Some math teachers are almost as difficult to deal with as their exams.

In this case, students were allowed to bring calculators for a test, but when one student brought a cheap calculator shaped like a phone, his teacher demanded he bring a “real” calculator.

She didn’t know what she was really letting the student use!

Let’s read the story.

Get a real calculator? Got it.

Firstly, I do not live in Western countries.

There’s a point where I talk about a program in my country. I’ll translate it in a way that makes it simple to understand, but probably won’t be accurate.

This happened over 10 years ago. I was still in what was equal to a high school in the US. I was about to have a mid-semester math exam.

The math teacher, one of the worst math teachers I’ve ever had, says that since the exam was about solving inequations and 2nd-degree polynomial equations (and she didn’t care if we could do simple math or not since we’ve been doing that for years already) we could bring our calculator into the exam room.

It really sounds great.

We can’t use a calculator on a phone, for obvious reason, but otherwise, there’s no restriction.

It does sound too good to be true, especially from this particular teacher, so everyone asks the higher-grade student who took her test last year if she’s been doing this to previous year’s students as well or not.

We found out that she always let her students use a calculator, but because she loves making the questions stupidly complex for no reason, a lot of people get terrible scores anyway despite the calculator.

Yikes. She would unknowingly help one student very soon, though.

Now, a little about myself – I have a special interest in science since I was a kid.

About a year earlier, I joined an astronomy summer camp program.

As part of that, I got myself a scientific calculator.

It’s way overkill for an average high school student, and I wouldn’t really use it to full capacity again until the university, but it made my life in the program a lot easier.

It’s a very fancy calculator.

It’s also shaped perfectly to fit in my pocket, so I’ve been using it as an everyday calculator to this day.

However, the calculator has a built-in equation solver, and since the exam is mostly multiple-choice questions, this meant I could finish the exam by just entering the equation into the calculator and letting it do the job for me.

Interesting! But he is an honest person.

I felt a bit disgusted to bring it into the exam room as a result, so, out of respect for the exam, I decided to get myself a cheap, conventional calculator from a convenience store across the school the day before the test.

As per regulation, when students enter the exam room, we have to show our student ID and all of the exam tools to the overseeing teacher prior to entering the room.

As luck would have it, my overseeing teacher was that math teacher.

She was about to make his day a lot easier while thinking he was being disciplined.

I showed my student ID, my exam tools, and my conventional calculator, as per the regulations demanded.

The calculator was a cheap model, shaped like an ancient cell phone for aesthetic reasons (even had a fake antenna on it that did nothing).

I didn’t think much of it, but apparently, the math teacher took offense to that, believing I was challenging the “no phone” rule.

I tried to argue that it was just a stupid calculator that just shaped like a phone, to no avail.

This was the perfect opportunity to switch calculators.

She ended the argument by telling me that I could either enter the exam room right then, or go back outside to grab a real calculator, but I won’t get in with that “phone”.

So I, a bit upset at this point, decided to comply.

I went back outside, opened my bag, put my calculator-pretending-to-be-a-phone inside, and brought out my beloved scientific calculator, then walked back in line to prepare to enter the exam room again.

What would you have done?

Surprisingly, she didn’t complain about it… at all. She made a snide remark about why I didn’t bring this in the first place, then let me enter the exam room.

I didn’t know what was on her mind at that moment, and frankly, I didn’t care.

Unsurprisingly, I aced that test as a result.

Not proud of it, but she asked for it.

A++!

Let’s see what Redditors have to say about this.

A reader shares their thoughts.

Someone shares their experience using calculators during a test.

Yup!

Scientific calculators are really cool, indeed!

Another reader chimes in.

Nothing to feel guilty about.

Be careful what you ask for!

If you liked that post, check out this one about an employee that got revenge on HR when they refused to reimburse his travel.