'A guy wrote "Superman" as his answer on all 10 questions': 30 Ridiculous school assignments that students actually turned in

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Remy Millisky • Writer and Editor
Feb 24, 2024 11:00 AM EST

These teachers were baffled by the papers they received from their students. 

A lot of kids really don't want to go to school. They don't want to wake up at the crack of dawn, don't want to sit still in class all day, and they certainly aren't keen to work on homework. Luckily, there are plenty of brilliant teachers who can motivate their students to want to be there. Some teachers try to make their lessons modern by implementing movies, while others can make any lesson interesting with their exceptional story-telling skills. 

There will always be students whom the teachers can't reach, though. They really don't care about homework or grades at all. Especially if parents don't make an effort to get their kiddo to look away from his phone and work on that history essay, that assignment may not get done. 

The teachers of Reddit shared what happened when their laziest students turned in their essays. While a lot of them were just formed from unabashed plagiarism, others got creative in order to do the least amount of work possible. You can check out all of the great stories below. 

Next, check out the foods people will absolutely never eat again, like one person who regretted ordering the "mackerel sushi… in a Midwest strip mall.'

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  • 01
    BEBELLIN 四
    via Kenny Eliason on Unsplash
  • 02
    Teachers of Reddit! Lets hear about some ridiculous assignments that your students have turned in. Im talking about the most terrible, yet funny answers to questions, perhaps essay responses. The fill in the blank ones are hilarious too. Love to hear from you!
    via u/McDerpster
  • 03
    VvOrd I had a student give me a lab report written as a long form poem. It was actually a pretty good report as well. Of course, I then felt the obligation to grade/comment in verse, which took a ridiculously long time for this not-so- artistically-inclined physics teacher.
    via u/VvOrd
  • 04
    elliot_t This is from my mother, who is a teacher. She had to give a first grade girl an IQ test of sorts. One of the questions was "What has four legs and is made to sit on?" Girl's answer: A camel.
    via u/elliot_t
  • 05
    canada432 I'm an English teach in South Korea. I assigned a 3 paragraph paper to my 6th grade students. They were to write about their family and friends. Tell me about them, what do you do together, etc. Typical beginner language assignment. Not only did only 7 students out of 40 turn it in, of those 7 only 1 was a student's actual work.
    via u/canada432
  • 06
    The rest were blatant Google translate of Korean (the grammar and sentence structure made it pretty obvious). On top of that, some of the students actually included their Korean paragraphs at the bottom of the page. Now this isn't the best part. One of these papers really stood out. One student turned in not the 3
    via u/canada432
  • 07
    paragraphs, but 7 pages of writing. Did this have anything to do with the assignment? None whatsoever. This kid printed out 7 pages from a starcraft fan site and submitted it.
    via u/canada432
  • 08
    liteurple Q: State the functions of the stomach. A: Liver
    via u/liteurple
  • 09
    TMHS Best thesis statement I've ever seen: "I've always imagined myself living in the era of the 1800's living the ages with the dinosaurs." I teach at a college.
    via u/TMHS
  • 10
    mpeace1978 I've had students turn in essays straight up copied from wikipedia, including blue underlined links and all.
    via u/mpeace1978
  • 11
    -S elder_george. I once got essay that looked good enough until I stumbled upon '[Citation needed]' near the end of it.
    via u/elder_george
  • 12
    Ballertronix Speaking as a student who studied in Russia for a few months. The funniest assignment turned in that I saw had to do with a paper talking about your self and introducing yourself. The teacher said to make it 3 pages long, and you could talk about whatever you wanted.
    via u/Ballertronix
  • 13
    One kid turned in a 3 page paper saying "My name is Petya" typed via landscape orientation in 100 point font.
    via u/Ballertronix
  • 14
    Pellicio Extra Credit to 10th graders: Name any 2 vice Presidents. Some answers I recieved were Nicholas Biden, Sarah Palin, Osama Bin Laden, and John Lennan.
    via u/Pellicio
  • 15
    mathent Spanish class: Q: Finish the sentence: Hoy, estoy A: Hoy, estoy feeling well.
    via u/mathent
  • 16
    lca4nu Question: Why should you not drink sodium hydroxide? Answer: Because the sodium would contribute to hypertension.
    via u/lca4nu
  • 17
    happyhomer File this one under not reading carefully enough: Q: What year did WWI begin? A: Germany. Got this from three different students.
    via u/happyhomer
  • 18
    [deleted] Geography test 9th grade earth science. Student turns in exam with the map upside down. Continents labeled Atlantic and pacific. Oceans labeled as continents. Filled in upside down and can't recognize oceans and land... Not just one did this. Most had the map right side up at least.
    via u/[deleted]
  • 19
    Deradius Male 10th grade student. Assignment is a homework assignment on a sheet of notebook paper. Written at the top in his handwriting, in bright green highlighter is his name (upper right hand corner) and 'PLEASE DO THIS FOR ME'
    via u/Deradius
  • 20
    (scrawled across the top of the page like a title). The remainder of the assignment was in female handwriting, with hearts over every "i'. The female in question was a student of mine as well.
    via u/Deradius
  • 21
    GetLikeMe Today, one of my students handed in his exam, and not only did he get a 36% on an open notes/textbook test, he spelled his own name wrong.
    via u/GetLikeMe
  • 22
    I checked to see if he had a learning disability provision in his records? Nope. Checked former worksheets/tests he's handed in. He's spelled his name correctly in the past. I just... I did not know how to respond.
    via u/GetLikeMe
  • 23
    troncher I teach high school English. I assigned a traditional research paper to my junior class. One student turned in a paper that started with a quotation mark. The quotation mark to close that quote
    via u/troncher
  • 24
    appeared eight pages later followed by a citation. That was his entire paper. We both laughed about when he got his zero for the assignment.
    via u/troncher
  • 25
    A-punk I forgot that I had a science speech due and only realized as I turned up to class that day (we had to design our own experiments, with the hypothesis, how we did each test, conclusions etc). I pretended to go to the toilet and ran around outside for about ten minutes trying to figure what the I was going to do when I
    via u/A-punk
  • 26
    found some pieces of fishing line. When my name got called I did my speech on the strength of different types of fishing line, which I demonstrated by tying it to various objects such as tables or chairs and pulling them around the room,
    via u/A-punk
  • 27
    then estimating what each object weighed when the lines broke and claimed that's what the breaking point was. I thought I did pretty well. I failed.
    via u/A-punk
  • 28
    LeonardoFibonacci Speaking as a student, my bio teacher had grammar mistakes on his papers ALL THE TIME. Once we had to write a paragraph with the prompt "If you are a red blood cell, describe the path you would take through the circulatory system of a mammal."
    via u/LeonardoFibonacci
  • 29
    I wrote "I'm not" and got a 10/10 with the note "I guess I can't argue with this".
    via u/LeonardoFibonacci
  • 30
    Turbo_Dan I'm not a teacher, but this is an assignment I turned in and still hear stories about. We had an assignment in a 'relationships' class, or something of the sort, sophomore year of high school. We were to draw out and put together our "ideal" partner and list all the attributes that made them perfect for
    via u/Turbo_Dan
  • 31
    us. I viewed it as a ridiculous and vein assignment and opted to take it a different direction. I took a picture of my hand, printed it on a piece of paper, and wrote all my notes on it as to why my hand was the perfect partner. Things like "Always there for me", "never talks back", knows exactly what I like" etc.
    via u/Turbo_Dan
  • 32
    I got a barely passing grade. Teacher still tells that story.
    via u/Turbo_Dan
  • 33
    ebonycurtains I'm not a teacher, but in my last year of school I noticed some worksheets that had been turned in by a younger class of students and had been left on a desk in the classroom we were in.
    via u/ebonycurtains
  • 34
    One question asked for three consequences of a particular event which I don't recall (perhaps the Roman invasion of Britain). The student had written in response, "they ran out of potatoes; there are no other consequences."
    via u/ebonycurtains
  • 35
    hueyjak When I took art one in high school, we had to do a research paper on famous artists. Turns out that my two friends and I got Donatello, Raphael, and Michelangelo. (We drew from a hat) Along with this paper we had to do a presentation over our artists.
    via u/hueyjak
  • 36
    Needless to say, we all did Ninja Turtles, and she was fairly off, mostly because they weren't artists. We complained to the principal about failing and he said if we could prove they were artists, we would be graded fairly. So, we interviewed a karate teacher, and got a direct quote saying "martial arts IS an art."
    via u/hueyjak
  • 37
    jesuisauxchiottes. For a spanish homework, we had a translation to do. A friend used Google Translate, but he selected the wrong language. And submitted of course.
    via u/jesuisauxchiottes
  • 38
    Just4Lulzz My teacher always goes through a good test and a bad test/assignment. He got the Fry meme one time. One time he got this " as an answer. The one that was most hilarious to me was when we were asked "Why is this important?". Some kid wrote back "It's not. It's II
    via u/Just4Lulzz
  • 39
    a useless fact that will never apply to my daily life. Stop wasting my time with Please and thank you. like this.
    via u/Just4Lulzz
  • 40
    sixteenth Not a teacher, but Planes, Trains, and Plantains: The story of Oedipus is most definitely the funniest turned in/graded paper I've seen online. And yes, it seems he/she passed.
    via u/sixteenth
  • 41
    [deleted] Not a teacher but my little brother was doing bad in school so my mom asked for help. I checked his homework and it turns out he was writing in memes as the answers. "Not sure if [this answer], or [that answer]"
    via u/[deleted]
  • 42
    smartalco In my 7th grade health class my teacher would only check that an answer existed on homework problems, entirely skipping reading them. The class confirmed this when a guy wrote "Superman" as his answer on all 10 questions of a homework assignment and got 100%
    via u/smartalco
  • 43
    The Polly Student here. Another student in my AP Lit class was assigned a creative writing piece to write an extra chapter for "As I Lay Dying" from the point of view of any character that didn't narrate in the book. He chose the fish. The chapter consisted of 2 pages of "glub, glub, glub, glub..." He
    via u/The Polly
  • 44
    managed to get a 50/100 because the assignment was graded 50% creativity and 50% writing quality.
    via u/The Polly
  • 45
    speedwheels so i worked at a summer camp and i taught mammal study. one of the requierments were to write a 100 word essay, a paragraph, about a mammal. a guy turned in an essay talking aboutzombies, their
    via u/speedwheels
  • 46
    eating habits, mating patters and reporduction, habitats... it was 3 pages long and the funniest thing i have ever read.
    via u/speedwheels
  • 47
    ColdPhaedrus My favorite was when a student literally printed out a webpage and turned it in. Not copy and pasting. Just hit the print button in her web browser. This was high school. I think I went up to the front of the class and asked them how stupid they thought I was, out of genuine curiosity.
    via u/ColdPhaedrus

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