disconnect

This past weekend I received an email from my Creative Writing professor, which she'd sent out to my entire class with a note to please arrange to take this test by Friday. We were to read each question carefully, leave none unanswered and, once begun, spend only two hours total on the task. With a cheery good luck, she left the rest to us:

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.

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 circa 1750. Prove your thesis.

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

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.

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.

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.

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

GENERAL KNOWLEDGE: Describe in detail. Be objective and specific.

HISTORY: Describe the history of the Papacy from its origins to the present day, concentrating especially, but not exclusively, on Europe, Asia, America and Africa. Be brief, concise and specific.

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.

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.

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

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

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

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.

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

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.

RELIGION: Perform a miracle. Creativity will be judged.

{ extra credit } Define the universe, and give three examples.

: : : : : : : : : : :

Which might all be rather daunting except that I'm sure you, like I, were able to deduce the tone of such a thing and, from the first sentence onward, simply enjoy it. And after talking to a few friends and one fellow classmate over the weekend, I figured my reaction had been the general and expected one.

Until today, when we met in my Writing class for the first time since said email. Professor Young left the room for all of two minutes and suddenly the place was abuzz. "Was she serious? I mean, really?" I raised an eyebrow at Bee. "What are you talking about?" I asked. She raised her arms in frustration. "That stupid test! It took me two hours just to do the first one!"

I'm afraid the stress of midterm exams is taking its toll.

Josh and I had just enough time to finish laughing before Professor Young returned, after which I whisper-explained the situation to Bee and asked if she'd bothered to read the rest? She shook her head, chagrined. "I was so upset that I just didn't care." She had the good humor to laugh at the situation, however, and we moved on to speech tags and character development and that was that. Though I would have loved to have seen what she might have dreamed up for that miracle.