The embarrassing shortcut I used to pass Spanish 102 in 2010

I had to take Spanish in college and I was absolutely terrible at verb conjugations. Instead of actually studying like a normal person, I wrote out a cheat sheet on the inside of a water bottle label and re-stuck it. It worked for the final exam, I got a B, but 14 years later I still can't hold a basic conversation. Has anyone else pulled a dumb trick like this that solved the short term problem but left you with nothing long term?

3 comments

3 Comments

wilson.joseph4h ago

Man that's the perfect kind of short term fix that feels genius at the time but bites you later. I did basically the same thing in my freshman year stats class, wrote formulas on my forearm under a long sleeve shirt and peeked during the final. Got a B+ and now I couldn't tell you the first thing about standard deviation or whatever. The worst part is you think you're being clever but really you're just setting yourself up to have a gap in your brain forever. At least with Spanish you could still pick it up later if you tried, I'm not sure I'll ever voluntarily look at a statistic again.

phoenixw114h ago

Wow yeah @wilson.joseph you totally changed my view on this. I used to think cheating on something like Spanish was no big deal if you never needed it, but you're right that having a hole in your brain feels worse than just failing and actually learning it later. Might just bite the bullet and retake the test legit.

charles_mitchell2h ago

Man I did the exact same thing with my high school chemistry final. Crammed some equations into my calculator's memory and thought I was a genius when I passed. Now I'm 32 and every time someone mentions molar mass or something I just nod along like I get it. Had to reteach myself basic chem last year when my kid asked for help with homework and I couldn't even explain what an element was. Wasted way more time fixing the gap than I would have just studying the first time.