College finals from Hell
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 1130 CPU supporting 50 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.