Final Exam

Instructions: Read each question carefully. Answer all questions.
Time limit: 2 hours. Begin immediately.

Computer Science
Write a fifth-generation computer language. Using this language, write a computer program to finish the rest of this exam for you.

Electrical Engineering
You will be placed in a nuclear reactor and given a partial copy of the electrical layout. The electrical system has been tampered with. You have seventeen minutes to find the problem and correct it before the reactor melts down.

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 you work has been inspected. You have fifteen minutes.

Public Speaking
2500 riot-crazed students 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 knowledge of their works, evaluate the emotional stability, degree of adjustment, and repressed frustrations of each of the following: Alexander of Aphrodisis, Rameses II, Hammuarabi. Support your evaluation 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.

Mechanical Engineering
The disassembled parts of a high-powered rifle have been placed on your desk. You will also find an instruction manual, printed in Swahili. In 10 minutes, a hungry bengal tiger will be admitted to the room. Take whatever action you feel necessary. Be prepared to justify your decision.

Civil Engineering
This is a practical test of your design and building skills. With the boxes of toothpicks and glue present, build a platform that will support your weight when you and your platform are suspended over a vat of nitric acid.

Chemistry
You must identify a poison sample which you will find at your lab table. All necessary equipment has been provided. There are two beakers at your desk, one of which holds the antidote. If the wrong substance is used, it causes instant death. You may begin as soon as the professor injects you with a sample of the poison. (We feel this will give you an incentive to find the correct answer.)

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 and 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.

Sociology
Estimate the sociological problems which might be associated with the end of the world. Construct an experiment to test your theory.

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

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

Mathematics
Derive the Euler-Cauchy equations using only a straightedge and compass. Discuss in detail the role these equations had on mathematical analysis in Europe during the 1800s.

Philosophy
Sketch the development of human thought. Estimate its significance. Compare with the development of any other kind of thought.

Religion
Perform a miracle. Creativity will be judged.

Metaphysics
Describe in detail the probably nature of life after death. Test your hypothesis.

Art
Given one eight-count box of crayons and three sheets of notebook paper, recreate the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel. Skin tones should be true to life.

General Knowledge
Describe in detail. Be objective and specific.

Extra Credit
Define the universe, and give three examples.

Thermodynamics

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

Is hell exothermic or endothermic? Support your answer with a proof.

Most of the students wrote proofs of their beliefs using Boyle's Law or some variant. One student, however wrote the following:

First, we postulate that if souls exist, then they must have some mass. If they do, then a mole of souls can also have a mass. So, at what rate are souls moving into hell and at what rate are souls 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 souls entering hell, lets 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 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 volume in hell. Boyle's Law states that in order for the temperature and pressure in hell to stay the same, the ratio of the mass of souls and volume needs to stay constant.

So, 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.

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


The student got an A on the exam.

Computer Nerd T-Shirt Slogans

<-------- The information went data way --------

2 + 2 = 5 for Extremely Large values of 2.

A computer's attention span is as long as its power cord.

Access denied - nah nah na nah nah!

All computers wait at the same speed.

As a computer, I find your faith in technology amusing.

ASCII stupid question, get a stupid ANSI!

Backups? We don' NEED no Steenking backups.

Bad command. Bad, bad command! Sit! Stay! Staaay...

Best file compression around: "DEL. = 100% COMPRESSION

BREAKFAST.COM Halted... Cereal Port Not Responding

BUFFERS=20 FILES=15 2nd Down, 4th Quarter, 5 Yards to Go!

Buy a Pentium 586/200 so you can reboot faster.

C:\> Bad command or file name! Go stand In The Corner.

Cannot find REALITY.SYS. Universe halted.

COFFEE.EXE Missing - Insert Cup and Press Any Key.

CONGRESS.SYS Corrupted: Re-boot Washington D.C. (Y/N)?

Definition of an UPGRADE: Take old bugs out, Put New Ones In.

E Pluribus Modem

Error? Impossible! My Modem is Error Correcting.

Error: Keyboard not attached. Press F1 to Continue.

File not found. Should I Fake It? (Y/N)

Hidden DOS secret: Add BUGS=OFF to your CONFIG.SYS

Mainframe: The biggest PC peripheral available.

Press any key... no, No, NO!! Not THAT one!

Press any key to continue or any OTHER key to quit...

RAM disk is not an installation procedure.

SENILE.COM found . . . Out Of Memory . . .

Smash forehead on keyboard to continue...

Ultimate office automation: Networked Coffee.

Why doesn't DOS ever say "EXCELLENT command or filename!"

Who's General Failure & why is he reading My Disk?

Windows: Just another pane in the glass.

Prepositionally Speaking

From the Up With Which I Shall Not Put department: When it comes to not ending sentences with prepositions, everybody ought to get aboard. After all, proper grammar is what the web should be about! Maybe sloppy sentences are acceptable in some venues, but we should try to stay a cut above. Clear communication helps to get our message across. Of course, careful sentence structure is something you have to keep after. But for every excuse for sloppiness, there is at least one reason against. We should all just get along. Proper grammar is where it is at.

You've probably heard arguments against ending sentences with prepositions before. You definitely don't want to get left behind. These kinds of things can really sneak up on you from below. Sentences ending with prepositions can get really messy besides! I think that they ought to be banned from the prologue to the epilogue and everywhere in between. In fact, I would even go one step beyond. That's just because good grammar is increasingly hard to come by.

Some of you undoubtedly wonder what I'm going on for. Maybe it is hard to tell where I'm coming from.

You just don't know what a mess poorly-constructed sentences can turn into. You have no idea what it can be like. I sometimes talk to myself in poorly-constructed setences when nobody is near. It's not unheard of. But it really puts me off. And I can just go on and on. I keep thinking I'll eventually exhaust the list of prepositions, but I never seem to run out. I googled for an exhaustive list of prepositions once, and I've never run out since. Just reciting the list without context is excruciating to sit through. It's awful to listen to.

I'll probably never stop hearing sentences ending with prepositions until I'm six feet under. Every now and then I think things are looking up. Bad grammar just isn't something I should have to put up with. Put another way, proper sentence structure is something nobody should have to do without.

Yes, I'm aware that I mis-used some of these words to fit sentence structure, and therefore they aren't really prepositions in the form I'm using them. Sue me.

© 2003 Phillip Winn, CC Licensed.

How to put up with prepositions...

A traveller was showing a geologist friend around Duke Bluebeard's castle.

"One used to be able to look out down on to the plain," he said, "but it looks as if the Duke has taken the window the plain could be looked out down on to out of away."

"I wonder," pondered the geologist, "what he has walled the window the plain was looked out down on to out of up with."

"I should like to find someone to take the question of what he took the window the plain was looked out down on to out of away for up with."

"Or indeed what it is walled up with," murmured the other.

Out of the darkness, the Duke's voice was heard:

"I am the one to take the question of what I walled that view I could no longer put up with up with up with.

Source - http://www.furthermore.org.uk/ - published under Creative Commons Licence