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Who wrote "This is Sparta" on their IB exams?


abcdrcill

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lol I was sorely tempted to write something stupid in one of my university exams but then thought better of it...they're worth too much

There was this whole thread on the A-level board on TSR devoted to people who were going to draw cupcakes on particular exams. I'd be too scared to do so in an IB exam...time spent drawing pictures could be used to re-check answers! That said, some of my friends and I used to draw this cute boat scene on the covers of some of our exams in Year 10. They meant nothing so it was a bit of a laugh. :)

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I'm seriously considering doing this now.

It could work ^^

I haven't done it, but I've always contemplated writing a random Pokemon as an answer to a "Who Am I?" question in History class.

My friend used to (and still does) draw pictures of random cartoon people on his math tests confused, with question marks all over the place.

That's exactly how he felt. :P

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  • 2 months later...
  • 3 weeks later...
it would be really cool if you made a facebook group or something and got over 1000 ppl to do it on their exams, and from all over the country....

Not so many people are willing to do that stuff, I don't think if you try to make a FB group it'll be success. =P Prove me wrong and I'll join! <_<

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Though...

This is Sparta! — Facebook prank or political statement?

http://www.examiner.com/a-1443213~This_is_...statement_.html

WASHINGTON (Map, News) - Test takers strike back. A funny thing happened at the annual mass grading of Advanced Placement English literature exams. The exclamation “This Is Sparta!” popped up daily in exam booklets.

At first I ignored it, but then a reader who teaches at the University of California at Irvine asked that our table keep track of the numbers, and I knew there was something to this phenomenon.

Lynda knew about the Facebook group, numbering more than 30,000, called “Everyone write ‘This is Sparta!’ on your AP tests.” Since we were reading nearly a million English Literature essays, “This is Sparta!” didn’t occur often, but all AP readers came to recognize it as the tag of a web-based network.

Instructions on Facebook are explicit: “In the middle of an essay randomly write the words THIS IS SPARTA! Draw a single line through what you just wrote.” Kevin, who started the group, knew AP graders are instructed not to count anything crossed out.

The goal was to cause graders to pause and chuckle at the cleverness of the prank. My observation of the AP Lit reading is that it did far more than that.

The phrase comes from a line in “300,” a 2007 film based on a graphic novel penned by Frank Miller. It narrates, with dubious historical accuracy, the 480 B.C. battle between 300 Greek Spartans and a million Persian invaders.

At the battle of Thermopylae, the Spartan king shouts, “This is Sparta!” as he rebuffs enemy threats and hurls Persian messengers into a pit of oblivion. Every last Spartan dies in the ensuing clash, but those defiant words have since become teen code for “don’t tell us what to do.”

Greece, home of the first democracy, battling Persia, clearly mirrors current West/East political tensions, but the Facebook group seems to have no political motive. The students in my classes who participated did it for the chuckle: “LOL, hahaha,” as they phrased it.

During the week of exam grading, readers exchanged sightings of the graffito; one table even erected a sign proclaiming, “This is Sparta!” But the most telling detail of this adolescent prank is the cautionary instruction to draw a single line through the sentence.

How defiant can 30,000 test takers be when they ask the reader to discount what they’ve written? It’s quite endearing that these teen “rebels” want to be sure their AP scores aren’t jeopardized--hardly a dramatic statement on the state of the world.

But as readers, we did adopt the Spartan spirit. In the Chief Reader’s last day speech, he encouraged 1100 teachers to grade the remaining hundred thousand essays by pumping his fist and shouting, “This is Sparta!”

We cheered and cheered, and went to our tables that final day to grade the remaining tests, hurling them into a concrete pit of oblivion--or perhaps into a metal computer scanner.

A Facebook prank with the modest goal of bringing a chuckle to the reading turned into a rallying cry to complete the daunting task on hand. We hundreds of Spartan readers tackled a million swarming essays and, unlike Spartans at Thermopylae, remained standing.

“WE are Sparta!” LOL.

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W00t 3 posts in a row!! :) If this was anywhere but Chat, I should be banning myself for spamming :S

Anyway I had a quiz this morning and though we only had to do 5/7 questions, I actually did all 7 and still had 10 minutes to sit and stare at the clock. (Advice: if you get to choose where to sit in a test/exam, never ever sit where the clock is right in front of you :S ) So I made a border of This is Sparta! on the paper :) . To be sure I did put a line through all of it but even if I didn't I doubt she would mark it. I think the tutor will be asking me next week what on earth that was about :P .

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  • 4 weeks later...

My friend and I agreed to draw a small toilet in the working space of any question we couldn't answer in our maths exam. In honour of the Not the Nine O'Clock News skit in which Rowan Atkinson and another guy are planning a bathroom with a little model bathroom thing...

"Oh well a sink's not as much use as a toilet, is it?...There's a bit of a gap here, we'll just put another toilet in..." "So that's what, 3...4 toilets now?" "Yes. In case of blockage."

I can't explain it. Go watch it. And put a toilet in wherever you have a bit of a gap.

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  • 1 month later...

Haha I wish.

On my bio final I wrote this huge long story about a plant and I said straight up "Hey, now, I don't know the name of the plant, and I'm really sorry, but y'know, it happens that one would forget the name of something so insignificant when they have many other things to study. I CAN, however, answer this question. I just don't know the name of the plant I am talking about. My deepest apologies."

:sparta:

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