If I read a random instruction that didn’t fit into the rest of the assignment and wasn’t sure what to do about it, I’d message the professor for clarification.
If I wasn’t familiar with all those stories about teachers trying to catch skimmers, I would absolutely do the same. But knowing that teachers often like to do that, if I saw such a wild nonsense instruction like that, I would probably just immediately think “Oh, its like that one trick question that Mr. Smith did last year” and just write about how Madagascar smells or whatever.
If I read a random instruction that didn’t fit into the rest of the assignment and wasn’t sure what to do about it, I’d message the professor for clarification.
But maybe that’s just me.
If I wasn’t familiar with all those stories about teachers trying to catch skimmers, I would absolutely do the same. But knowing that teachers often like to do that, if I saw such a wild nonsense instruction like that, I would probably just immediately think “Oh, its like that one trick question that Mr. Smith did last year” and just write about how Madagascar smells or whatever.