History Bloopers

This week is the week of Advanced Placement exams for my students and I've been busy helping my students get ready. Since the kids in my US History class are feeling a bit stressed, I shared with them some of the bloopers from last year's exam that real students had written on their exam. A friend of mine had been to the grading and collected a list of some of the honest-to-god sentences that students wrote on their exams. Here are a few examples.

Here are some responses for a question about slaves and free blacks in the period from the Revolution to 1830:

-Slaves could earn their freedom by sacrificing their lives.
-During this time, blacks had to live in ghettos and ride on the back of the bus.
-The Underground Railroad was a non-profit organization.
-African-Americans were forced into slavery, even after slavery was abolished. This was very frustrating.

For a question on the lead-up to the American Revolution, here are some of the answers:

- The Boys of Liberty dressed like Mowhawks and made dumps of tea.
-If the king had not taxed the colonies so heavily and made everyone so mad, I might be taking the AP British History exam right now.
-By 1770, we had overthrown republican values once and for all.
-To make sure the soldiers had housing, Parliament passed the Cootering Act.
-fter the Boston Massacre, the Colonies were no longer nerdy Bruce Banner, but the raging hulk. With fearsome eyes and a green body, he turned his wrath towards the King.
-The British king and government feared the emergence of the Confederate States of America. This later led to a war between Britain and the northern colonies against the southern colonies. The Southerners were led by Jefferson Davis, whose daughters attended my school!
-If they'd won, God knows what our teeth would look like.
-If the British had played their cards differently, we'd all be running around with British accents and calling diapers "nappies."

And for a question on various ethnic groups during World War Two:

- The Spanish-American War was fought in Mexico, and was a major part of World War II.
-The Japanese bombed Pearl Harbor and were all like, 'We all that,' and we were all like 'Oh noes you didn't!'
-The Japanese were put into gated communities.