UW-Madison student appeals exam grade citing ‘alternative correctness’

On Tuesday, freshman chemistry student Henry Fischer submitted his most recent exam to be regraded, asserting that his answers were not in fact wrong, but were “alternatively orrect.”   
During the exam, which took place on Monday a week prior, Fischer discovered that his high school study tactic of spending the majority of his waking hours watching Netflix, and not studying until the night before, had not prepared him to adequately answer questions regarding stoichiometry or the ideal gas law. However, he was still under the belief that his peers “totally did just as bad,” which Fischer thought to himself on his walk back to Sullivan Residence Hall. Thus he convinced himself that every other student had put the same amount of effort toward the exam as he had. It was therefore to Fischer’s surprise that upon opening his Learn@UW account the following Saturday, he discovered a grade of 31 percent and had in fact failed.
Believing the score to be “total crap,” Fischer celebrated his perceived success by watching the entirety of “The Office’s” fifth season in one sitting, during which he received a phone call from his mother, Beverly, and affirmed to her that he had done “Fine.” However, when the exams were distributed in his Tuesday discussion, he could not believe that his TA had not altered their grading error and ultimately presented him with his 31 percent exam. It was even more to his dismay that when asked, “When will the retake be?”, his TA informed the class that there was no such thing. Still believing himself to have been cheated, Fischer made the conclusion that it was not his answers that were wrong, but the questions themselves.
At the end of his class, Fischer spoke with his TA about his conclusion, and when shrugged off, walked around the Chemistry Building, moving up the chain of command until he “met” with a department faculty member. The faculty member, who wished to remain anonymous, exclaimed their disbelief that someone could be “So far removed from reality as to believe the exam questions were not written in a way that would cover the answers he intended to give.” Such answers include “2,” which instead of being an answer to a question regarding the molar mass of Argon, Fischer attributed to the question, “What Lecture are you in?” While a verdict has yet to be reached, the precedent surrounding the cases of the “Alt-Write” Organization (English majors who believe their essays contained Alternative English, as opposed to grammatical errors) does not bode well for Fischer.