Educational Jokes
SAT score decay
As we all know SAT scores have been on the decline for years
The following may be the reason why.

A math problem in the 60's
A logger sells a truckload of lumber for $100. His cost of production is four-fifths of this price. What is his
profit?

A math problem in the 70's
A logger sells a truckload of lumber for $100. His cost of production is four-fifths of this price, or $80. What is
his profit?

A math problem in the 70's using New Math
A logger exchanges a set L of lumber for a set M of money. The cardinality of set M is 100, and each element is
worth $1. Make 100 dots representing the elements of set M. The set C of the cost of production contains 20
fewer points than set M, and answer the following question: What is the cardinality of the set P of profits?

A math problem in the 80's
A logger sells a truckload of wood for $100. His cost of production is $80, and his profit is $20. Your
assignment: underline the number 20.

A math problem in the 90's under Outcome Based Education.
By cutting down beautiful forest trees, a logger makes $20. What do you think of this way of living? (Topic for class participation: How did the forest birds and squirrels feel?)

THESE ARE ACTUAL EXCERPTS FROM STUDENT SCIENCE EXAM PAPERS

Charles Darwin was a naturalist who wrote the organ of the species.

Benjamin Franklin produced electricity by rubbing cats backwards.

The theory of evolution was greatly objected to because it made man think.

Three kinds of blood vessels are arteries, vanes and caterpillers.

The dodo is a bird that is almost decent by now.

To remove air from a flask, fill it with water, tip the water out, and put the cork in quick before the air can get
back in.

The process of turning steam back into water again is called conversation.

A magnet is something you find crawling all over a dead cat.

The Earth makes one resolution every 24 hours.

The cuckoo bird does not lay his own eggs.

To prevent conception when having intercourse, the male wears a condominium.

To collect fumes of sulfur, hold a deacon over a flame in a test tube.

Parallel lines never meet, unless you bend one or both of them.

Algebraical symbols are used when you do not know what you are talking about.

Geometry teaches us to bisex angles.

A circle is a line which meets its other end without ending.

The pistol of a flower is its only protection against insects.

The moon is a planet just like the Earth, only it is even deader.

Artificial insemination is when the farmer does it to the cow instead of the bull.

An example of animal breeding is the farmer who mated a bull that gave a great deal of milk with a bull with
good meat.

We believe that the reptiles came from the amphibians by spontaneous generation and study of rocks.

English sparrows and starlings eat the farmers grain and soil his corpse.

By self-pollination, the farmer may get a flock of long-haired sheep.

If conditions are not favorable, bacteria go into a period of adolescence.

Dew is formed on leaves when the sun shines down on them and makes them perspire.

Vegetative propagation is the process by which one individual manufactures another individual by accident.

A super-saturated solution is one that holds more than it can hold.

A triangle which has an angle of 135 degrees is called an obscene triangle.

Blood flows down one leg and up the other.

A person should take a bath once in the summer, and not quite so often in the winter.

The hookworm larvae enters the human body through the soul.

When you haven't got enough iodine in your blood you get a glacier.

It is a well-known fact that a deceased body harms the mind.

Humans are more intelligent than beasts because the human branes have more convulsions.

For fainting: rub the person's chest, or if a lady, rub her arm above the hand instead.

For fractures: to see if the limb is broken, wiggle it gently back and forth.

For dog bite: put the dog away for several days. If he has not recovered, then kill it.

For nosebleed: put the nose much lower than the body.

For drowning: climb on top of the person and move up and down to make artificial perspiration.

To remove dust from the eye, pull the eye down over the nose.

For head colds: use an agonizer to spray the nose until it drops in your throat.

For snakebites: bleed the wound and rape the victim in a blanket for shock.

For asphyxiation: apply artificial respiration until the patient is dead.

Before giving a blood transfusion, find out if the blood is affirmative or negative.

Bar magnets have north and south poles, horseshoe magnets have east and west poles.

When water freezes you can walk on it. That is what Christ did long ago in wintertime.

When you smell an odorless gas, it is probably carbon monoxide.

Difficulty with English

Lets face it:English is a crazy language. There is no egg in eggplant nor ham in hamburger; neither apple nor pine in pineapple. English muffins weren't invented in England or French fries in France. Sweetmeats are candies while sweetbreads, which aren't sweet are meat.

We take English for granted. But if we explore its paradoxes, we find that quicksand can work slowly, boxing
rings are square and a guinea pig is neither from Guinea nor is it a pig.

And why is it that writers write but fingers don't fing, grocers don't groce and hammers don't ham? If the plural of tooth is teeth, why isn't the plural of booth beeth? One goose, two geese. So one moose, 2 meese? One index, 2 indeces?

Doesn't it seem crazy that you can make amends, but not one amend; that you comb through annals of history but not a single annal? If you have a bunch of odds and ends and get rid of all but one of them, what do you call it?

If teachers taught, why didn't preachers praught? If a vegetarian eats vegetables, what does a humanitarian eat? If you wrote a letter, perhaps you bote your tongue? Sometimes I think all the English speakers should be committed to an asylum for the verbally insane.

In what language do people recite a play and play a recital? Ship by truck and send cargo by ship? Have noses that run and feet that smell? Park on driveways and drive on parkways?

How can a slim chance and a fat chance be the same, while a wise man and a wise guy are opposites? How can overlook and oversee be opposites, while quite a lot and quite a few are alike? How can the weather be hot as hell one day and cold as hell another?

Have you noticed that we talk about certain things only when they are absent? Have you ever seen a horseful carriage or a strapful gown? Met a sung hero or experienced requited love? Have you ever run into someone who was combobulated, gruntled, ruly, or peccable? And where are all those people who ARE spring chickens or who would ACTUALLY hurt a fly? You have to marvel at the lunacy of a language in which your house can burn up as it burns down, in which you fill in a form by filling it out and in which an alarm clock goes off by going on.
English was invented by people, not computers, and it reflects the creativity of the human race (which is not a race at all). That is why, when the stars are out, they are visible, but when the lights are out, they are invisible. And why, when I wind up my watch, I start it, but when I wind up this essay, I end it.


After applying some simple algebra to some trite phrases and cliches a new understanding can be reached of the
secret to wealth and success.

Here it goes.

     Knowledge is Power
     Time is Money and as every engineer knows,
     Power is Work over Time.

So, substituting algebraic equations for these time worn bits of wisdom, we get:

     K = P (1)
     T = M (2)
     P = W/T (3)

Now, do a few simple substitutions:

     Put W/T in for P in equation (1), which yields:
     K = W/T (4)

Put M in for T into equation (4), which yields:

     K = W/M (5).

Now we've got something. Expanding back into English, we get:

     Knowledge equals Work over Money.

What this MEANS is that:

     1. The More You Know, the More Work You Do, and
     2. The More You Know, the Less Money You Make.

Solving for Money, we get:

     M = W/K (6)
     Money equals Work Over Knowledge.

From equation (6) we see that Money approaches infinity as Knowledge approaches 0, regardless of the Work
done.

What THIS MEANS is:

     The More you Make, the Less you Know.

Solving for Work, we get

     W = M K (7)
     Work equals Money times Knowledge

From equation (7) we see that Work approaches 0 as Knowledge approaches 0.

What THIS MEANS is:

The stupid rich do little or no work.Working out the socioeconomic implications of this breakthrough is left as an exercise for the reader.