Star Trek: 10 Things You Didn't Know About The Kobayashi Maru
5. How Do You Like Them Apples!
In canon, for Prime Kirk, we know little more than the fact of the act of reprogramming, i.e., "He cheated!" For his other half over in the 'Narada Incursion,' we got to see the trickery unfold. One man's "commendation for original thinking" is another, almost identical, man's academic suspension for "violat[ing] the ethical code of conduct pursuant to Regulation 17.43 of the Starfleet code". One apple in the Genesis cave — "I don't believe in a no-win scenario" — is another in the simulation room.
In the script for Star Trek (2009), dated November 2007, Kelvin Kirk was to get around the infamously impossible test in the "USS Trainer" by sleeping around. Gaila, the Orion who made it into the final version, we find out, was, in fact, a technician for the Kobayashi Maru. Still in the dorm room the day before, Kirk tells Gaila he has sent her a message, but that she can "only open it tomorrow at three o'clock on the dot ––".
Gaila obliges, opening the message at the right time in the "TESTING CONTROL BOOTH". It simply reads "I'M SORRY," and, the script continues, "UPLOADS [something] and EXECUTES and ALL THE SCREENS IN HERE AND ON THE BRIDGE DIE –– THE SYSTEM CRASHES". That is certainly one way of doing it! There was also a scene a little later in which Kirk apologised to the wrong Orion! Of course, that had to be cut too.