(Part one can be found here.)
The exam time ran out, and as each student desperately scribbled their last words onto their paper, the professor toured the classroom removing exams from them without pity. As they left the room there were explosions of curses and complaints, insults to the professor, and vows to complain to the board of directors.
After they had all left, the man at the desk with an aura of wisdom about him flipped over the stack of completed exams, picked up the first one, and smiled.
Two weeks later, the results were in. The class average was 37%. Only one student had passed, the professor said. As he explained it outside of the classroom, only one man had had the guts, the wits, and the wisdom to call the professor’s bluff, to find the words that would consume the question, rather than answer it.
As the students filed into the classroom looking forlorn and distressesed, each of them looked up to the board and gasped. Written on it in enormous letters was the second shortest English question in existence. Two words, glaring down at them as if they had a personality of their own.
“Why not?”
