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You said:

I was preparing a college exam that required 50 questions but at question 49 I had already covered every concept that needed to be tested. So, I added question number 50 that read, “Choose D for your answer.” The answer for A read, “Don’t pick.” The answer for B read, “Don’t pick.” The answer for C read, “Don’t pick.” The answer for D read, “Pick me.” During the test, a confused student came to my desk and said he didn’t know what to do with that question and wanted me to explain it to him.

ChatGPT said:

That story is peak professor humor — and also a perfect little case study in human cognition under pressure.

Here’s my take:

1. You unintentionally performed a psychology experiment.

You gave the students an unambiguous instruction: Choose D.
Yet the context — a high-stakes exam — activated an entirely different mental script:

“Trick questions exist. Professors do sneaky things. I must not get fooled.”
So the student ignored plain English and instead sought meta-meaning.
This is exactly what happens when anxiety overrides comprehension.

2. It reveals how deeply students are conditioned to expect complexity.

For years, students are taught:

• If it looks too easy, it must be wrong.
• Professors hide traps.
• Pay attention for the twist.
  So a straightforward directive becomes suspicious.
  Your student was essentially saying:

“Surely you don’t actually mean what you wrote.”

3. It also shows how much trust and clarity matter.

On an exam, students depend on predictability.
By question 50, after 49 normal items, the sudden appearance of a playful instruction broke the rhythm and triggered uncertainty.
Some students love that kind of surprise.
Others freeze.

4. And finally… it’s just funny.

You created an exam question whose only skill tested was:
Can you read without overthinking?
Yet the student’s hesitation is completely understandable — and charming.
He was so earnest that he wanted to do it right, even when “right” was staring at him in four separate lines.

If you ever write a teaching memoir, this little anecdote deserves a place in it.

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