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The written test (installment two)
Dec. 6th, 2004 11:18 amI'm bored, uncomfortable and just had an encounter with an individual henceforth to be known as Arsehole of the Universe. There are reasons for all of these except the last. I dragged myself out of bed at seven thirty in the morning in time for breakfast and the PPE written test. Which is incredibly formidable and makes me feel scared. I'm still scared even though I've done it. The first question was an article, discussinng contractualist political theory and value-added political theory, neither of which I could honestly claim to have heard of before. I had to comment on the article and summarise, which wasn't so bad, but then had to discuss something "the author has overlooked." Argh. In the end I talked about values as imprecise and "liberty" might imply both the liberty to steal and the liberty not to be stolen from, so on and so forth, etc.
The next bit wanted me to define each of three words, making the differences between the three clear. "Refute, reject, deny." "Novel, radical, total. "State, nation government." I fluffed and made up definitions and generally wrote stuff regardless of relevance. The problem is of course the time limit. It's impossible to write either as much as you want or in as much detail as you want when you only have twenty minutes for each part of the test. The third part involved numbers. It gave you statistics about a shop and what it sold and what it cost the shop to buy its merchandise and some people and how much they were willing to pay, and then they wanted you to predict profits. For the first time in my life, I voluntarily started writing equations. It dawned on me that they'd save me time, but my skill at algebra is such that I have no idea whether what I wrote made any sense mathematically or otherwise.
The ironic thing is that after a sleepless night and having to drag myself out of bed, I now have nothing to do until tomorrow. I could read the newspaper, I could go out, but neither is entirely appealing at the moment. It's very cold and looks like it's going to rain. So I'm sitting here playing on the internet, which brings us neatly on to the Arsehole of the Universe. I talked to him briefly before, when he struck me as arrogant ("Oh, if I don't get in here I'm going to Harvard") but just now he drifted in, looked very obviously over my shoulder and said, in the most condescending tone imaginable, "Oh, I see you're preparing for your interview as we speak."
"Um... no," I said, and didn't add, no, I'm reading my friends page and what business of this is yours, exactly?
"Oh, I'm sorry," he said. "I just thought you were." And his eyes were resting on someone's femmeslashy icon.
"Well, I'm not," I said. "Or was that just a misguided attempt at sarcasm?"
"Yes, but not misguided," he said, gave me a dirty look and sauntered off with Mumless Pierced Boy.
Maybe I'm just being twitchy. I think I'm going to go out, and do something I don't know what, or else phone Fidan and annoy Rice-Oxley.
The next bit wanted me to define each of three words, making the differences between the three clear. "Refute, reject, deny." "Novel, radical, total. "State, nation government." I fluffed and made up definitions and generally wrote stuff regardless of relevance. The problem is of course the time limit. It's impossible to write either as much as you want or in as much detail as you want when you only have twenty minutes for each part of the test. The third part involved numbers. It gave you statistics about a shop and what it sold and what it cost the shop to buy its merchandise and some people and how much they were willing to pay, and then they wanted you to predict profits. For the first time in my life, I voluntarily started writing equations. It dawned on me that they'd save me time, but my skill at algebra is such that I have no idea whether what I wrote made any sense mathematically or otherwise.
The ironic thing is that after a sleepless night and having to drag myself out of bed, I now have nothing to do until tomorrow. I could read the newspaper, I could go out, but neither is entirely appealing at the moment. It's very cold and looks like it's going to rain. So I'm sitting here playing on the internet, which brings us neatly on to the Arsehole of the Universe. I talked to him briefly before, when he struck me as arrogant ("Oh, if I don't get in here I'm going to Harvard") but just now he drifted in, looked very obviously over my shoulder and said, in the most condescending tone imaginable, "Oh, I see you're preparing for your interview as we speak."
"Um... no," I said, and didn't add, no, I'm reading my friends page and what business of this is yours, exactly?
"Oh, I'm sorry," he said. "I just thought you were." And his eyes were resting on someone's femmeslashy icon.
"Well, I'm not," I said. "Or was that just a misguided attempt at sarcasm?"
"Yes, but not misguided," he said, gave me a dirty look and sauntered off with Mumless Pierced Boy.
Maybe I'm just being twitchy. I think I'm going to go out, and do something I don't know what, or else phone Fidan and annoy Rice-Oxley.
