front of the train, what is the whistle frequency you hear?
-you will get hit by the train before you can even figure out what that whistling sound is.
-alice places a prepared slide on her microscope, but when she looks into it, she can’t see anything. suggest one reason why not.
-she is blind.
-name three states in which water may exist.
-new york
new jersey
pennsylvania
-what law was common to all of the colonies?
-gravitation.
genius, right?
some of them would be great answers, but it turns out they are incorrect as well as not being the appropriate interpretation of the question.
-what was the age of pericles?
-i think he was about forty. (66)
-on what grounds was aaron burr tried for treason?
-new york (virginia)
-a startled armadillo jumps straight into the air with an initial velocity of 18 feet per second. after how many seconds does it land on the ground?
-armadillos don’t jump.
(http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NkUAe0…)
some are just funny-lazy.
-what is your opinion of the relative merits of lecture and laboratory instruction in physiology?
-my opinion of the relative merits of lecture and laboratory instruction in physiology is good
-describe the bonding of SO2
-it’s pretty awesome
-anna is trying to decide what to have for lunch in the cafeteria. she can choose 1 entree and 2 side dishes. there are 4 available entrees, and 8 available side dishes. how many different combinations are possible for anna’s lunch?
-none. she has severe food allergies and can only eat oatmeal.
-how are clouds formed?
-i am not sure how clouds get formed but the clouds know how to do it, and that is the important thing
-matt had a 9 ft by 12 ft wall painted. for a wall twice as wide, the painter charged him twice as much. is this reasonable? explain.
-the painter can charge whatever he wants. if matt doesn’t like it, he can paint his own walls.
-the early sexual maturity of children and the subsequent shortening of childhood is caused by
-michael jackson
some i can’t tell if they are sincere or snarky:
-what hemisphere do you live in?
-i don’t live in a hemisphere, i live in an apartment.
-where is chicago?
-right now, they’re in fifth place.
i don’t know how to categorize this one, but it makes me laugh:
-what are crabs, lobsters, and crayfish all classified as?
-they are all crushed asians
and a final one is just romantic:
-why are there rings around saturn?
–god liked it, so he put a ring on it.
so, there – i have saved you the trouble of destroying bookstore inventory. now you can just buy books you want to buy without pretense, without manipulation.go forth and do so.
