[gerbilly]

> who is going to interpret an ambiguous problem so as to make more work for themselves?

I did.

In fact I always tried to find a unique or novel solution to my problem sets, ambiguous or not. (If the problem set contained a hint I tried mightily to not use the hint, I'd always try to replace a proof by contradiction with a constructive proof etc...)

My marks suffered for it. I even almost failed a first year exam cos I didn't want to perform a grody 4x4 matrix multiplication. Later the prof said: "Your exam was crap, but you came up with a better answer for problem four than I'd thought of."

It's still one of my most cherished memories from undergrad.

I always hated the: "Will this be on the test" type of attitude. Are you there to learn and break new ground or to just get marks? I had crappy marks but my work spoke for itself.

Students should put more effort into creating their own body of work. If they spent half the energy they put into finding tricks and gaming the system, they'd be much better off for it.

[aidenn0]

I was never one to game the system until I was failing 3 classes while on academic probation (2 Fs would have gotten me kicked out). Then I gamed the shit out of the system.

That was my breaking point. Others it's losing a scholarship; others, getting a B.

[professoretc]

I usually can tell which students will do well by how they answer ambiguous questions: they'll answer both ways, both the easy way, and the hard way.