Overheard: tricky and tricked

Astronomy 210, Spring Semester 2010
Cuesta College, San Luis Obispo, CA

(Overheard in introductory astronomy lecture.)

(Students plotting locations of known stars at different distances from Earth's location in the Milky Way, and realizing that all these locations are only in the immediate vicinity, well within the same galactic spur, rather than spread out at varying distances across the Milky Way, as initially expected.)

Student: "Hey, y'know, that question was pretty tricky! But we totally got it now."

(Beat.)

Instructor: "It was only tricky if you were tricked."

(Beat.)

Student: "Yeah...okay. Now that deserves a fist bump."