Non Campus Mentis showcases some of the silliest, weirdest and just plain sad exam answers ever to grace a Blue Book. The examples contained within are in response to various questions on tests given in Western Civilization courses and other history subsets. Some of the humorous tidbits stem from misspellings or other manglings of various words. Others find their roots in mixing up events and the decades in which they occurred. Even more stem from the test takers just not having a clue. No answers are attributed to a particular person or school. However, professors from a variety of fairly prestigious schools contributed to this collection of mind boggling statements from co-eds across North America.

History buffs with a sense of humor or anyone who wants to examine the decline of Western education from a sillier standpoint. It is truly humor of the thinking person.

How the answers were organized in historical chronological order. The chapters were all various periods in history, so someone could skip straight to the World War I section if he/she wished. Likewise, just check out the maps. WHere students think some countries are located (and what even counts as a country) will make many geography fans cry (or at least want to).

The addendum with responses to test questions about the Middle East was kind of small and not as giggle inducing as the rest of the book. I think, though, that will change with time as more and more students study the Middle East more (in depth) than ever before.

laugh...and cry. Are college kids really that uninformed?

glad I was in an educational position to skip many of the introductory college courses and go almost straight to the specialized knowledge where mistakes of this sort are a little more understandable.

Anders Henriksson is a professor of history at Shepherd College in Shepherdstown, West Virginia.

it generates weird simultaneous emotional reactions, such as amusement coupled with despair.

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Created Apr 18, 2009 at 10:01pm • Submit your own review...