At the end of the semester, there were two Michigan State sophomores who were taking organic chemistry. They had done well on all of the quizzes, midterms, labs, etc. and had solid A’s. These two friends were so confident going into the final that the weekend before finals week, they decided to go to Central Michigan to party with some friends, even though the chemistry final was on Monday. They went and had a great time. However, they ended up staying longer than they planned, and they didn’t make it back to State until early Monday morning. Rather than taking the final, they found their Professor after the final and explained to him why they missed it.

They told him that they went to Central 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. So they were late getting back to campus.

The professor thought this over and 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 the professor had told them. He placed them in separate rooms, 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?”