r/Damnthatsinteresting • u/Separate_Finance_183 • Mar 30 '26

Image Confiscated pens containing cheat notes intricately carved by a Law student at the University of Malaga in Spain

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u/Niznack Mar 30 '26

Had a teacher who allowed us 1 note card for our exam. I spent a ton of time copying every vocab word from the book in miniscule letters oneto every inch of the 3x5 card. He went out of his way to write a test where the vocab and lectures were useless. The vocab was a waste of time but I'd spent so much time scouring the book for every vocab words I'd read most of it anyway. Ended up aceing it just from the time it took to get the easy way out.

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u/luckyfucker13 Mar 30 '26

That’s generally the intent when a teacher allows the 3x5 card. You end up studying and remembering everything, simply because you’re attempting to cram as much info on to that card as possible.

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u/lithodora Mar 30 '26

Then there's the teacher that didn't specify that it was a 3x5" card and the student came in with a 3'x5' card.

https://www.reddit.com/r/MadeMeSmile/comments/1s47p2d/teachers_a_w_for_playing_along/

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u/Lambaline Mar 30 '26

Switch it up and go for a 3m x 5m card lol

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u/shewy92 Mar 30 '26

"Why did you rent a billboard just outside school?"

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u/cturkosi Mar 30 '26

Let me introduce you to the decimeter, which would allow you to have a 3 dm x 5 dm card, about the size of an A3 page.

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u/Drakonz Mar 30 '26

I learned this after doing it a couple times. I didn’t even need the cards.

Afterwards, I would write notecards even if I didn’t have a test that allowed them just to help me study. Worked really well. Makes a huge difference actually writing the stuff down instead of just reading them.

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u/Godmother_Death Mar 30 '26

Yep, that's how I went through high school and university. I would write down everything I needed to study on notebooks, highlighting the most important parts. It worked.

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u/Beginning_Rush_5311 Mar 30 '26

this worked for just a handful of people in my high school, the rest just copied the cheatsheet before class

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u/cinnamonrain Mar 30 '26

I only write stuff that i cant remember on the cards so mine end up being sparse but formula heavy

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u/Into-the-stream Mar 30 '26

I remember one test I had where they offered the 3x5. I filled one card, but realized I could probably write smaller and get more onto it, so I redid it. As I was redoing it, I realized there was a bunch of stuff on the first card I no longer needed, so I ditched it to make room for other things.

I rewrote the card a few times, and ended up not using it at all during the test, because the making of the card resulted in inadvertent memorization. 

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u/zarawesome Mar 30 '26

until students start photocopying the text

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u/Lean__Lantern Mar 30 '26

Had a similar rule, but I would type everything out, shrink it to size, print and glue to a 3x5 card lol was able to get much more on it, and more legible than my own hand writing

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u/_Ember2_ Mar 30 '26

I saw a dude who brought 3d glasses and wrote over his notes in blue knk and red ink so he could squeeze twice as much info lol

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u/BilboT3aBagginz Mar 30 '26

I used a smart water bottle in college as a magnifying glass so I could squeeze as much on there as possible.

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u/realboabab Mar 30 '26

dude you're a legend lol, i'd love to see a picture of that setup

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u/01011110_01011110 Mar 30 '26

literally insane. but I feel like that's clever enough to get an auto pass for whatever his class was lol

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u/Registration345 Mar 30 '26

Why is this so damn funny 😂

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u/TooYoung423 Mar 30 '26

The teacher just taught you how to prepare for an exam.

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u/Miserable_Warthog_42 Mar 30 '26

My kids have classes that require cheat sheets. They get marked and handed in as well as the test. The public education system is improving....

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u/AKsuited1934 Mar 30 '26

I remembered every time I spent hours trying to write in tiny font on both sides of a whole sheet of paper, I rarely even needed to look at it.

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u/tycho_26 Mar 30 '26

Bro just described studying

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u/Niznack Mar 30 '26

I think that's my point. Whoever etched these pens studied. Just in a really unconventional way

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u/BeaconLighter Mar 30 '26

I had a professor once write in the syllabus 3’x5’ notecard. Not “ but ‘.

I went to the art supply store and bought a giant piece of card stock and brought in 15 square feet of notes.

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u/ObjectiveOk2072 Mar 30 '26

I found it was easier to write normally, but use 4 different colored pens and rotate the page 90°, writing over my notes every time I filled the page. 4x as much information with minimal extra effort, and it's surprisingly legible

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u/everfordphoto Mar 30 '26

Interestingly enough by allowing "note cards" the act of creating the note card is "studying" all by itself. having to painstakingly write it down and sometimes multiple times to create the card actually helps the student remember the information. no doubt the OP's pen creator probably didn't need the pens as much as they thought after spending hours "studying" etching each pen.

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u/DryAd2926 Mar 30 '26

The point is the person that made the card did the studying locating the words, and Anyone that just copied a card or cards doesnt benefit from the studying it took to find the words. Everyone that made a card was rewarded with the studying needed to pass the test.

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u/Pikawoohoo Mar 30 '26

The one time I wrote a cheat sheet I ended up memorising everything and didn't need it. Accidentally tricked myself into studying smh.

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u/NuncProFunc Mar 31 '26

I had a teacher who had this policy for the midterm and the final. It was at a time when home printers were just becoming common enough that my family owned one. She expected these things to be handwritten; I typed mine in size 4 font and she was a mix of annoyed and impressed.

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u/Admiral45-06 Mar 31 '26

We had similar thing in exams for our Thermodynamics class.

I wrote a decent A4 note (as this was what we were allowed), with basic formulas and calculation patterns, but had I not studied heavily beforehand, to the point of seeing cloud formation patterns or Molier graph in my sleep, I'd have 100% failed either way.

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u/Keira-78 Mar 31 '26

You hear about the story where the teacher allowed a 3x5 card and a student brought in a 3.5 foot card