Students have been plagued by some absolute nightmares when it comes to tests over the years, but one woman might take the cake as the unluckiest of all time.
There are times when you do badly on a test because it's really hard, with some of the questions being plain unfair and nothing like you were taught in the run-up to the exam.
At other times you do badly because of something entirely unrelated to how well you understand the subject or can blag your way through exam questions.
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Yours truly once did badly on a test after finishing the exam early and doodling on the back of the paper, only for the teacher to mistakenly throw that piece of paper out along with half of my answers (great job, sir).
That wasn't a fun experience, but even worse happened to one unfortunate woman whose test ended early after she accidentally dropped a meatball onto her keyboard which logged her out before she had finished.
It sounds like the lamest excuse in history right up there with 'my dog ate my homework' but it's absolutely true.
The unlucky lady in question was one Sam Lee, who was at the University of Georgia when she got a failing grade of 39 percent on one of her tests.
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Deciding that while the truth may have been stranger than fiction, honesty was indeed the best policy, she wrote to her professor explaining exactly what had happened and why she should be allowed to retake the test.
She wrote: "I had some technical difficulties and outside distractions during the test today.
"Something hit my computer and caused it to submit the test when I had less than half of the questions answered. By something, I mean a meatball that had tragically fallen onto my keyboard as I was taking the exam.
"This said meatball caused some malfunctions with my laptop and caused the test to submit itself. I completely understand that a falling meatball is no excuse for the failing grade on this exam, but is there any possibility of retaking this test?"
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Luckily she had a very understanding teacher who accepted that errant meatballs subjected to the harsh mistress of gravity were no reason for a student to fail a test unjustly, and gave Sam another go.
They wrote back that dropping a meatball onto the keyboard to quit out of the test early was 'a new and unusual excuse for a low score', but 'it seems unlikely you've made this up'.
Sam's teacher also recommended that she retake her test in-between meals, and later confirmed that she did get a better score on the exam after there were no errant meatballs around to stop her from finishing it.
Joe Harker