Former Yale Classmate Confirms Ben Carson Told the Truth About Fake Psych Exam

A former Yale classmate has come forward and said that he is “99% certain” that a story Ben Carson tells in his book Gifted Hands about how he once sat down for a fake exam is accurate.

The Wall Street Journal cast serious doubt on Carson’s story in an article last week, claiming they found no evidence that Carson actually was given a fake test, and then earned $10 when he finished the exam. But according to a fellow student who ran the satirical Yale Record, the story actually did happen. 

“When I read about the story in the Wall Street Journal, I immediately said, to my wife and friend, ‘That was the prank we played at the Record! And Ben Carson was in the class,’” Curtis Bakal told Buzzfeed. “We did a mock parody of the Yale Daily News during the exam period in January 1970, and in this parody we had a box that said: ‘So-and-so section of the exam has been lost in a fire. Professor so-and-so is going to give a makeup exam.’”

Bakal also confirmed that “at the end what few students remained — it may have just been one or two, I wasn’t there — received a small cash prize.” However, he couldn’t remember how many students there were, and whether Carson was actually the only one.

While Bakal confirmed the general gist of Carson’s account, there were some slight discrepancies. While Carson described the exam as a sort of inspirational “test of honesty,” Bakal said it was just a prank. Carson called the class Perceptions 301; it was actually Psych 10. And lastly, the prank occurred his freshman year, not his junior year.

When contacted by Buzzfeed, Carson trashed the Wall Street Journal. “Their research teams are not very good,” he said. “I would have thought they would have crackerjack research teams. It really says something horrendous about their investigative abilities.”

[Image via screengrab]
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