Excuses have become a part of our life. It begins right from the morning when you wake up late for school prepared with excuses like – ‘I slept off because my alarm didn’t go off’ and end up late till the night with -‘Mum! I can’t do the dishes today because I have a lot of homework to do’. Haven’t we all done that?
Excuse-Giving Scenarios
Unlike adults, students only have a limited number of scenarios where they make excuses. Most of it revolves around –
- Coming late to school.
- Not submitting in their homework.
- Missing classes/practice session/gym.
- Failing an exam.
Giving a perfect excuse without getting caught can be considered as an art. Perhaps that is why students who successfully pull it off become instant celebrities. Some of these reasons are so creative and hilarious that they have been noted down, made into web pages/memes and even quoted all over the internet.
Let me tell you the 7 best homework excuses for not completing your math homework. Before moving into this, I consider it as my duty to tell you not to use them frequently.
- Make reasonable excuses
Some students go all the way of making elaborate excuses. The more you elaborate explaining every tiny detail the more likely are your chances of getting caught. Instead go for reasonable and even less inventive excuses like
- ‘The homework fell out of your bag.’
- ‘I was too busy with the extra-circular activities at school or the volunteering work.’
- ‘I couldn’t understand the topic ma’am. Could you please explain it again so that I can have another go?’
Avoid making excuses that can backfire on you like –
- ‘Madam! I accidently left the homework in my locker.’ You are bound to get caught as your teacher may actually send you to fetch it.
- Blame it on the technology
If you have to submit in your math homework digitally, what better excuse that to blame the electronics equipment!
- If you are to submit the work in the USB file, you can put in a corrupted file that may not open once after submission. However, if the teacher is adept with computers and software, this excuse can land you in some serious trouble.
- If it is to be sent through an email, then you could just send in a wrong attachment or hand in a partially filled word file containing your name and a first page of the assignment.
- You can put blame on the sudden malfunctioning of your laptop/computer due to which you couldn’t save the file and all work was lost.
- If you are to hand in a printed copy, say that your printer failed to print.
- Pretend to have done your homework
Pretend that you have done it even when you haven’t. You can go with excuses like –
- Handing in an old assignment. Then go home, get it done and then apologize to the teacher for the mix-up.
- Copy in your work from a friend only and only if he/she has no problem. Even though the procedure to solve them will be familiar, creatively add in or leave out a few steps in a problem. This may look like you have done the work yourself.
- If the missed homework’s class comes after the break, you can utilize the break and the time in between each class tofinish off the homework.
- Mutilate the homework
Another way of buying some more time if the submission deadline is right early in the morning.
- If it has been raining outside all day you can dump some papers in some wet mud. Write down some random numbers before doing so such that it looks like you did do your homework.
For dry days, you can pour over enough ink to show an accident.
- Give your dog something to chew. ‘The dog ate my homework’ is one of the most clichéd homework excuses ever. Hence it may be difficult for your teacher to believe in this excuse. But here is statistics – that there are approximately 37-47% of all households in the United States that have a dog. Going by the statistics, there is a possibility that every third child in the US can have his/her homework eaten by their dogs.
Better still,hand in the tattered parts of your homework(again pages with random numbers) with plenty of chew marks.
- Seek your parent’s help
You can ask your parents to write a note to your teacher with a plausible excuse as to why couldn’t you finish your math homework. This is another safe option but only if you are able to convince your parents. But for genuine reasons they might still be able to help out.
- You were sick for a long time which caused you to lag behind in classes. Get a doctor’s note to support your excuse.
- Or your near and dear ones were hospitalized and you were with them at the hospital.
- Or you had to attend a funeral out of town.
Do not forge a note as there might be chances that the teacher drops in at home or call your parents to verify the note.
- Think of legitimate reasons as to why couldn’t you do it
Maybe you had a legitimate reason of not being able to complete the homework. Instead of simply ‘I forgot’ try to convince the teacher with actual reason –
- Maybe you have a lot of homework and oral tests that week that left you stressed and too tired to sit with the homework.
- Maybe the situation at home was way out of your control like an illness in the family or power failure at home at night due to short circuit etc. Your parents or guardian can vouch for you in this case.
- Maybe you did try to sit with it, but couldn’t understand the topic was. In such a case show the teacher the genuine efforts you put in. Perhaps a few other students in the class were also unable to understand the same topic.
Your teacher will definitely help you by taking up the topic again in class or separately. And you gain a day or two more to finish the work.
Do not worry. Sometimes everything goes haywire. Engineers can vouch for that. In fact that is why they often Google – Why does your engineering assignment never workout the way you plan?
- Tell the truth
Some may laugh at this point but this is the best excuse of all. Your teacher has been through student life himself/herself. Maybe they might see through all the deceptions that you put in front of them. This is especially if you have a record of not submitting in homework in time.
- Accept your fault. Take responsibility that you were lax but will definitely work harder. You might say “I am sorry that I could not submit the homework today. Could you excuse me? I shall definitely submit it by the next class.â€
- In such case it is better to approach the teacher early instead of approaching just before the deadline. When you do, speak in simple direct sentences. Long rambling, explanatory sentences might just annoy them.
- Know the temperament of the teacher that is how flexible or forgiving he/she is. Depending on that and the excuse that you are giving,look anxious or serious or sad.
Telling the truth shows your level of maturity. You need not worry about getting caught if your lie falls out. Even if he/ she do get annoyed initially, they will definitely be appreciating your honesty in the long run.