when i was fifteen i missed school for a few weeks and when i got back, we not only had a new science teacher but he insisted that i sit a physics test with the rest of the class even though i hadn't been there for ANY of the coursework. i sat there for the whole hour and wrote a six page essay on the physics test that was equal parts gushing pretentiously about wilde and sassoon, and handed it in. my teacher wasn't impressed. it was the best thing i've ever done. sadly, i never got it back.
Part of my GCSE English grade involved a “talking and listening” assessment to be graded internally by our then-English teacher, who decided that we would each give a presentation to the class about “our favourite place”. I, being the conscientious student I have proven myself time and time again to be, a) completely forget that this was a thing until I walked into class on the day of the test, and b) blanked entirely as to where my favourite place ought to be. By the grace of having a surname that starts with S, I sat through much of the double period, watching other people speak (about their vacation houses, grandparents’ homes and bedrooms, majoritively, if memory serves) and covertly bullshitting like hell in my notebook. Eventually, when my name was called, I proceeded to give an engaging presentation to the class, for which I received full marks, on a second-hand shop in Wales in a town near my grandparents’ house. Neither the shop nor the town (nor, indeed, the friendly townspeople about whom the ~shopkeeper~ had told me various witty anecdotes, many of which I cheerfully parroted to the class) actually exist.
(There was also the time I dressed up like a ten-year-old girl, aged sixteen, and sang The Sun’ll Come Out Tomorrow for my GCSE Music practical exam, and got full marks again because the examiner thought I was cute, but I’ve told that story before~)