All Souls

Up to this year, I read in the paper yesterday, an entrance requirement at All Souls College included writing a three-hour essay on a subject consisting of a single word such as "water" or "bias". I myself would have quite fancied my chances if I had had to write on something like "amnesia" or "oblivion". Trouble is, I would also have had to contend with the other exams consisting of 12 hours of essays spread over two days. Half of them focus on the applicant's academic specialities and the other half on general subjects with questions like: "Is the desire for posthumous fame irrational?" or "Does the moral quality of an orgy change when the participants wear Nazi uniforms?"

It reminds me of Jean-Paul Sartre's answer to a question set at the élite Ecole Normale Supérieure in Paris (please correct me if I've got any of this wrong). The question was: "What is impertinence" and his one-sentence answer was: "This is impertinence".