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"The Hell of Finals Week"
Written by Angela Kuo (angela_h_kuo@yahoo.com)
Based on "The Bells of Notre Dame" from _The Hunchback of Notre Dame_.
 Lyrics by Stephen Schwartz, music by Alan Menken.
Copyright: 1997. Originally posted 4/26/97, revised 4/29/97.
Author's note: 
Well, it's that time of year again...Final exams begin on May 5th at Penn State
and it is getting busy. So this parody is dedicated to my fellow college
students who are lurking out there. :)

Small tech note: the "k" ending is not the easiest to sing and the finale of
the song is probably pure murder, but I couldn't think of anything else that
worked. Stephen Schwartz did an amazing job with the original song (check out
all those inner rhymes!).

This parody may be saved, distributed, reposted, and placed
on webpages for nonprofit use as long as it is properly credited and
retains its original contents. Comments are welcome and appreciated (e-mail
axk23@psu.edu). And no, I never had a professor like the one portrayed here.
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"The Hell of Finals Week"

[Scene: As the music starts, we get a nice aerial shot of a college.
Gradually focus on one building, then one window, and peek inside a classroom.
A SENIOR (preferably a guy sporting a cute goatee ;) ) sings to a group
of highly impressionable young FRESHMEN.]

SENIOR
Morning on campus, the students awake
To the hell of finals week.
There are papers to scribble and projects to make
In the hell of finals week.
There are students who try to stay conscious,
Give them all some caffeine or they'll freak--
'Cause they'll lose control of their nerves from
The toll of the hell,
The hell of finals week.

[spoken] College. It's wonderful, no? So many parties at frats, so many
football games! Of course you know it isn't fun *all* of the time.

FRESHMAN: It's not?
SENIOR: No, you silly kid! You know soon, soon at the end of the semester,
  come the final examinations. Who gives all these exams?
FRESHMAN: Who?
SENIOR: Why do they?
FRESHMAN: Why?
SENIOR: How do they try to grade us?
FRESHMAN: How?
SENIOR: Hush!
FRESHMAN: Aww...
SENIOR: Upperclassmen will tell you. It's pass or fail, and they both could
  lead to disaster...[sings]

Dark was the day when the tests were begun
'Twas the start of finals week.

[Flashback scene: a final exam from the previous year]

TA #1: Shut those books, will you!
TA #2: We'll get started!
TA #3: Hush, everyone!

SENIOR (voiceover)
Thousands of students were having no fun
At the start of finals week.

STUDENT: Two hours for one hundred questions!

SENIOR (voiceover)
Well, the tests were passed out to the students
And they stared and they tried not to shriek--
For the questions were tough as
And proved to be rough as the hell--

STUDENT [staring at the first question]: Gosh, I don't know.

SENIOR: The hell of finals week.

ALL STUDENTS: College education!

SENIOR (voiceover)
Weed-out courses have
To cut the class
Way down to size.

ALL STUDENTS: College education!

SENIOR (voiceover)
So they're set on flunking everyone
Is no surprise.

PROFESSOR: Keep your eyes on your own paper, everyone!
TA: You there! What are you hiding?
PROF: A cheat sheet no doubt. Take it from her!

SENIOR: Minds raced...

[The following verse is sung to the Latin chorus]

STUDENTS
Now we tremble, now our souls quake,
Solving problems--what a headache,
Tests and papers that we must take.
Quite a terror is amassing
For our grades may not be passing.

A STUDENT: Five more minutes! Please, give us five more minutes!

[The PROF ignores her plea and snatches her paper away. Cut to:
a computer printing out the exam results. The PROF looks at the printout]

PROF: The test scores? [Horrified look] Disaster!

[He looks uncertain for a moment, then resolutely goes to post the grades on
the bulletin board, when...]

ADMINISTRATOR: Stop!

SENIOR (voiceover): Cried the administrator!

PROF: These are unholy results. I'm giving them the grades that they deserve.

ADMIN.
See there the innocent kids you have flunked
With the tests of finals week.

PROF: I am guiltless--I taught, they didn't study.

ADMIN.
People will think that our school is defunct
From the tests of finals week.

PROF: My conscience is clear!

ADMIN.
You can try to express your opinions
And perhaps it's the truth that you speak.
But you're placed on probation--
Beware your vocation is doomed.
It will be doomed from finals week!

STUDENTS: College education!

SENIOR (voiceover)
And for one time in his life
The teacher lost his nerve.

STUDENTS: College education!

SENIOR (voiceover)
Since he feared for his career
He graded on a curve.

PROF:  What must I do?     [ADMIN. shows him a chart of the new curve]
ADMIN: Take the grading scale and raise it twenty points.
PROF: What? I am to be saddled with this misshapen--[He stops] Very well.
  But let those students go and discover the truth.
ADMIN: The truth? About what?
PROF: About this: [sings]

Just so long they graduate
And earn those big degrees...

[speaks] A bachelor's, perhaps. Or a master's. Maybe even a doctorate.

[sings]
They will one day meet their fate
And find themselves to be
Mere employees.

[Back to the original classroom scene with the SENIOR]

SENIOR: And the students were stuck with a cruel fate, a fate that few can
  avoid--the working world! [sings]

Now here are some questions to guess if you can
In the hell of finals week.
Fill in the dots for the scan-tron to scan--

ALL STUDENTS
In the hell, hell, hell, hell,
Hell, hell, hell, hell,
Hell of finals week!