Editor’s Note: This article is purely satirical and fictitious. All attributions in this article are not genuine, and this story should be read in the context of pure entertainment only.
A recent report from the Stanford Existential Risks Initiative concluded that, should you fail to achieve above an uncurved B grade on any of your midterms this quarter, all life on the planet will cease and complete biological annihilation will be irreversible.
“Epidemiological, geothermal, and astrological models all conclude that anything less than a 90 on your exams will eliminate the human race and more,” explained Polly Mathe PhD ’22.
Mathe demonstrated that any failure would provoke an apocalypse, with different midterms triggering different causal reactions. “If you get a C on Math 21, a satellite will pinpoint your chagrin and prompt AI systems across the globe to automatically reject every person’s healthcare claims. Anything from 30%-60% in Chem 31A spawns terminally contagious hemorrhoids.”
“If you get specifically a 79.16% in CS 106A, a virus will override the Chipotle nanobots accumulating in everybody’s digestive tract, detonating them inside you and everyone who has ever eaten their queso blanco, and you can expect death by explosive force almost instantaneously.” Mathe pointed to a pie chart with the ppm concentration of robotic parts and nicotine within Chipotle bowls. “Your insurance will not cover it.”
Although the pressure has soured many students’ dispositions across campus, more enterprising students have found a silver lining. Sonnet Opus ’30, a frosh implicated in the study’s results, proposed using signs preceding the end of the world as signals to improve her testing performance. “If I see a nuclear missile flying overhead while I’m calculating a Lagrangian, then I can take it as a sign to redo my work.”
Opus’ approach, however enterprising, was proven infeasible by the study’s authors. “Curiously, the end of the world can only happen after you see your exam score,” noted quantum physics professor Sue Porpa-Szischen ’91 PhD ’00. “Perhaps the best course of action is simply to avoid checking your grades indefinitely.”
At press time, reporters observed Opus folding up a handwritten cheat sheet as she entered the Math 51 exam room, muttering that “the stakes have never been higher.” Daily reporters followed and found her answers worthy of replication.