Funny (not so Funny) GMAT Things

This is true for Exams (after you got into the business school, but you can practice some of these on the GMAT as well)


Things To Do On An Exam
When you know that you are going to fail anyway:

1. Bring a pillow. Fall asleep (or pretend to) until the last 15 minutes. Wake up, say, "oh geez, better get cracking," and do some gibberish work. Turn it in a few minutes early.

2. Get a copy of the exam, run out screaming, "Andre, Andre, IтАЩve got the secret documents!!"

3. If it is a math/science exam, answer in essay form. If it is long answer/essay form, answer with numbers and symbols. Be creative. Use the integral symbol.

4. Make paper airplanes out of the exam. Aim them at the instructorтАЩs left nostril.

5. Talk the entire way through the exam. Read questions aloud, debate your answers with yourself out loud. If asked to stop, yell out, "IтАЩm SOOO sure you can hear me thinking." Then start talking about what a jerk the instructor is.

6. Bring cheerleaders.

7. Walk in, get the exam, sit down. About five minutes into it, loudly say to the instructor, "I donтАЩt understand ANY of this. IтАЩve been to every lecture all semester long! WhatтАЩs the deal?

And who the hell are you? WhereтАЩs the regular guy?"

8. Bring a Game Boy (or Game Gear, etc...). Play with the volume at max level.

9. On the answer sheet (book, whatever) find a new, interesting way to refuse to answer every question. For example: I refuse to answer this question on the grounds that it conflicts with my religious beliefs. Be creative.

10. Bring pets.

11. Run into the exam room looking about frantically. Breathe a sigh of relief. Go to the instructor, say, "TheyтАЩve found me, I have to leave the country" and run off.

12. Fifteen minutes into the exam, stand up, rip up all the papers into very small pieces, throw them into the air and yell out "Merry Christmas." If youтАЩre really daring, ask for another copy of the exam. Say you lost the first one. Repeat this process every fifteen minutes.

13. Do the exam with crayons, paint, or fluorescent markers.

14. Come into the exam wearing slippers, a bathrobe, a towel on your head, and nothing else.

15. Come down with a BAD case of TuretтАЩs Syndrome during the exam. Be as vulgar as possible.

16. Do the entire exam in another language. If you donтАЩt know one, make one up! For math/science exams, try using Roman numerals.

17. Bring things to throw at the instructor when s/heтАЩs not looking. Blame it on the person nearest to you.

18. As soon as the instructor hands you the exam, eat it.

19. Walk into the exam with an entourage. Claim you are going to be taping your next video during the exam. Try to get the instructor to let them stay, be persuasive. Tell the instructor to expect a percentage of the profits if they are allowed to stay.

20. Every five minutes, stand up, collect all your things, move to another seat, continue with the exam.

21. Turn in the exam approximately 30 minutes into it. As you walk out, start commenting on how easy it was.

22. Do the entire exam as if it was multiple choice and true/false. If it is a multiple choice exam, spell out interesting things (DCCAB.BABE. etc..).

23. Bring a black marker. Return the exam with all questions and answers completely blacked out.

24. Get the exam. Twenty minutes into it, throw your papers down violently, scream out "**** this!" and walk out triumphantly.

25. Arrange a protest before the exam starts (i.e. Threaten the instructor that whether or not everyoneтАЩs done, they are all leaving after one hour to go drink)

26. Show up completely drunk. (Completely drunk means at some point during the exam, you should start crying for mommy)

27. Every now and then, clap twice rapidly. If the instructor asks why, tell him/her in a very derogatory tone, "the light bulb that goes on above my head when I get an idea is hooked up to a clapper. DUH!"

28. Comment on how sexy the instructor is looking that day.

29. Come to the exam wearing a black cloak. After about 30 minutes, put on a white mask and start yelling, "IтАЩm here, the phantom of the opera," until they drag you away.

30. Go to an exam for a class you have no clue about, where you know the class is very small, and the instructor would recognize you if you belonged. Claim that you have been to every lecture. Fight for your right to take the exam.

31. Upon receiving the exam, look it over. While laughing loudly, say, "you donтАЩt really expect me to waste my time on this drivel? Days of our Lives is on!!!"

32. Bring a water pistol with you. Nuff said.

33. From the moment the exam begins, hum the theme to Jeopardy.

Ignore the instructorтАЩs requests for you to stop. When they finally get you to leave one way or another, begin whistling the theme to the Bridge on the River Kwai.

34. Start a brawl in the middle of the exam.

35. If the exam is math/science related, make up the longest proofs you could possibly think of. Get pi and imaginary numbers into most equations. If it is a written exam, relate everything to your own life story.

36. Come in wearing a full knightтАЩs outfit, complete with sword and shield.

37. Bring a friend to give you a back massage the entire way through the exam. Insist this person is needed, because you have bad circulation.

38. Bring cheat sheets FOR ANOTHER CLASS (make sure this is obvious... like history notes for a calculus exam... otherwise youтАЩre not just failing, youтАЩre getting kicked out too) and staple them to the exam, with the comment, "Please use the attached notes for references as you see fit."

39. When you walk in, complain about the heat. Strip.

40. After you get the exam, call the instructor over, point to any question, ask for the answer. Try to work it out of him/her.

41. One word: Wrestlemania.

42. Bring balloons, blow them up, start throwing them around like they do before concerts start.

43. Try to get people in the room to do the wave.

44. Play frisbee with a friend at the other side of the room.

45. Bring some large, cumbersome, ugly idol. Put it right next to you. Pray to it often. Consider a small sacrifice.

46. Get deliveries of candy, flowers, balloons, https://gmatclub.com/chat, etc... sent to you every few minutes throughout the exam.

47. During the exam, take apart everything around you. Desks, chairs, anything you can reach.

48. Complete the exam with everything you write being backwards at a 90 degree angle.

49. Bring a musical instrument with you, play various tunes. If you are asked to stop, say, "it helps me think." Bring a copy of the Student Handbook with you, challenging the instructor to find the section on musical instruments during finals. DonтАЩt forget to use the phrase "Told you so".

50. Answer the exam with the "Top Ten Reasons Why Professor xxxx Sucks."

I hate to be a kiljoy but I don't think any of these are that funny, not funny enough to make me buy a t-shirt with them printed on there. If we did buy such a shirt, we'd pretty much only be able to wear it at b-school because it's such an inside joke that no one else would get it. They'd just think we're geeks/dorks.

Sorry to burst a bubble but I just don't think they're funny enough.

we will try to accomodate individual requests. would you like to try?

we are always open to suggestions.

I would appreciate a tip.

On the other hand, it may be just me, but I like wearing exclusive T-shirts with such things as logo of Macao or some neighborhood from Hong Kong that only locals know - this way you can connect with a person in the crowd. It gives a feeling of belonging to some special group, and GMATClub is a special group.

In any case, your contribution of funny/non-funny things are appreciated

Bogdan

My suggestion is to not print t-shirts with GMAT-related sayings on them. People won't buy them, and if you're hoping to raise funds for the site by selling shirts, it's a very risky idea. I don't know if you've taken a poll yet to see what the interest level, but whatever percentage says yes, drop it by at least half. People say they will buy things and often don't.

I have been in marketing for about 10 years, and got my start at a company that did promotional products such as t-shirts. You have to consider your market, and unless these shirts are absolutely hilarious, people will browse through the selection, chuckle, and click away. The days of wearing dot com t-shirts are long over. But business professionals don't often wear imprinted t-shirts anyway, so I don't think it's a wise idea to pursue. You could lose your shirt on them, pun intended!

You have a captive audience of GMAT-takers and b-school student wannabes. They're a lucrative market - sell ad space to the universities, test prep companies, book publishers, whatever. You'll have significantly lower overhead and a much higher profit margin. Just don't allow annoying ads!

Lucyloo,

thanks for the tips

We are plannign to print/sell T-shirts via https://www.cafepress.com and they do on-demand printing, which makes the T-shirts very expensive and allows very little profit .However, we were not planning to make a fortune on the T-shirts anyway, just wanted to raise awareness and provide this option. Investment is very minimal - $5/month for the membership and all the merchandise is manufactured after it is ordered. Here is an example of the store.

Your suggesting about school and prep companies is good - we are working and trying to get on it, but the lack of time and experience is the greatest roadblock.

-Bogdan.

LucyLoo has got a very good point. Although I find many of the suggestions very funny, I doubt many people will buy it simply because it's more inside jokes that are funny too us only, GMAT takers, and the common mortal will just think of us as geeks I'm not sure I would buy one if available but as you said, if the price is prohibitive, I would maybe desist. Also, for your own budgeting and fundraising issues, I wonder how much it would cost you to have it custom made and ship it...

Hey Paul,

Here is an example of a store:
https://www.cafeshops.com/phpbb,phpbb2,phpbb3,phpbb4

The T-shirts are $15-16 and the profit I think is $1; Shipping is probably extra Not sure. The good thing is that it does not cost anything upfront.

--

Definitely not worth it for only a $1 profit per shirt. That doesn't give you enough of a margin for error, returns, etc. Think about it as future b-school students - would you ever pitch a business plan where your cost per product is $15 and your selling price is $16? You'd never get funding for that. It is a very unwise investment, even for doing orders as they come in. On-demand inventory doesn't work for small business.

I thought I have mentioned above that it was not an "investment" sorry if I failed to. It is a way to raise publicity and promote the name as well as something that we could use as a reward if we wanted to give somebody a present.

It does sound very very unreasonable from a financial standpoint


-=-

Well, technically, yeah, it is an investment. You have to pay for the shirts before you get paid by your customers in most cases, so you take the risk that you won't get paid. Of course you could wait to place the order until after you get the funds transferred into your account, but the fees you pay for credit card orders will exceed your perceived profit. You would lose money on this arrangement for sure!

Sorry, again misunderstanding,
I guess I will have to beg for forgiveness right away

The company that charges a lot for the T-shirts is an outsourcing company - I just upload my logos and sayings on their website, pick the T-shirt colors/designs and they take care of the rest.
This means that when an order comes in, the will print, package, ship, and process the payment. At the end of every month, I get a statement with the amount.
Their basic service is free but allows only one product in each category; the "premium" service is $5/month - this part is actual investment, so we will need to sell 5 T-shirts to recoup it


Did I miss anything this time?

I changed the topic name of this discussion to reflect the comments.

It used to be called "Funny Funny GMAT Things"

You've been taking the GMAT too many times if:

You have all editions from every known publisher of GMAT study guides.

It's still not worth it, no matter what the arrangement. Suppose you sell 20 shirts a month. That's still only a $20 monthly income. Suppose you sell 100 shirts? Still only $100. How many active users of this site do you have? Assume that less than 5% of them would actually buy a shirt (a 2% conversion rate on an e-commerce Web site used to be considered an excellent rate, but I doubt that sites even with large selections get much more than 5%). You're talking pennies when you should be focusing your efforts on bigger dollars.

In all honesty, it's a little scary that the two folks running this site, and presumably planning to go to b-school, don't already understand business well enough to quickly see that this is not a viable source of revenue for the site. Of course, I don't know your backgrounds and whether you've ever worked in retail or a related business, so I may be assuming too much about what you should already know about pursuing sources of revenue.

What would be a better bet is to become an affiliate of a site like Amazon or Barnes & Noble. You have places here where people can review and read reviews of books, so you could offer links to one of these sites and earn a commission off the sale. It's not a huge moneymaker most of the time, but you'd have a much better shot of selling something than you would with t-shirts.

Your best bet would still be advertising, sponsored chats (get various experts to host a chat and pay for the privilege), an email newsletter that is sponsored by your advertsiers (just don't sell anyone our email addresses!), etc. You have a highly targeted and motivated audience here and could probably earn a fair enough income from advertising to at least pay for site administration costs.

What's more scarry is that some of us are finishing up a business school.


I am sorry, but how many times I need to say that it is not done for a profit? Obviously one has to be the biggest idiot to assume that selling T-shirts to fans/visitors will generate enough profit for anything. It is so obvious that it won't make money that it is even rediculous to menion it and you keep banging on it Each member will have to buy a T-shirt every month, to make any sort of living out of it. I don't think ANY of the clients of https://www.cafepress.com make a living out of it. It is an awareness/loyalty/status issue. You have to be a Nautica or Ralph Lauren to make anything on T-shirts.

Why do schools sell T-shirts? Is that becuase they need those $20,000 a year in profit? (of course depends on the size of the school).

Just a quick question, do you know how much Amazon pays in referral fees? (We do have a partnership with them: https://www.gmatclub.com/magpie/html/) I am tranferring that content to the bulletin board, but the person in charge of technology is not as fast as I want him to be. (maybe this comment will give him a kick). Amazon is not worth it either from a financial point of view.

So far, the best suggestion from a financial standpoint has been partnering with business schools, which is not easy due to reputation/edorsement/liability and other dangers for them while advertising here. It is a good point, but every good point is good because it is hard to reach.

It is fun discussing things with you.
It feels like you care and take a genuine interest; I am very flattered. I hope my comments are not rude in any way.

Sincerely,
Bogdan

-=-=

OK, I see where you're coming from, but even if you weren't doing it to make money there's an extremely good chance you would lose money on it because of the costs of doing business. But think about it this way: if the goal is awareness, you'd still have to sell a lot of t-shirts. You won't get much awareness with only a few people wearing them, and if most people only wear them around others who would understand the joke, they would already be at b-school. So you'd be building limited awareness among a community that no longer needs you - they've taken the GMAT and have gotten into school.

Amazon doesn't pay much. I think B&N pays more, but it's still not much. There really aren't too many things you'll be able to do to build awareness, other than gently promoting the site on other forums like BusinessWeek.com. I've been on that site and the GMATTutor Yahoo Group, and your site is more active than both when it comes to GMAT discussion these days, so you're not doing too badly. Submit some of your pages to Google, or do a search on "GMAT discussion board" and see how high you come up. Try other variations too, and put certain keywords in your meta tags and page titles if you haven't already so that you show up higher in the search engines. That's probably how most people will find you.