This past fall semester, at Duke University, there
were two sophomores who
were taking Organic Chemistry and who did pretty
well on all of the
quizzes and the midterms and labs, etc., such
that going into the final
they had a solid 'A'. These two friends were
so confident going into the
final that the weekend before finals week, even
though the Chem final was
on Monday, they decided to go up to University
of Virginia and party with
some friends up there. So they did this and had
a great time. However,
with their hangovers and everything, they overslept
all day Sunday and
didn't make it back to Duke until early Monday
morning.
Rather than taking the final then, what they did
was to find Professor
Aldric after the final and explain to him why
they missed the final. They
told him that they went up to UVA for the weekend,
and had planned to come
back in time to study, but that they had a flat
tire on the way back and
didn't have a spare and couldn't get help for
a long time and so were late
getting back to campus.
Aldric thought this over and then agreed that
they could make up the final
on the following day. The two guys were elated
and relieved. So, they
studied that night and went in the next day at
the time that Aldric had
told them. He placed them in separate rooms and
handed each of them a test
booklet and told them to begin.
They looked at the first problem, which was something
simple about free
radical formation and was worth 5 points. "Cool"
they thought, "this is
going to be easy." They did that problem and
then turned the page. They
were unprepared, however, for what they saw on
the next page.
It said: (95 points) Which tire?