Final Examination
Do not turn over your question paper until it is brown on one side, then proceed carefully using a spatula or tongs. The following items will not be permitted in the examination hall: top hats, bottom hats, talking parrots, itching powder, halberds, monkeys and typewriters, tonsils, paisley shirts. Remember that a carelessly wielded slide-rule can take someone’s eye out. Try it if you don’t believe me. Candidates may not smell of garlic or wash their underpants during the exam.
1) Name three things. The things should not have been previously named and at least one should have a bonnet with a feather in. Be careful.
2) ‘You are the apple of my eye’. Should this be ‘apple of my pie’? Marks will be awarded for neat diagrams of the eye and pie and accurate location of the apples therein. Marks will be deducted for poor personal hygiene.
3) Machiavelli stated that ‘…it is unnecessary for a prince to have all the good qualities I have enumerated…’ In that case, why does anybody bother to read his books? Re-write The Prince in the form of a limerick and wear it with pride.
4) Take a trip in a hot-air balloon and describe what you see. Try to pay with a cheque drawn on an Icelandic bank. See how fast you can run.
5) Grow an apple tree. Allow one of the apples to fall on your head. See if you discover gravity. Chop the tree down then lie about it. Make the apples into a pie or an eye. Don’t take too long over this question, it’s too silly for words.
6) Prove the continuum hypothesis. Win the Nobel Prize. Lose it on the way home. Go back and ask for another. Now you know what it’s like to be Oliver Twist. Aren’t you ashamed?
7) If history is bunk, what is geography? Which historical figure would you most like to share a bunk with, and why? Wouldn’t it be funny if Henry Ford drove a Ford? Then he’d have the same name as his car! Wouldn’t that be funny, though? (A yes or no answer, which should be yes, will suffice.)
8) Dorothy Parker wrote all or none of her poetry perched on the back seat of a tandem bicycle. Find the bicycle. Write a poem of your own in the style of a tandem rider. Now would be a good time to deploy the halberd and itching powder if you remembered to bring them.
9) Compare and contrast the novels of Richard Brautigan with a herring. If Brautigan’s novels were filleted, would they sell better? Only three people have ever read a Brautigan novel or a herring. Name ten people who haven’t.
10) John Allen Paulos posed the question: what is the chance that, if a million Shakespeares flexed their muscles at random, one of them would find himself swinging through the trees like a monkey? Well? What is the chance? Your answer should be handed in before I go to the bookies.
All answers should be posted on ABC on or before the day you post them.
Comments
tcook | October 22, 2008 - 15:00
And then a sombrero fell in the middle of the street - Brautigan is so under-rated.
chuck | October 22, 2008 - 15:07
Darn. I never go anywhere these days without my halberd so I suppose that lets me out.
FTSE100 | October 22, 2008 - 15:07
A Confederate General From Big Sur is my favourite, although everyone else seems to go for Trout Fishing in America. Amongst the three people who've read them, that is!
chuck | October 22, 2008 - 15:08
Ah yes the Civil War. The last good time America ever had.
FTSE100 | October 22, 2008 - 15:22
Yee-haw! Not quite sure why I said that, it just seemed appropriate. I find a halberd comes in handy for opening tins of sardines.
neilmc | October 22, 2008 - 20:30
Funny and clever, pitched just right.
artisus | October 22, 2008 - 20:59
Enjoyable read, original humour.
Ewan | October 23, 2008 - 08:21
3) Machiavelli stated that ‘…it is unnecessary for a prince to have all the good qualities I have enumerated…’ In that case, why does anybody bother to read his books? Re-write The Prince in the form of a limerick and wear it with pride.
I think you should suggest this to TC as IOPW
FTSE100 | October 23, 2008 - 13:48
neilmc, artisus, Ewan, thanks for your comments. You have all passed with honours.
tcook | October 23, 2008 - 16:48
Sombrero FallOut is my favourite - but I love them all.
A good idea for the IP - rewrite your favourite book as a limerick - it might well make it this week!
Stefano | October 23, 2008 - 22:12
Re Brautigan novels, I used to like In Watermelon Sugar many, many years ago but it's a bit too sweet for my taste these days. I'll go for Dreaming of Babylon.
Ewan | October 24, 2008 - 06:28
"neilmc, artisus, Ewan, thanks for your comments. You have all passed with honours."
Damn, that's the first thing I've passed in weeks! Praise the Lord for sennapods.
littleditty | October 25, 2008 - 01:19
Ah this is a good read :) a right livener! I wrote one to Dorothy on the back of a tandem a while back, Daisy Daisy...and Twist's limerick has caught my attention also..i shall have to rummage and revise - bravo! I thought i was dead, cheers!
FTSE100 | November 1, 2008 - 18:47
littleditty, I'm afraid your diagram of the pie omitted the all-important custard, you found entirely the wrong tandem, and the parrot on your shoulder was expressly forbidden. However, you did pay your tuition fees promptly, so you too have passed with honours!
FTSE100s-Brother (not verified) | November 4, 2008 - 00:16
I feel it prudent to point out that 'herring' should be spelled 'fish'. This is a more generic term for use by those who's verbal fishing quotas are nearing exhaustion.
In these enlightened days of nature conservation it doesn't do to say 'herring' too many times for fear of stock depletion. For my own part I am able to say 'fish' as many times as I like. Fish, fish, fish (there, isn't that fun?) but I have already said 'herring' twice (sorry, just said it again, make that three times) and my personal herring quotas (4 times) are getting dangerously low. I am now in mortal fear of that friendly, but heavily armed Fisheries launch that is bouncing majestically across the waves towards me.
Ah well, time to deploy the halberd and itching powder once again. Although that will have to wait until later. These are, after all, items that we are not allowed to have in the exam room.
yrene | January 6, 2009 - 04:44
Wow! You honestly made me read the instruction when I usually do not! I bet you're the only one who can make such cool exam questions! This is so cleverly written.
-gasps-
(^_^)
best regards,
yReNe
Tom Brown | October 5, 2009 - 17:41
Attending university is a very educational experience. Not to be confused with actually being educated.