Things have gotten to the point now where further attempts to finish up all course work will prove a hollow mockery. The erudite student finds that his time will be best spent in evolving a system for writing exams and term papers. Unfortunately, the faculty has been wising up recently and such veteran maneuvers as the missing blue book no longer work. In its place we recommend the following five new fresh approaches to the problem of feigning knowledge: 1) The use of the colon; 2) the graduating senior ploy; 3) The Chinese ploy; 4) The Radcliffe ploy; 5) The room-mate export or phony reference ploy.

It is a well-known and undisputed fact that there has never been a summa thesis in the last ten years which has not had a colon in the title. Many of these theses have had two colons in the title. the significance of this fact cannot be denied: Harvard college is colon-conscious. It is far more important to say it with a colon is scholarly. Consequently, the first mechanical aid is the constant and overbearing use of the colon. A colon is the difference between a C and a B in a term paper, between a cum and a magna in a thesis. The colon is one of the guts of Harvard College.

Second: the graduating Senior ploy. It is a well known fact that anyone who writes "graduating senior" on his finals usually gets at least one grade higher, or the difference between a C and a B. Some will undoubtedly say that this procedure is highly immoral. On the other hand, since everyone knows examinations are supposed to be graded in an entirely impartial manner, the phrase "gradating senior" should have no more effect that writing "hottentot" or "noblesse oblige." A fimsy defense, indeed but a defense.

Third, the Chinese ploy or the system of sympathy through distance. The crafty student indeed will start his examination question with a couble of sentences which though in English are in an obviously foreign word order. It is wise to use a language which vaguely corresponds with the surname of the writer. At the sight of this peculiarly phrased sentence, the following train of thought inevitably goes through the grader's mind: "Gee this guy is obviously a foreigner; must have come all the way from Bulgaria just to go to Harvard. Anybody who would travel that far to go to school must have something on the ball." That's all there is to it. Once the grader has decided the writer must be clever, he reads the exam through benign eyes.

Fourth, we have the Radcliffe ploy. Many people consider that Radcliffe girls are long on facts and short on thinking. Consequently, Radcliffe exams are alleged to contain great globs of partially organized facts, and the ultimate result is that the weight of the facts, whether they are understood or not, gets a passing grade. To take advantage of this, the man who knows little or nothing and therefore has lots of spare time during the exam, embroiders his margins with a host of irrelegant facts. There then exists the outside chance that the grader will mark it like a Radcliffe paper, on the sheer weight of the facts included.

Fifth and most refined we have the room-mate expert or phony reference ploy. Almost everybody sooner or later comes to a point in an examination where he ought to cite a reference. Of course, if he comes upon the rare occasion where he knows the name of a book, then all is fine. He just states the reference thusly "As Professor Banana says on page 207 of his work, 'The Dynamics of Idiocy.'" It really doesn't make any difference whether the page number is right--the grader certainly won't look it up. As a matter of fact, it is often wise to pick a couple of one line quotes out of books and memorize them--it adds authenticity to your fiction.

When you don't know who thought of an idea, it is best to use a fictitious expert, preferably a roommate or something like that. Room-mates usually have names which sound familiar and graders can often be fooled into thinking they are really experts. You can even cite an unpublished work, like your room-mate's thesis, to back you up. It is one of the best reasons for having a room-mate.