Another example from intro calculus: I once put a question of the form "$y=f(x)^{g(x)}$, find $y'$" on an exam. One student reasoned, if the exponent were a constant, the answer would be $g(x)f(x)^{g(x)-1}f'(x)$, but that's not right; if the base were a constant, the answer would be $g'(x)f(x)^{g(x)}\log f(x)$, but that's not right either; so I'll put them together to get $g(x)f(x)^{g(x)-1}f'(x)+g'(x)f(x)^{g(x)}\log f(x)$. This joke was on me, since that turns out to be correct.
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