How to Fail Your First Exam: Freshman-Year Edition.

Graphics by Kylie Adedeji

Cue the dramatic music—your first real college exam is on the horizon, and suddenly, your high school days of “winging it” no longer feels so reassuring. Your friends in STEM have been locked in their rooms for the last week studying, but you are taking a much more laid back approach. 

Don’t worry! We here at Jerk have come up with the definitive guide to failing with flair- because if you already know you’re going to crash and burn, you might as well have fun doing it. If you’re going down, at least do it in a way that says “I wasn’t trying that hard anyway.”

1. Procrastination: Your New Best Friend 

First, comes the prepwork. It's 7pm and you’re definitely going to start studying soon. Though, of course, first you have to clean a bit, organize your deck, have a snack, maybe gossip with your roommate for a bit. Suddenly, it's midnight and you’re telling yourself that you work better under pressure anyway…(P.S. - you absolutely do not) 

*Pro-tip: always keep your laptop open in front of you, even if you are just watching Netflix on your phone. It's a little known fact that the information can actually transfer to your brain through the air.*

2. Saying NO to going out 

It's Saturday, so all of your friends are pregaming for another night of going to frats. But, you have your exam on monday, so you’re staying in to study instead. You’re patting yourself on the back for being so responsible, but instead of reading your textbooks you are looking at everyone’s snap stories and texting “I should have gone!”. Don’t worry, you wouldn’t have studied anyway!

3. To Sleep or Not to Sleep… That is the Question

It's the night before your exam and you have no idea what to do. You know you have to study, but you can’t get your parent’s voices out of your head telling you a good night’s sleep before an exam is important. You decide to do one practice quiz then go to bed, but that turns into a night of procrastination ending around 3 am. So, honestly you aren’t any more prepared and you wake up exhausted. Good planning regardless!

4. Taking the Exam 

It’s finally time. You sit down at your desk to take the exam, and you start mentally cursing yourself for not actually studying. This is when your real skills come into play: choosing which letter to guess. Some advice - C isn’t actually better than any other choice. The key is to pick the same letter each and every time!

5. Post Exam Denial 

You’re done. You’ve finally made it. The test is over… for that class. You have three other exams this week, but that’s not a today problem. Instead of thinking about your grade or the rest of your week, you think about the most important thing- is it wrong to drink on a Monday? 

(Answer: Monday might be pushing it, wait for two-dollar-Tuesday like the rest of the student population.)

Until your grade is released, we recommend getting a sweet treat and pretending that you aced it. After all, there is no proof that you didn’t. (Just yet.) 

As you continue to surround yourself in a false sense of illusion, enjoy the little time you have left before you have to do this all over again! But congratulations, you have failed your first exam in style. *Cue the Applause!*