osu maximus competition

tako
Sun, 16 Jul 2006 01:47:12 +0000

In order to participate in the 2006 University Scholar Maximus Competition, you must be accepted as an incoming freshman to the Columbus campus of The Ohio State University and be designated a University Scholar for the academic year 2006–2007. Priority registration deadline: February 6, 2006.

I’m assuming you’re a senior next year? Since the deadline already passed…

Here are some sample questions:

CATEGORY A:

1. There has been a proposal to do away with cash and require all purchases in the United States to be on credit or debit cards. Although such cards are convenient, they reduce privacy regarding one’s purchases. There may be other disadvantages as well. Write an essay evaluating the relative usefulness of cash versus cards for various sectors of society.


Here are some figures to think and write about. You are not asked for a command of research on the topic, just to think and write about what to make of the data presented below. Do they fit well with your understanding of the world? What do you think they mean? How might one explain the substantial difference between Americans, on one hand, and citizens of other democracies, on the other, in terms of their religious beliefs?


Religious Attitudes in Selected Countries (in percentages) United States Great Britain France West Germany
Believe in God 92 68 52 62
Believe in life after death 81 59 51 55
Believe in heaven 86 53 33 46
Believe in hell 74 32 20 36
Believe in miracles 79 38 37 62


Suppose the U.S. national news media (TV, radio, newspapers) reported the scenic vistas and natural seasonal events on a major river for one year with the same degree of attention that is typically devoted to an ongoing war or disaster. What would be the effects on our nation?


CATEGORY B:
4. Is the digital manipulation of images and the “sampling” or electronic alteration of existing musical and artistic compositions different from more traditional methods of artistic creation? Defend your answer, using examples.


What is fire?
Analyze and interpret the following poem.

On a Maine Beach

Look, in these pools, how rocks are like worn change
Keeping the ocean’s mint-mark; barnacles
Miser on them; societies of snails
Hunch on their rims and think small thoughts whose strange
Salt logics rust like a mainspring, small dreams
Pinwheeling to a point and going dumb,
Small equations whose euphemistic sum
Stands for mortality. A thousand times
Tides swallow up such pools, shellfish and stone
Show green and yellow shade in groves of weed;
Rocks shrink, barnacles drink, snails think they bleed
In their trapped world. Here, when the sea is gone,
We find old coins glowing under the sky,
Barnacles counting them, snails spending slow
Round lifetimes half-awake. Beach rhythms flow
In circles. Perfections teach us to die.

                        -- Robley Wilson




So the requirement for an invite is just that you have to be a University scholar. And I don’t believe you’re invited, I think all you have to do is register once you get accepted to OSU.

Did you look at this website?