Category A (Social Science, History and Philosophy)
In “The Analects,” Confucius identifies the cardinal virtue of ren (variously translated as goodness, humanity, benevolence) with many different attitudes and behaviors. Yet Confucius also says, “There is one thread that runs through my doctrines.” Commentators differ about what that one thread is. What, in your opinion, could that one thread be? How does that one thread tie together the wide range of moral values that Confucius celebrates in “The Analects”? Support your answer by interpreting specific passages from the text.
In 1919, historian and sociologist Max Weber delivered two influential speeches to German university students who were trying to make sense of the German defeat in World War I. The lectures, “Politics as a Vocation” and “Science as a Vocation,” address the nature of learning, scholarship and political action. Read these lectures and write an essay that focuses on an aspect of Weber’s argument with which you either agree or disagree. You may want to consider one lecture or to compare the two. In what ways are Weber’s views relevant today, nearly a century after they were delivered?
Category B (Arts and Literature)
“Anyone who is too lazy to master the comparatively small glossary necessary to understand Chaucer deserves to be shut out from the reading of good books forever.” — Ezra Pound, “ABC of Reading”
Read “The Pardoner’s Tale.” Construct an argument in favor of or against Pound’s statement. In writing your answer, refer to at least one other text from the period, for example, Langland’s “Piers Plowman” or “The Song of Roland.”
Mary Shelley’s novel “Frankenstein” is best known for its influence in popular culture through many film adaptations. It is in fact, however, one of the great novels of ideas. Write an essay that discusses in what sense you think it is a novel of ideas. What are its claims about human reason and human nature?
Category C
(Science and Mathematics)
Consider the following two-player game, Don’t Be Greedier, which involves players’ taking alternate turns removing pebbles from one pile of pebbles, subject to the following rules: (1) The player to remove the last pebble or pebbles from the pile wins the game. (2) On the very first move of the game, the player to play is not allowed to remove all the pebbles and win immediately (that would be greedy). (3) After the first move, the number of pebbles removed can’t be more than the number of pebbles removed in the turn immediately prior (that would be greedier). That is, the sequence of numbers of pebbles removed on each turn is a monotonically nonincreasing sequence. Starting with a pile of 12 pebbles, which player would win a game of Don’t Be Greedier, assuming optimal play?
Read this article on the use of fecal transplants to cure Clostridium difficile or obesity, “Duodenal Infusion of Donor Feces for Recurrent Clostridium difficile,” from the New England Journal of Medicine. Design a research trial to test whether another disease may be cured using microbes from the human biome.
Yahoo Local News – New York Times
http://newyork.greatlocalnews.info/?p=14720
via Great Local News: New York http://newyork.greatlocalnews.info
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