I don't think the idea of intelligence and talents makes any sense at all. For example, you might think that a self-taught person who passed the CAE exam on 8th grade (that's a few years earlier than usual) must be good at languages, but hell no, I'm attempting to proceed with my German that I've hated since learning it in primary school and fail horribly. I'm pretty sure everybody is capable of learning anything with ease, provided that they're (very) interested in that, enough to make them work on it a lot. That would explain why some people with high IQ have bad grades, even though they should be able to learn everything by just paying attention on classes.

This troper actually know a lot of people like this, including herself. She doesn't pay attention except in subjects that she is interested in, (like English or History) and is thus failing Math and Science. It doesn't matter that she has a genius level IQ, she still sucks at school.

Sadly, I became like this after realizing that we all die. Basically anytime my teacher would usually ask me why i am not reading or doing anything to improve my grades, i usually go with my saying "well it would be basically be pointless. I would make the first the first time machine but I'd be dead when it's finished. I could make an era of peace but looking at fact that peace is impossible because of our views, I would probably be dead and still no peace".

Wow. What a phenomenally nihilistic, pointless, selfish worldview.

That doesn't make sense. Having an impact on the world grants the closest thing to immortality that exists, and besides, striving as if your struggles had a meaning is the only way to transcend meaninglessness. (Sorry, just read The Myth of Sysiphus. You might want to read it, too–it's by Albert Camus, if you didn't know. Absurdist philosophy is totally cool. Okay, actually rather nerdy, but so is this site and we the contributors.)

All right! We all die, so why even bother trying to use the time we have? Better to just throw away what we were given - because eight decades is nowhere near enough, of course - and just sit around wasting resources!

Though he is barely fucking passing most of his classes as is, mainly due to the fact that it's either something involving linear essays or some sort of mathematics that extensively uses 2/5 of the Alphabet, This troper is noted by his friends to be very intelligent, due to his abilities in artistry, witty humor, creative writing, his knack for philosophical subjects, world subjects, and his large worded speaking pattern.

This troper has been hailed by many of his peers as one of the smartest people they've ever met. Really, not making it up. So, when they find out that at one point, he was barely passing his classes...

This troper too, only change "many of his peers" to "his girlfriend"--and "barely" to "not."

This troper has a string of failed exams and lousy grades, despite being known for being very smart. Possibly due to the interaction of disorders leading to terrible handwriting and trouble making points to people.

This Troper's friend is this. This troper's friend is a very a smart person who talks about complex scientific issues casually and knows a surprisingly large amount about history. This troper's friend also barely passed science and history.

This troper has been called 'way too smart for her own good' by classmates, friends, family (even to the point of resorting to Obfuscating Stupidity to speak normally with said family, friends). Of course this praise begun to diminish rapidly upon finding out said classmates had actually scored far better than her in exams. Although this could partly be blamed on being absent because of an illness for eight out of the ten months of the school year and, well, falling asleep halfway through several of the exams. This troper only hopes she grows out of it before her next set of exams.

This troper is usually labeled by people as smart, but can't pass a class(while trying, no less) to save his life. Why is he labeled smart? Maybe it's the glasses. Maybe it's the fact he asks a loooooooot of questions, which is sometimes mistaken for intense interest in something. Maybe it's the fact he reads books in his spare time. Or maybe it's the fact that he has no upper body strength at all so people assume he has to make up for it somehow.

Odd. I don't remember posting this message.

I was going to put down a summary of myself for this page, but this entry will suffice.

It's possible that you don't realise when you're saying something smart?

This troper has an IQ of 180 (or more.. He scored perfectly on several tests) and has yet to score below the 99th percentile on a standardized test. He generally maintains an average of a low A or high B, and continually does stupid things.

That's not BookDumb, that's something else entirely, called No CommonSense, so stop bragging, jerk.

Okay. When this troper was in early grade school, she did poorly in her classes. Her parents decided to see if she was as smart as they hoped she was, so they took her to a university to take an IQ test of some kind. With putting wooden puzzle blocks in place while blindfolded, among other things. Her grades got better, to the steady A-B range. Then her parents told her that she scored 120. Within the normal range, certainly, but at the upper level. This supposed brilliance has never actually shown up. Anywhere. Except in useless trivial things. She thinks the test results must have been switched.

This troper would like to point out that 100 is always average IQ. Given what mass media has done to people's IQ in recent times, he regrets to say that 120 isn't that impressive.

This troper would like to point out that the previous troper is a spoilsport.

Shows what you know. The IQ test is actually being made more difficult every time it gets calibrated.

No, they're not. They are "calibrated" to be so "100" is the mean intelligence, no more no less. That is how they use IQ as a measurement - you are compared to everyone else in your generation/demographic, not to some omniscient, undoubtedly AI overlord whom decrees what your IQ score is to be. 120 isn't "brilliant", it's only ''just'' above-average. Which is fine! Just nothing to get too worked up over.

This troper was required to take an IQ test so he could skip kindergarten and scored 134. Consistently scoring 99th percentile on standardized tests. Horrible grades, almost failed one year. I blame AttentionDeficitOohShiny and a conscious realization that A and B grades would get just as much crap as D grades and taking the easy road.

This troper recalls (mostly second-hand, ie hears from his parents) being rather misbehaved in kindergarten and first grade, and after doing things like not bothering to come in from recess (this troper's original elementary school was some ways off into the country, making large fields and forests readily available to the adventurous child who noticed the handy trees beside most of the fences) and taking trips to the bathroom to nap for several hours in the stall; was identified as a bit of a problem child. He was subsequently tested, and found to score at the 99th percentile. Apparently one day I came home and surprised my parents by announcing, as I came in, "I hate syllogisms!".

This troper is quite clever indeed, has an IQ of 136, scored 99th percentile on every standardized test ever, 34'd the ACT, 1410 on the SAT, and graduated high school with 2.74/5.00.

Please tell me that you mean you scored a 34 on the ACT...

This troper graduated valedictorian (the teachers had some convoluted reasoning for this), 36'd the ACT, 2400'd the SAT, got a 45T on his MCAT, and is not going to recount his IQ score because no one has ever believed him without his producing the documentation. He was, at the time, the youngest member of Mensa in his state. He graduated High School with a 2.01, and almost lost his scholarship three times during university due to low grade point average. However, the threat was never carried over because he made their scores look good.

As for this (German) Troper: His grade school teacher (the one who writes the kids' recommendations for what school they may advance to) actually took him for a functional retard. If it hadn't been for his mother forcing a professional IQ test to be done with him, he would've had to go to a school for kids who eat finger paint. He then went on to get through high school without ever doing ''anything'' for it outside the ''bare'' minimum (Homework? I don't understand those hard Nippon words!), unless he had to save himself from repeating the year for failing math or chemistry. Rest assured, though, that he really frikkin ''regrets'' graduating with such lousy grades and getting used to being a lazy ass. I think there's a lesson to be learned here, kids!

This troper's Mom also had teachers who assumed (and said to her face) that she was stupid. Turns out she's dyslexic. She also managed to ace calculus in college, though she still doesn't know *how.* I'm a bit the same way. Got terrible scores in grade school, but ask me a question about dinosaurs and...

This troper suggests that the others might wish to move to areas with better educational systems. He used to live in Baltimore and though he received good grades and high scores on intelligence tests, he was far from sufficiently educated. He moved to another area with a far better school system and his life, drastically, changed. He learned much higher concepts, read far better literature and became far more educated. He was lucky that his father was a chemist, thus he learned much more about science, especially Chemistry and Physics, than other fields before he moved.

We're not dumb. We just have a command of thoroughly useless information.

This troper can quote entire episode scripts of virtually anything with inflections, voice tones, and actions down to a T; she's been pondering sophisticated psychological and philosophical matters since she was seven; she's mastered the equine genetic map; practically everyone she knows refers to her as the extremely smart and mature for her age, and has trouble scraping B's in school.

This troper is known by those around her as a walking encyclopedia, with at least a few facts about pretty much everything, and extensive knowledge on several completely random topics. She is a tested genius with an IQ in the 140s, unbeatable at Scrabble, and would happily spend all of her free time trawling through nearby university libraries. Of course, she is completely indifferent towards school, dropped out of high school, tried college, and ended up dropping out of that after it resulted in something of a HeroicBSOD.

This troper had a friend during school who received relatively poor grades. You wouldn't know it if you met him, though. He had enough charisma and 'people skills' to run for public office and win without any political campaigning. He also was a master at games of strategy, having once ranked 57th ''in the world'' at an ''Axis & Allies'' tournament... when he was eleven.

This troper, who lacks a page, fits into this fairly well. He's been told, repeatedly, that he's a very smart cookie, has an incredible memory for facts (trying not to seem arrogant, if I am, sorry), and so on. However, he couldn't care less about his school work anymore; he's in his final year, about to graduate, and for the past three years has more or less gotten by on the ability to type quickly the night before. His parents have been told by a teacher that if his intelligence was combined with any other student in her class's diligence she'd have a superstudent. Oh, he also once managed to pull a mark of within the high ninety percents on knowledge without doing any of the required reading or even the needed excursion based on 30 minutes of chat in class. Twice. In two different subjects. Which he barely paid attention in, preferring to sit and think of stories to write than do work.

That troper should ''get a page.''

This troper ''does'' get good grades- when she can stand to put the work in. It's just that if it doesn't hold my interest, I'm out of there like a shot. I've undergone numerous sessions of academic testing that somehow 'prove' me gifted and talented, I've got an IQ at least in the mid to late-140's... I'm just very easily bored and angered. So in effect, it's absolutely worthless.

In terms of raw IQ, This Troper is statistically one of the 400 smartest people in the United States. Didn't stop him from taking six years to finish his BA. With a 2.9 GPA.

Troper is the captain of both the Quiz Bowl and Science Bowl teams at her school, has taught herself guitar and bass, is part of John Hopkins University's Center For Talented Youth, scored a 2030 on the SAT without prep, and consistenly gets low Bs in all her classes. She doesn't understand it either.

This troper had a similar problem in school, with the bonus of his intelligence showing up on every standardized test, but disappearing everywhere except in mathematics once it was class time.

This troper flunked High School, but the teachers all acknowledged that she was intelligent. Part of why the troper flunk was due to a mixture of laziness, personal issues, and that the Math Class only taught how to answer a certain standardized test. Not how to do the work - but taught us just the answers and nothing else.

This troper has a friend who loves reading old, advanced textbooks and takes several AP classes (the rest are honors). He almost always scores above 100% on his tests... yet he has a C average in many of his classes because he refuses to do "pointless" homework and projects.

Is it me?

"[Tropername], you're doing fine, and your sense of logic helps you through the tests, but you ''have to memorize some formulae!''" That's right - this troper survived high school maths solely by logically reasoning his way to the correct answers on his maths tests, having spent his classes drawing spaceships. He aced all Latin tests, including the bonus questions, for an entire year of Latin in high school, leaving him at 100%+ (How's that work again?). He has been classified as "frighteningly intelligent", and has never been obviously outstripped in raw brainpower by anybody he has met in person (The Internet's a different question). His grades? C average. [Note: This is a record of observations, and may be flawed.]

This troper, while not incredibly smart in terms of school work, often does well on tests despite almost never studying. Comprehension, knowledge and understanding are high, as well as thinking and inquiry, but communication leaves much to be desired. Not to mention she tends to think somewhat logically (she personally thinks it's common sense most of the time). She also used to almost never do her homework (on time, anyway), as she found other things (like watching anime and posting in forums) much more interesting than homework she probably didn't need to do to understand the coursework. Grades range from low B's to barely passing depending on how much of the course relies on homework. Her friends are often amazed at the idea of her almost failing a course.

This troper has near encyclopedic knowledge in such fields as cocktail recipes, music history and obscure speculative fiction. He is a Philosophy major and has never passed an exam on the first go.

This one, a math major, has virtually encyclopedic knowledge of such varied subjects as ''TheSimpsons'' and ''{{Futurama}}'', college football, and Tom Clancy's Ryanverse. He's currently in year five of his BS, and on pace to take six years to get it. Go figure.

This troper has had people calling her Super Ultra Crazy Insane smart (no, really) on multiple occasions. She's been able to outsmart almost everyone she knows, even people of 20 to 40 with the best educations out there, while she is only fourteen and won't turn fifteen until summer next year. Her intelligence is a lot in language: she knows better English than her teachers (and it's not her native tongue) and has to correct her teachers on improper use of grammer in both English and Dutch. Unfortunately, she's also very lazy and can't really be bothered to study: after all, she could be using this time for other things. Hell, even if someone forces her to study, she gets distracted by a nearby fly, or something. Her friends often describe her as a Real Life Shikamaru.

This troper. Universally considered one of the smartest people in my state, and I'm barely passing my classes.

This troper must maintain at least all C's, lest face the wrath of others. But I'm still bugged by said others for getting all A's except for one B a while ago. Ugg. I hate Algebra. And, said others (if you are reading this), I can't be freakin' perfect. I'm only human. Oh, my specialties are Art, Spanish and English. I'm able to absorb information that I like or will use. But not 2(a+ 58b)= 3(z-9), find z crap.

This Troper has never had the same result on any IQ test. His lowest was 153 and his highest was 214. Despite this, he finished high school with a mid-C average, was on academic probation for his first semester of college #1, graduating with a 2.8 GPA, and finishing the first year of college #2 with a 3.8 GPA.

This is often justified, even in RealLife, by the fact that intelligence is really a hinderance in the mainstream educational system. Schools aren't designed to foster intellectual thought, they're designed to force kids to mindlessly repeat answers and jump through hoops on command, in order to make you more employable. Intelligent employees are harder to control, after all, so thinking outside the narrow box must be discouraged.

This troper has an IQ of 156 and maintains a fairly solid B- average, except when she refuses to do homework (in which cases it's lower).

This Troper is very smart, and can retain a endless amount of trivia and information- from Dr. Who to history to random science facts. He once surprise dhis grandmother by discussing the characterizations inherent in Romio and Juliet, from a pure writing perspective. But Schoolwork is so *annoying* he has to fight himself to turn it in.

This troper is regarded as pretty much the smartest person they know by their peers and himself but once they get to know this tropes aren't to willing to enter into the same group as him. Not only do he never study, or work on schoolprojcts at home but he will actually avoid doing homework by biking all the way to school on a free day and still end up just reading through that annoying wiki site of his all day long and go home again.

Blah blah this troper blah smart but lazy blah.

You're awesome.

Thank you. (I just realized how ironic it is that I'm here instead of doing my homework.)

Acoording to an IQ test This (German) Troper did some four to six years ago, he has an I.Q. somewhere in between 142 and 152, which, as he was told, puts him in the top 2% of intelligence (again, he was told that. He may be mistaken and / or arrogant). Well, my- I mean, This Troper's grades were steadily slipping, but stabilized when he transferred into an all-english school. He still sucks at Math, and despite his Sesquipedalian Loquaciousness, he gets bad grades at Chemistry HL tests (his favourite subject) for not talking sciencey enough. Ironic, however, is that he gets continuing 7's (highest mark in the IB schemata) in [=ToK=], a sort of {{MindScrew}}-y philosophy class that questions questioning and teaches about teaching. The worst thing, however, is This Troper's rampant lazyness, for which he constantly belittles himself, YET NEVER DOES ANYTHING. Or, to make it more tropey, were I a (not-)SquishyWizard, all I would memorize would be {{UselessUsefulSpell}}s. And I would KillItWithFire anyway. Maybe.

...This troper feels stupid now.

This particular troper loves science and, among other things, can actually understand the insanity that is quantum mechanics. The only problem? He ''hates'' equations, and ended up flunking his calculus class and his physics class and switched majors in disgust. He can also point out any country in the world on a map...but ask him about Africa and he's more lost than a blind hiker.

This troper's brother failed several subjects, barely scraped through the others and almost didn't pass high school altogether. He's the clever, socially-aware one that thinks before he speaks. Meanwhile, this troper, who tended to get As or Bs in everything, has the social and political awareness of a concussed duckling, no social skills and no initiative or ability to follow verbal instructions or read body language. For some reason, in the eyes of our family my tendency to read a lot, score highly on written exams and assignments and use big words makes me "the smart one", while my actually intelligent brother is "slow" because of his low grades (a result of laziness) and tendency to pause before answering questions (to consider what he's about to say instead of just yammering out words as they occur to him). None of my friends will believe that I'm stupid, and very few believe that he's smart.

This Troper is guilty of it as well. Fully intelligent when it comes to History, English, Geography, etc. (I never even study), but my math marks were barely passing. Once, not even so. Turns out I had Dyscalculia (math disability), which was why I was compensating in other fields. Apparently, a lot of people who are 'geniuses' in one field can be utterly horrible in others. Combined with my poor study habits and quiet attitude, my grade school teachers thought I was slow, and my fellow students were utterly confused when they saw my marks. Added to that, the school system was (as mentioned above) just as bad as any other in our region, and I always had a tendency to not think inside the box. Some people thought I was a genius, others thought I was an idiot. I'm good with just being thought of as creative and mildly intelligent...

This Troper's 16-year-old brother manages to get good grades, but only with a lot of studying and a lot of help and cajoling from our parents, and he's horrible at standardized tests. However, he's absolutely amazing when it comes to working with his hands and designing layouts for his wooden trains and Legos (it should be noted that he has Asperger's Syndrome). My 11-year-old sister and I have always been hailed as incredibly smart by other people, but we don't test well. But we're good for random bursts of insight and memorizing things.

This troper is great at taking tests, but terrible at everything else, probably due to laziness (not doing homework or taking notes), forgetfulness (also part of not doing homework), and lack of interest in my potential future (I've never had a defined goal since I was out of elementary school, probably causing a lack of motivation). I've had MANY teachers ask me after I got B's on their tests how I was doing so bad in their class. I even got almost a 1300 on my SAT's, yet I failed a class in my senior year of high school, failed another in my freshman year of college, and am likely to fail 1 or 2 of the classes I am taking currently in my sophomore year. Although I recently decided what I wanted to do with my life, and am feeling a sudden determination to do better in school (also because it's required for the career I want), so here's hoping.

This troper has been recognized by her parents and all of her Math teachers as someone who could really have a future in math. Of course, because of lack of motivation and laziness, she has never actually gotten better than a 7 on a math test.

Hoo boy do these sound familiar. I had horrendous grades in elementary school, particularly in math and spelling. I think I may have gotten an A once. All despite every aptitude test I've ever taken showing that I was pretty dang smart. (99th percentile on the SAT.) The trend changed considerably when I started home schooling. Finally, able to learn at my own pace! Grades soared and most of the work got done before lunch. After starting college my grades started to go down again until I couldn't take the stress any more and quit. Now going to a tech school for commercial art and loving it.

This troper once took an IQ test. For the 16-20 range. When he was 9. Scored high enough to be considered a genius even without adjusting for age. Got a 32 on his ACT only because he went CloudCuckooLander for more than half the time alloted for the math portion of the exam. Can easily visualize five dimensions, and six if he strains, and regularly read quantum physics books or fun since he was a kid. Has an aptitude for language called amazing by at least three different teachers for two languages, aside from english. Unfortunately, he is complete garbage at doing simple math problems without writing it all out in a time-consuming way, and don't even ask about homework, ''especially'' in classes where the teacher only says the assignment once.

This troper came out of senior year with a 4.0 GPA, essentially passing classes in her sleep. She failed all her college courses in her first semester.

This troper has a large vocabulary, sometimes confusing people when using a big word, and having a large knowledge of things...most of which is not useful in normal life and except for my senior year, barely passed high school at all.

This trooper thought she lived in opposite world as she has an exceptional vocabulary, a knowledge of just about anything and everything that confused most adults, was in Advanced Placement classes since Middle school, read at a high school level in elementary, and can memorize large amounts of information in half the time it takes to read it. Yet, she barely escaped graduating with a triple digit class rank, while about 15 of the top 20 individuals relied greatly on her for answers to the most simple of questions. Don't get her started on the History and Reading classes!

This troper reads heaps, which is how she knows so much, but everyone thinks she gets the best marks when she's lucky to get a single B.

This troper was pretty much self-taught from books at an early age, from a very non-intellectual environment, so was up to 6th grade reading level before even starting 1st grade. Unfortunately, non-intellectual environment meant that I didn't have any role models for pronunciation, so I didn't sound very book-smart to anyone who was more formally educated, though my close family saw me as book-smart but lacking common sense. Fortunately I was so far ahead in reading comprehension and vocabulary that no one really noted until late high school and early college, when other students had caught up enough to recognize jumbled pronunciation and misused grammar. By then I'd gathered more streetwise, which caught up to and leveled out with book-smart with a few years of junior college.

This troper has an IQ of ~150, but she plainly refuses to study or to do any schoolwork (provided that she'll still pass without doing it) until she gets to 11th grade. From 11th grade onwards, in Spain, is where your grades start counting towards university (which is, in addition to a test, what determines what you can study in uni); until then, she doesn't care that she gets a 70% average... much. Teachers always tell her, "You should get perfect scores on these tests! Why won't you do it? Why?", to which she answers, "Okay, for the next one I'll study twice as much as I did for this one." They have no idea that it's her default answer, seeing as zero times two is zero anyway. Or that she hasn't studied in her life, either.

Not to be a {{JerkAss}} here, but this troper wouldn't be that surprised if a good proportion of these tales are coming from examples of TedBaxter and KnowNothingKnowItAll...

Not to mention, ''what's'' the percentage of people supposed to have an IQ above 140?

Less than 1% apparently. (I was told after my own IQ test two years ago. I refrain from divulging what I scored)

This page is as self-fellatory as the BrilliantButLazy Troper Tales.

Sssssh! Let us keep our delusions!

Well, there probably is a higher proportion of these people amongst geeks than amongst the regular population, but I agree that some of these would be exaggerated or even entirely made up. That being said, I am adding myself to this page in this very edit, but I swear it's 100% true.

I disagree that there's a higher proportion of BookDumb amongst geeks...because we're ''geeks''. Facts and trivia (useless or otherwise) is what we do! I'm sorry, but the people here are just blaming the outside world for their own shortcomings.

This troper is quite intelligent but he does terrible in tests especially math and science.

That doesn't make you BookDumb. That makes you normal.

This Troper, in her first year at achool. She took longer than just about everyone else to learn to read, and at one point the teach even decided she wasn't ready fo full days of school yet and tried to start sending her home at lunchtime (leading to a huge argument with the future-Troper's mother). Skip ahead a few years and she's skipping levels in the school reading scheme to go straight to the top, and was in all the top sets.

This Troper is quite wise and witty - Or So I Heard - and has a great command of the English language, both of which extend into her writing. By contrast, she spaces out when faced with the higher maths such as trig, has an impossibly poor grasp of geography, and has pretty much given up trying to remember any history. Did she mention she has bad memory?

This troper has never been actually been formally told his IQ, only had it described as "extremely well" when he was actually taking the test (the tester was doing research for her [=PhD=] and was not actually licensed to give the tests for results. If you understand what I mean), but somehow managed to ''barely'' (and I cannot stress the word enough) graduate from high school (hey, he slept through 2/3's of math and still passed without doing the homework). This laziness is kicking his ass in college, though.

This Troper's boyfriend is absolutely amazing as far as intelligence goes, but he has horrible, horrible memory for things like papers and organization. Guess what kind of grades ''he'' got?

This troper has an IQ of 135 and has been called smart by teachers and psychologists and such, but barely passes most of her classes, because of a combination of factors. She is somewhat lazy and rather easily distracted. She is uninterested in any of her subjects except Media and English - although Psychology was alright until this year when it stopped being abstract and started being the same as Biology but focusing only on the brain. She has very slow handwriting, she tends to fall asleep in class, and she has lots of trouble writing essays and short answers in the structure and language they're supposed to be written in, not to mention she doesn't know how to extend an answer anymore once she's finished it. She also can't really see the the point of those things beyond getting better marks, to be honest. Oh, and she's good at calculation, but has trouble understanding and remembering formulas, so Math's out the window too.

This troper did well in school up until about seventh grade, at which point she found she didn't enjoy it much anymore. She proceeded to barely squeak by up until 12th grade (which she did very well in due in no small part to having very enjoyable classes), and repeated 9th grade after being booted out of a "junior college" high school. Her low grades during this period caused a teacher to be completely blindsided by her scores on a standardized test - with reading/writing in the top 98% (math, however, was only somewhere in the 50-60% range).

This troper is absolutely wonderful and amazing in every respect and is in possession of genius-level intellect, so all my problems in school are clearly the fault of somebody else.

Wow, you're like the mirror image of me! Or a long lost cousin! Or some other way this resembles me! Additional generic self-aggrandising statement!

This troper's high school marching band is doing a routine to "Moulin Rouge" this year. My brother enjoyed the fact that we had to explain to several freshmen what the Moulin Rouge was, (a brothel, to those who don't know.)

I think that most marching band members can be categorized as {{Book Dumb}} or Genius Ditzes. All of the ones in my high school marching band, anyhow.

This troper sort of. I'm not the supposed genius most of the examples are, but in my math class, the few assignments I did turn in... Received close to perfect scores. I'm obviously pretty stupid for not doing enough HW to pass the class anyways, but hey.

This troper's brother has frequently barely passed classes, suffers from severe--if denied--dyslexia, and is a veritable sponge for useless information, especially regarding history. He is the captain of his school's random trivia team, which is 3rd best in the state of Virginia. The two schools who finished ahead are tuition schools from Alexandria.

This Troper's father actually ''does'' belong here, instead of Brilliant But Lazy. He is terribly dyslexic (although he'd never admit it), and quite ignorant of most of the scholarly things I take for granted. It's not a matter of not applying himself or not fitting into schools, either; his I.Q. is below average, and it shows painfully whenever he has to learn something new. He's also arguably a MagnificentBastard, and indubitably a very successful SelfMadeMan. What he lacks in natural intelligence he makes up for with sheer, unyielding force of will, and the almost uncanny ability to bend others' minds such willpower generates, as his primary tools; he's the walking '''{{inversion}}''' of BrilliantButLazy. %%Sorry, I couldn't resist the cheap jibe at Brilliant But Lazy... can you blame me?

Your father sounds like an amazing man. I give you many blessings for not talking about your failures at school like the rest of these misguided Tropers.

Seconded. Besides, your dad sounds a little like my ex-boyfriend, who has little formal education (even his spelling is kind of... interesting), but runs a successful business because he is a hard worker, has great ideas and good people skills. I have a bachelor's with good grades, yet I never assumed myself to be smarter than him. It's just a different kind of intelligence.

This troper is in a advanced class almost always gets b's and a's and yet I almost never listen to a thing anyone says, I have been known to spend entire math lessons staring at, and indeed talking to, a fly in the classroom. I don't ever recall doing work in class but I think its just because I read to much for my own well being and therefore know...stuff.

Other students and friends of this troper assume he is very smart and gets really high grades. In reality, he has a lower GPA than some others and has gotten several C grades in the past.

This troper started out in grade school already being able to read and count at a high level (due to being left alone with several bookcases for seemingly days on end... at least all her earliest memories involve fumbling around with books while her parents are conspicuously absent), then used to range from extremely bad to average in junior high and high school, grade-wise, and had to repeat a year due to her grades in English class (with one teacher remarking she'd never be fluent... Hilarious in hindsight much?), but the second she switched from high school to university and did something she was actually interested in, she was consistently near or at the top of her year. So yeah.

My boyfriend is far more intelligent than his grades indicate. Not for lack of trying[he can't write(as in, structure/style not penmanship or illiteracy) and got a D in spanish], but because he's shrewd when it comes to people[he has bullshit-desintigrating vision], and me, him, and a couple other of our friends are working on an RPG. He's the main programmer. Also, I probably count too a bit. I'm starting to go into Crippling Overspecialization territory, but I've never been very good with math. Partially laziness, partially terrible teachers, mostly a general incomprehensibility. And most of the time I can't parse political talk though apparently I have a grasp for prose[as my teachers tell me].

One of This troper's classmate is exactly this. She is excellent at mathematics and physics, but an utter failure at anything involving writing. Aside from her being rather ditzy, failing spot checks often and often going into Cloudcuckoolander mode.

This Troper apparently has a amazing brain (not taken an IQ test, but I suspect I'm above average) and is getting D's and E's at A-Level. Clearly, a great philosophical knowledge of the universe, how it works and a (very) critical view of society (just way does society basically run on pieces of paper in an age where we have computers able to send spaceships to the stars anyway? I'll stop there to prevent boredom...) does not a good student make. Then again, considering my attention span varies between a goldfish's and a sniper's, it could be school is my goldfish span and home time is my sniper span (sorry if the last bit doesn't make much sense).

This troper has an IQ of 270, generally scores in the 104th percentile on standardised tests, and received six Nobel Prizes whilst still in high school, but got only a C in one class because I never showed up to it since I was too busy curing aids or something.

Marry me!

Pshhhhhh. Where do ''you'' come from where that's impressive? THIS troper scored 390 on his IQ test, scored in the 200th percentile on every standardized test, speaks 560 languages, ''and'' received 4 Pulitzers, 8 Noble Peace Prizes, the PFA, the George Cross, The Order of Canada, The Order of Australia, the Bharat Ratna, and the Légion d'honneur. All before he was 10. When he went to high school, however, he sadly maintained a -0.0 grade point average. Thankfully, however, being the second coming I was able to "persuade" (read; threaten them with my almighty brain powers) Harvard AND Oxford to both let me in. They did, and now I have 12 PHD's.

To both of you 2, this is the TroperTales for BookDumb, not BlatantLies or SarcasmMode.

I struggle in school all the time but everything else i'm like a super genius

Nope! No egotism on this page! Regardless, yet another example for this troper. I had barely a 3.0 GPA in high school, but have been cited by friends and family as intelligent, very articulate, a thoughtful debater, and an excellent writer. Hell, even my teachers agreed I had plenty to contribute to the class--when I wasn't falling asleep at my desk.

This troper hasn't tested his IQ (don't particularly want to, if I'm honest), but is described as very intelligent by many people. He is currently taking two A levels and currently has a C in his English Lit and an E in his Law. The reasons, from his point of view? Poor time management skills ("Hmm, essay for tomorrow or Green Day CD...where did I put the CD player?"), reluctance to take notes in lessons ("Why take notes if we are being given a sheet with the information on?") and prefering to stick with performing arts than other work. Oh, and coping purely because of a rapid typing speed.

I have a GPA that struggles to be a 1.0. However, my ACT score is 32, and I'm pretty knowledgeable and love to read. Unlike some of the people on this page though, I'm not very proud of it. It's pretty much screwed up my life because I've always thought I was entitled to something just because I was above-average. Learn something from those shounen anime, young Tropers; hard work WILL beat out genius every time, and both is even better.

This troper is a variation. He isn't necessarily book dumb as he is quite learned and had pretty good grades when he attended school. However, his deep-seated contempt for the education system led him to leave school when he was going to graduate from HS at the age of 15. Dethroning Moment Of Suck, anyone? Then again, he hates this trope. Why? Simple. We naturally assume there is a correlation between getting poor grades and low intelligence. The truth is, there are many intelligent people in this world who did poorly in school. Book smarts don't really mean shit. Does your future truly depend on how well you can do calculus? It's all worthless crap. True, school is a necessary evil and I won't deny that. In this crazy world we have to learn the rules of the game. Nonetheless, school was extremely counterproductive and much of it insulted my intelligence. It encourages conformity and only allows free expression only when it coincides with the school's standards of ethics, morality, and ideologies. The fact that people judge another people's intelligence based on how much useless trivia they know is absolutely pathetic. School should be much less time consuming as we should allow children to start pursuing careers at a early age. There's a lot of stuff we have to learn about the world and when we pursue it ourselves it will mean a whole lot more to us.

SergeantLuke: I mostly get B's and sometimes C's with a few A's scattered about, but for some reason, people constantly ask me "so, are you a straight A student?" It must be the NerdGlasses.

Inversion/subversion/something here. I get low-A averages in pretty much all my classes without even trying hard, got a 1950 on my SAT without any significant studying, am a "fairly good" musician in my own view which is generally correlated with intelligence (though I've accomplished more than "fairly good" implies, I attribute it to my near-total lack of performance pressure and not being ACTUALLY good), but I'm pretty convinced that it's not that I'm intelligent but that everyone else is dumb. My education seems to confirm this, as the one non-honors class I'm taking (due to a moral dispute one of my parents had with its only teacher) isn't significantly easier than the honors version. The various news stories about people without common sense tend to do this over time as well. Ever listened to Sean Hannity's Man on the Street segments? I sincerely hope there's SOME kind of filter on there that only the dumbest get selected. Half the people don't even know who the Vice President of the US is (and this is a US show). It's Joe Biden, as of April 22, 2011.

Although I'm currently homeschooled, when I was in public school, I was failing or just barely scraping by in all of my classes. I study quantum physics and cosmology in my spare time and had college-level reading skills in elementary school, yet I got straight Ds in all of my classes.