'I never learned this, just fail me': 20+ AP test proctors who got the funniest papers to grade

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Remy Millisky • Writer and Editor
May 20, 2024 5:00 PM EDT

Standardized testing is no fun for students, and yet every year, great importance is heaped upon these tests. It takes time away from actual learning, since teachers are forced to teach to the test instead of highlighting information they want their students to learn. No one really likes these tests, but many kids take AP tests get into colleges or to gain college credits.

When I was in high school, our school introduced a new standardized test, even though we already had a few others we also needed to take. Our teachers explained to the students that this new test did not count for each student. Instead, it was to assess how well the school was doing. One student clarified: if we failed this test, there was no penalty for doing so, and it wouldn't affect students' grades or college applications? The teachers answered no, and you could see the color drain from their faces as they realized, in front of an entire cafeteria of 8th graders, that not one student was going to take this test seriously. Most of us slept through the test after checking the boxes randomly. The teachers were irate, but there was little they could do to rally morale. 

These AP graders shared the funniest things they've ever graded, like one person who drew some detailed Superman logos, or others who begged the grader to pass them. Apparently, a lot of people slip money to the graders, which they're not allowed to accept. You can check the whole thing out below. 

Then, read about these customers who ordered the world's most cursed sandwiches. 

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  • 01
    Cheezburger Image 9925527552
    via Ben Mullins on Unsplash
  • 02
    AP graders of Reddit: what are the most greatest/ridiculous/funny things you have seen on a test you were grading?
    via u/calamitous_rush
  • 03
    MrThom_ Not me, but my Comp Sci teacher was a grader in 2016, and he said he had kids write notes to him saying "I can't take the test since my teacher taught me the wrong language but I have to sit for the exam" kind of thing.
    via u/MrThom_
  • 04
    My English teacher told me someone once drew a $100 bill flying through a window on the essay portion.
    via r/AskReddit
  • 05
    nucleophilic My high school AP English teacher was a grader. He once read an essay that was just the lyrics to "La Bamba" and that was it.
    via u/nucleophilic
  • 06
    [deleted] Grader here. I once got a hastily drawn caricature of what I assume was the student, with "I RAN OUT OF TIME FOR THIS PART" written above it, and "TIME RUNS OUT FOR EVEN THE FASTEST MEN" written on the bottom.
    via u/[deleted]
  • 07
    Emphasis on the hasty part, by the way, as this was clearly done in under 2 minutes.
    via u/[deleted]
  • 08
    trenton012001 My teacher is a grader for AP literature. Apparently once he had an incredibly detailed drawing of a toilet with $100 going down the drain.
    via u/trenton012001
  • 09
    joehizen My teacher said that quite a bit of people put money in the packet, but they can't keep the money.
    via u/joehizen
  • 10
    GMaharris My dad used to grade AP Government tests. The week of the exams in my class he would show us some of the funnier responses to make us feel better and more confident (I had him for both AP US History as well as government).
    via u/GMaharris
  • 11
    It has been many years but my favorite response he saw was "Politics originates from latin. Poli meaning "many" and tics being "bloodsuckers." I don't even remember the question the student responded to, but I still remember the response.
    via u/GMaharris
  • 12
    Moo... My Apush teacher said he read an essay that was just the lyrics of all-star by smashmouth. The kicker is that he had to read every word of it.
    via u/MoosenMan
  • 13
    [deleted] My AP World teacher grades and once told me that a student just turned in a paper that says "I never learned this just fail me." for his DBQ
    via u/[deleted]
  • 14
    [deleted] Not a grader, but I had a friend who was running out of time on the AP Physics C so for the last question he wrote OH GOD WHY in big letters across the page Still got a 5
    via u/[deleted]
  • 15
    KingNerdIII I wrote "What did one physicist say to the other?" "3.0x108m/s you later" I feel as though my 2 on that test was a little high.
    via u/KingNerdIII
  • 16
    Nandala I was in APUSH around 10 years ago. At the time (I'm not sure if this is still the case or not), you could omit anything from your essay portion by striking one line through it. So a misspelt word or name or whatever could be quickly erased without spending time actually erasing it.
    via u/Nandala
  • 17
    Well, around this time, the movie 300 came out. There was sort of this national joke movement to write "this is Sparta" in all caps somewhere in your essay, and then put a line through it. After the summer, we asked our teacher, who was also a grader, if he came across. any of these. He said that it was so prevalent that on the last day of grading,
    via u/Nandala
  • 18
    whenever someone came across one, they would stand up in the middle of the quiet grading hall and shout out "this is Sparta" before sitting back down and continuing to grade as if nothing had happened. I always got a kick out of that.
    via u/Nandala
  • 19
    [deleted] It wasn't for the AP but for the British Columbia grade 12 English provincial exam. There was one example provided to us as students that had scored a 1/6 (essentially a complete fail.) Now, bless this person's heart because English clearly wasn't their first language, but one line that stood out was:
    via u/[deleted]
  • 20
    "When Truth and Lie is fight... Truth is always win. In the end." It's been a decade since that class but it's burned into my memory.
    via u/[deleted]
  • 21
    BOBtheCOW14 My AP world teacher told me one time she got a crossword puzzle
    via u/BOBtheCOW14
  • 22
    TheFlamingLemon I was taking the AP Physics exam and didn't know at all about one of the problems. It said to "explain your thinking," though, and to "use diagrams to help in your explanation." I could work with that.
    via u/TheFlamingLemon
  • 23
    I explained all I could about the neurological process of thinking. I drew a diagram of the brain as a whole and of an individual neuron to help. I filled the page. Got a 4
    via u/TheFlamingLemon
  • 24
    SheZowRaised By... I was a co-worker with the TA from one of my biology classes and he told our group that this one kid wrote, "don't do it" at the top of the test just above the first question.
    via u/SheZowRaisedByWolves
  • 25
    SirB... Not a grader, but had a friend who took AP Art History with me. On the free response section he had to analyze a modern piece, and he, being French, instead wrote 4 pages on how modern art is not art. He got a 5 on the exam.
    via u/SirBray98
  • 26
    Abigblackdudedid... I was the student taking an AP Music theory exam my senior year of high school. A big part of the test was sight singing, which I had absolutely no interest in. So I recorded my own rendition of "Bad Romance" by Lady Gaga and handed it in. I did well enough on the rest of the exam to just barely get a college credit.
    via r/AskReddit
  • 27
    _ a _ o _ Obligatory "not an AP grader" but I had a friend who took the AP English Lit exam and completely made up a play "written by" Tennessee Williams. Made up the plot, the characters, the symbolism, everything, and got a 5 on the exam. Apparently Williams was so prolific and disorganized that people aren't totally sure about his full body of
    via u/_ a_ o _
  • 28
    work or something? So the grader probably just thought that was one they hadn't heard of and wanted to save face. Also, fun fact, anything that you write and then strikethrough is not allowed to be graded. Apparently that Tennessee Williams essay had a couple of references to RoboCop that were very legible still, but had to be ignored.
    via u/_ a_ o _
  • 29
    jambol Not a grader but I took the AP Lit test my senior year and the last essay was an open question where you were supposed to pick a book and analyze its themes. I was like a week away from graduating and I hadn't exactly read a book in a while (thanks Sparknotes) so I wrote a very lengthy, in- depth analysis of The Dark Knight.
    via u/jambol
  • 30
    I got a 4 and I'm pretty sure the reason I didn't get a 5 was because I spelled Jonathan Nolan's name wrong. e: I know it's a Christopher Nolan movie. I'm a huge Nolan fan. The movie was co-written by both Christopher and Jonathan Nolan. On a literature test you generally want to list the authors.
    via u/jambol
  • 31
    nevillelongbottom... Not a grader, but I wonder what the grader thought of my AP World History test. I essentially wrote Ferdinand and Isabella fanfiction about them going on a spring break trip together because I wasn't sure how to answer the question. I was shocked when I got a 3 on the test.
    via u/nevillelongbottom90
  • 32
    [deleted] I'm not a grader, but my friend took AP Music Theory. The final involved sight singing a melody, and he up right in the middle of it. So he just beatboxed for a bit afterwards. He got a 2 on it, which was higher than we thought it would be.
    via u/[deleted]
  • 33
    aww_coffee_no Not AP, but standardized testing for middleschoolers. There's an essay question that's been around at least since I was in middle school where students read an article about how schools are replacing the candy in vending machines with healthy foods, and then students are asked to write an argument for or against it. A large amount of
    via u/aww_coffee_no
  • 34
    students think that their school is actually going to change the vending machines, and get really upset about it. My favorites. I've read involve threatening that the students will go on strike, students will refuse to eat their lunches until the vending machines are changed, and that students will start a black market at lunch for trading unhealthy food brought from home.
    via u/aww_coffee_no
  • 35
    mapacoon My AP World History teacher told this story a couple years ago to my class. If you don't know, one of the sections on the AP World History exam basically requires you to look at around 10 (?) or so documents and write an essay on some historical topic using those documents as resources.
    via u/mapacoon
  • 36
    One of the points in the rubric you can get in this essay requires you to suggest another type of source that would be useful in answering/analyzing the topic given in the prompt. This is the easiest point to get. One student, of course, forgot to include this part in his essay, and so in the very last seconds of the testing period, he frantically rushed
    via u/mapacoon
  • 37
    to tack on a sentence that would say it'd be useful to see this issue from the perspective of a woman, perhaps from a woman's journal or something. What he wrote? "I want a woman."
    via u/mapacoon
  • 38
    RamenTheory My AP teacher told me he read an essay by this guy explaining that his high school required him to take the AP test, but it didn't matter to him since he was going into the military and had already been accepted. Guy then proceeded to write about his car, his girlfriend, his dog, and other various aspects of his life.
    via u/RamenTheory
  • 39
    maybeimjustkidding Not an AP grader, but I took the AP Chemistry exam after I'd already committed to a school that wouldn't accept the credit, so instead of answering any of the questions, I created a crossword puzzle complete with a list of clues. I imagine whatever poor teacher graded that test was a bit confused.
    via u/maybeimjustkidding
  • 40
    Kyle RichXV Not a grader, but I have a few stories about the AP Physics E&M exam from 2005. - • I took the exam, realized about 5 minutes into the exam that I had no idea what I was reading or, apparently, anything about E&M so I left the non-multiple choice
    via u/Kyle RichXV
  • 41
    questions blank and put my head down for 40 minutes. • MY friend had mentally checked out of that school year, did zero studying for the exam, and drew 3 different variations of the Superman logo for his Short Answer problems.
    via u/Kyle RichXV
  • 42
    cam_03 My AP teacher told us about a student who wrote a five page paper about prom. What he wore, who he brought, and basically everything they did that night. And at the end he wrote one sentence giving the correct answer. The graders are obligated to read the whole paper, and they had to give him full credit.
    via u/cam_03

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