Dear Reader: This article appears as part of Student Life’s annual April Fool’s issue.
Editor’s Note: While this story is fake, Orgo Test Guy is no urban legend. The test described here was both turned in and graded for Organic Chemistry 252 on March 1, 2006.
A freaking weird Organic Chemistry examination was discovered on March 1, sources disclosed this week. The exam received 4 points out of 100, the lowest grade in the class.
Among the answers provided by the mysterious student were a sketch of Santa Claus and his sled, frequent mentions of actor Chuck Norris, and a near-perfect copy of Lewis Carroll’s poem “Jabberwocky.”
“Usually we get our share of bizarrely and poorly answered Orgo exams,” explained Chemistry Teaching Assistant Alan Vermillion. “But this one really just takes the cake. Really, there’s just no freaking way someone could have included the word ‘Zinwrathium’ as an answer to a question about identifying the chiral centers of organic compounds.”
The identity of the “Orgo Test Guy,” the name many Washington University student have given the student, remains unclear. However, most within the secretive and mysterious annals of the University Chemistry Department believe that the exam was taken by someone not – or no longer – in the class.
“From what I heard,” said sophomore Sundeep Devraj, who, like many other pre-medical students in Organic Chemistry, studies like a freaking dog, “the Orgo Test Guy was someone who planned to drop out of the class but had the test coming up anyway. Thank God, because the curve is completely dependent on the average grade.”
Literary theory graduate student Jane Campbell has offered a more in-depth and deconstructive explanation for the test.
“One can view insanity and madness – which no doubt involves writing Lewis Carroll poetry and ‘ROLFCOPTER’ on a chemistry exam – as a form of protest against an authoritative status quo,” said Campbell. “Reading this freaking weird exam as a quasi-hysterical, albeit hilarious, text that argues against the everyday pressures of Wash. U. pre-med student, we can readily see that any attempt, especially by an academic institution, to establish hierarchies of grades, or ‘grades,’ and to centralize identity and competence around a norm that is the mean, or a ‘mean,’ is ethically problematic and, I would argue, oppressive.”
Psychology professor Victoria Clement disagreed with Campbell’s assessment of the Organic Chemistry test.
“It is possible to view such an exam as a form of protest against a restrictive academic institution, and in this case, I agree,” said Clement. “However, in this case, it is more of a reaction stemming from the student’s conflicting desires to both reconcile himself and reject a class which no doubt causes him a great degree of a trouble. This whole thing could be interpreted in an infinite number of perspectives. However, most attempts to tease apart any meaning here will probably include a reaction of ‘what the hell?'”
Finally, several chemistry Teaching Assistants have speculated that the infamous Orgo Test Guy is not an isolated incident, as more students may send in completely nonsense exams.
“We have to grade dozens of these exams in less than 24 hours,” explained Teaching Assistant Amanda Aaronson, “so you can imagine how hard it is to grade one freaking hilarious test that makes you laugh so damn hard that you can’t even grade the rest of the tests. Of course, such exams could be indicative of at least one student losing his mind, but in Organic Chemistry, that’s pretty much inevitable.”
For expanded coverage and examples of Orgo Test Guy’s real-life test answers, see Orgo Test Guy: real-life test examples.