Unconventional exam questions

[Arbiter]

Instructions: Read each question carefully. Answer all questions. Time Limit: 4 hours.

HISTORY Describe the history of the papacy from its origins to the present day, concentrating especially, but not exclusively, on its social, political, economic, religious, and philosophical impact on Europe, Asia, America, and Africa. Be brief, concise, and specific.

MEDICINE You have been provided with a razor blade, a piece of gauze, and a bottle of Scotch. Remove your appendix. Do not suture until your work has been inspected. You have 15 minutes.

PUBLIC SPEAKING Twenty-five hundred riot-crazed aborigines are storming the classroom. Calm them. You may use any ancient language except Latin or Greek.

BIOLOGY Create life. Estimate the differences in subsequent human culture if this form of life had developed 500 million years earlier, with special attention to its probable effect on the English parliamentary system. Prove your thesis.

MUSIC Write a piano concerto. Orchestrate and perform it with flute and drum. You will find a piano under your seat.

PSYCHOLOGY Based on your degree of knowledge of their works, evaluate the emotional stability, degree of adjustment, and repressed frustrations of each of the following: Alexander of Aphrodisias, Rameses II, Gregory of Nicea, Hammurabi. Support your evaluations with quotations from each man's work, making appropriate references. It is not necessary to translate.

SOCIOLOGY Estimate the sociological problems which might accompany the end of the world. Construct an experiment to test your theory.

MANAGEMENT SCIENCE Define management. Define science. How do they relate? Why? Create a generalized algorithm to optimize all managerial decisions. Assuming an 1400 CPU server supporting 50 dumb terminals, each terminal to activate your algorithm; design the communications interface and all necessary control programs.

ENGINEERING The disassembled parts of a high-powered rifle have been placed in a box on your desk. You will also find an instruction manual, printed in Swahili. In ten minutes a hungry Bengal tiger will be admitted to the room. Take whatever action you feel is appropriate. Be prepared to justify your decision.

ECONOMICS Develop a realistic plan for refinancing the national debt. Trace the possible effects of your plan in the following areas: Cubism, the Donatist controversy, the wave theory of light. Outline a method for preventing these effects. Criticize this method from all possible points of view. Point out the deficiencies in your point of view, as demonstrated in your answer to the last question.

POLITICAL SCIENCE There is a red telephone on the desk beside you. Start World War III. Report at length on its socio-political effects, if any.

EPISTEMOLOGY Take a position for or against truth. Prove the validity of your position.

PHYSICS Explain the nature of matter. Include in your answer an evaluation of the impact of the development of mathematics on science.

PHILOSOPHY Sketch the development of human thought; estimate its significance. Compare with the development of any other kind of thought.

GENERAL KNOWLEDGE Describe in detail. Be objective and specific.

*** EXTRA CREDIT *** Define the universe; give three examples.

[CyberSurfer]

HISTORY: The dog ate my homework

MEDICINE: Bah, who needs Scotch? I removed my kidneys too...Do I get extra marks?

PUBLIC SPEAKING: Ja'Quabail Fazaharazad!

BIOLOGY: Done it! If it had been created 500 Million years ago, I'd be a fish!

MUSIC: You'll find it on Napster, in the section of blocked music for copyright reasons...

PSYCHOLOGY: They were all abused as children by having boiling carrots shoved up their nostrils.

SOCIOLOGY: I foresee no problems whatsoever, Everyone'll be in the pub celebrating!

MANAGEMENT SCIENCE: Management are payed to do nothing constructively. My algorithm powers Microsoft.

ENGINEERING: I exited the classroom before the tiger entered. Reason: I'm allergic to cats.

ECONOMICS: Steal the money from the Americans. All those movements agree completely. Honestly.

POLITICAL SCIENCE The number you called is busy...To use ringback, press 5.

EPISTEMOLOGY: Truth depends on whether I'm lying..or not...

PHYSICS: You don't mind, I don't matter.

PHILOSOPHY: I'm thinking about it...

GENERAL KNOWLEDGE: Becoming intimate with a leader of men...

*** EXTRA CREDIT ***

Universe = Me.

1) Me
2) The area immediately surrounding me
3) The area immediately surrounding the area immediately surrounding me.

[Geoff Gunson]

This one always made me chuckle

A thermodynamics professor had written a take home exam for his graduate students. It had one question:

"Is Hell exothermic (gives off heat) or endothermic (absorbs heat)? Support your answer with a proof."

Most of the students wrote proofs using Boyle's Law (gas cools off when it expands and heats up when it is compressed) or some variant. One student, however, wrote the following:

"First, we need to know how the mass of Hell is changing in time. So, we need to know the rate at which souls are moving into Hell and the rate at which they are leaving. I think that we can safely assume that once a soul gets to Hell, it will not leave. Therefore, no souls are leaving.

As for how many souls are entering Hell, let's look at the different religions that exist in the world today. Some of these religions state that if you are not a member of their religion, you will go to Hell. Since there are more than one of these religions and since people do not belong to more than one religion, we can project that all people and all souls go to Hell. With birth and death rates as they are, we can expect the number of souls in Hell to increase exponentially.

Now, we look at the rate of change in the volume in Hell because Boyle's Law states that in order for the temperature and pressure in Hell to stay the same, the volume of Hell has to expand as souls are added. This gives two possibilities:

#1 If Hell is expanding at a slower rate than the rate at which souls enter Hell, then the temperature and pressure in Hell will increase until all Hell breaks loose.

#2 Of course, if Hell is expanding at a rate faster than the increase of souls in Hell, then the temperature and pressure will drop until Hell freezes over.

So which is it? If we accept the postulate given to me by Ms. Therese Banyan during my Freshman year, "that it will be a cold night in Hell before I sleep with you," and we take into account the fact that I still have not succeeded in having sexual relations with her, #2 cannot be true, and so Hell is exothermic."

TTNF

G