My sister was in some upper level math class and the last question on the final was an extra credit question worth 5 points. It was some truly heinous equation to solve in order to complete a phrase. “Remember, remember the ____ of November”
As a math student she was abysmal squeaking by with a C by doing every extra credit assignment in the books so she needed all the points she could get. But as humanities student she happened to just know the poem it was referencing, the answer being the 5th of November.
Now she had two choices: attempt to reverse engineer the equation from the solution to show her work or leave it blank. If she showed incorrect work she knew she’d be docked points or given no points for merely stumbling upon the correct answer in the wrongest way possible but if she had the correct answer and didn’t show her work she’d only lose a point.
She opted to not show her work and instead wrote a short note stating she’d read the poem and knew without a doubt the answer was 5 and to prove it wrote out the next two lines.
Got full points for “possession of cross-disciplinary knowledge” and an extra point since as he put it she’d still “shown her work”
And while she by no means passed that test with flying colors she was the only one to get the extra credit question right.