2013 practice exam text

PART I. Pick ten terms from the list of twenty below and write, for each of the ten, just one phrase or sentence about what it means and how it functions in a work we have read for this course; give the name of the author of that work (you may but need not give the title of the work as well). A few terms may have more than one right answer (20%).

PART II. Then, from among those ten, pick three and write two or three substantial paragraphs about each, making an argument about how it functions in that work and what it means (45%).

Granny Nanny     The Palace of Green Porcelain


The Avvenger     A solar eclipse
Beatrice     Cyberspace
HelthWyzer     The Three Laws of Robotics
Gelle-Klara Moynlin    Lentz

Twitter      Ellador
C. P. (“Cold Pig”)    Joe Chip
River      cognitive estrangement
Ann Clayborne     A sudden shift into color from black and white
Calliagnosia     habermans

PART III. In a cogent essay with a well-supported argument, answer one of the following questions. Your answer should refer to, and demonstrate that you have thought about, at least two works we have read for this course (35%). You may, of course, refer to others. Please do not duplicate in this part the claims that you made in part II (you may refer to the same works); do not simply duplicate arguments you made in the papers you wrote for our course. You may refer to the works on which you wrote papers, though the best essay for this exam would remind us that you have read some other works too.

1. “All sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic,” says a claim widely attributed to Arthur C. Clarke (sometimes cited as Clarke’s law). Does this claim hold, when applied to sf? If not, what’s the difference between sf effects and magic, and how does it affect what sf can do?

2. Can sf depict, with aesthetic power and intellectual conviction, consciousness, intelligence or personality that we can recognize as not human, and as in some important way not like what’s human? If so, how? If not, why do authors keep trying?

3. SF by definition depicts a world in at least one respect (the novum) unlike our own. Does that mean that sf always works as escape, as a way to give readers pleasure by imagining lives outside the real world, real life, real history? If not, why not? If so, is that a problem, or a strength, and either way, why?

pie (2013 version)

At least one of the courses you take at Harvard should end with pie.

We will make available, at the end of your exam on Dec. 12 or at a time and place to be mutually agreed, four pies. Two have already been claimed.

The other two go to the students who identify for us, via email, the highest number of these terms, all used in some work of science fiction (each line item indicates a different work). Guessing is strongly encouraged; you may append a comment or a relevant quotation from the work of science fiction if you like. We are aware that the Internet might help direct you to plausible results.

Please send in your answers, or guesses, to Stephen via email (burt at fas etc.), no later than Dec. 11; also indicate whether you are allergic to nuts, to gluten, or to anything else associated with pies, and whether there is one sort of pie you prefer. You do not need to identify them all. (If more than two of you get all the answers right, we will determine the winners at random.)

1. Wan and the Dead Men

2. Remem.

3. Mercerism, mood organs and the Voigt-Kampff test

4. Hailsham and a cassette tape by Judy Bridgewater

5. Wyoming, a computer named Mike, and a plot to throw enormous rocks at the Earth.

6. Janet, Jeannine, Joanna, Jael, and Whileaway.

7. The Navigators, the curvature of the Earth, and Frances Destaine.

8. Y.T., L. Bob Rife, and the Sumerian language

9. Geneva, Chamounix, and Professor M. Waldman

10. CalVin, Spanish Dancer, and metaphor.

11. Lorq von Ray, Illyrion, Mouse and a sensory syrinx.

12.Kemmer, and a planet whose name can mean "winter."

13. Mr. Million.

14. Caterham and extraordinarily large children.

15. Kip, the Deneb, and a raygun that vastly accelerates aging.