I remember back in my school days when we would have a marketing quiz every Friday to test our memory of specific industry terms. One enterprising student I was friends with figured out an amazing hack for getting the quiz answers right every time. Alan, we'll call him, figured out a way to make a ballpoint pen, one with a clear window in the shaft for an advertising message, into an "examination aid" (as he called his cheat). He would laboriously write out all the definitions of the marketing terms in ultra-tiny script on a miniscule scrap of rolled-up paper which we covered that week. By twisting the pen in a certain way, the definition of the glossary term would be displayed in the small window. Sheer brilliance, we all thought.

Cool. But what does this have to do with manicures?

I was reminded of my clever friend when I happened upon a fashion website which featured a story about a fellow who developed an equally inventive way to keep test answers at hand. Apparently, this guy got a full manicure complete with a set of long, luxurious nails (yes it was a guy). The purpose of the long nails, besides to look fabulous, was so he could store test answers and math formulas on itty-bitty bits of paper glued to the underside of the nail.

Very Clever! Did it work?

Unfortunately for the enterprising young man, he was so proud of his own brilliance, he couldn't help but betray his own stupidity to the world. Instead of keeping his clever strategy on the down low, he shared his trickery on Twitter. (Duh!) The post instantly went viral and the inventive student ended up suspending his Twitter account due to the hordes of notifications which flooded. He eventually felt forced to abandon his exam gambit fearing the teacher had seen his uber-popular post.

What about Alan?

Although my friend Alan was never caught by his teacher, he too, encountered a major flaw with his sneaky scheme. He discovered for instance, that by carefully, arduously rewriting all the information onto the pen-sized paper, he didn't need the actual gimmicked pen to ace the test. He already knew the answers without looking at his secret answer window thanks to him having spent so much time copying them over.

Surely there's a lesson in this for us all?

There are actually a number of lessons to be learned from these two students' experiences:

• Don't cheat on tests

• If you decide to ignore Lesson 1, don't put it on social media

• Learning what you're supposed to learn while in class is the best policy.

• Manicures can be used for more than decoration and style but can also be used for evil!

Here's a link to the original story as it appeared in Teen Vogue. Photo credit to "Andrw" @glxzwdwyws from his Twitter time line.