A guy was writing his final exam with about three hundred other students. He couldn’t take the stress of the moment. He sat up in the middle of the exam, stuck a sharpened pencil in each nostril, threw his head back and then slammed it into the desk, thrusting the pencils into his brain. He died instantly. The other students were given credit for their exam. Whatever grade they obtained in other exams was used for their final degree.

The high-pressure environment of college has led to many legends that express the stresses and anxieties felt by students by describing desperate or bizarre behavior, especially in connection with examinations. The suicide and the special grading consideration given to other students affected by it are both elements found in one of the most widespread of collegiate legends, one holding that a student whose roommate commits suicide automatically receive a 4.0 grade point average for the current school term. Pass by catastrophe is an academic urban legend proposing that if some particular catastrophic event occurs, students whose performance could have been affected by the event are automatically awarded passing grades, on the grounds that there would then be no way to assess them fairly and they should not be penalized for the catastrophe.

On a lighter, more silly note!

At the close of the final exam, the proctor announced time was up and directed the students to turn their blue books in. One student, hastening to finish a thought, kept scribbling. Finishing, he rushed to the front of the room and handed in his exam book, one of the last to do so.

The proctor said, “I won’t accept this,” and the flabbergasted student asked why. “I told everyone to stop and you kept on going. I can’t accept it.”

The student was aghast. “What’ll happen then?”

“You’ll probably flunk,” shrugged the proctor.

With that, the student drew himself up proudly and asked, “Do you know who I am?”

Unimpressed, the proctor answered, “No.”

The student replied, “Good,” and jammed his blue book into the center of the pile on the desk.

1. In some versions the student has to hide his identity because he’s been caught cheating (usually by illicitly using notes).

2. Other versions feature a ringer — a student paid to take the test on behalf of someone else — who obscures his identity when caught to cover for the student who hired him.

3. In some versions the professor giving the exam can’t identify the cheating student because the class is very large (and he therefore doesn’t know every student by sight); in others the test is being given by a proctor who isn’t familiar with any of the test-takers.

This is a common collegiate legend whose key element is the anonymity of students to their instructors; in this tale, as Bronner says, “the cheater in essence punishes the teacher for his lack of attention in such a large class.” This story has often been told as a joke, set in situations (such as the military) where a superior has authority over a large number of faceless underlings, or any situation involving a large gathering of people. One example of the latter is the following, from a 1950 joke book:

There was a dinner for the new governor. The grizzled old county chairman, who had never seen the new boss, turned to the lady next to him. “Don’t tell me that mug is the governor?”

“I think you’re impudent and crude,” she said icily. “Do you know who I am?”

The county leader shook his head.

“I am the governor’s wife.”

His recovery was instant. “Do you know who I am?”

“No,” she said stiffly.

“Good,” he replied. “My job is still safe.”

Cartoon drawn based on the story: https://www.snopes.com/tachyon/images/college/graphics/doyoukno.jpg?resize=201,273