justanyone's Journal: Cultural Literacy Scholarship Grant

I thought once of what I'd do if I had a billion dollars.

Of course, this is a lot of money, and I might be able to have some real fun with it as well as doing some good.

The idea occurred to me to find a local junior high 7th grade class and announce the following:

Anyone and everyone (in that school's 7th grade class as an enrolled student) who completes a 100 question test perfectly will win a college scholarship worth $50,000. I'd make the announcement in September-ish, and the test would be in May. I would call it a Rice Test (after my last name).

The questions and answers would be published ahead of time. All the students would have to do is memorize the answers.

The trouble is, each answer would take quite a while to complete - each of the 100 questions would ask for a set of answers, not just a single one (like, List the presidents of the U.S., in order, with first and last names, and years of office == 1 question).

Caveats:
* Only people enrolled at the time of the announcement would be eligible - not transfer students or the school would be deluged.
* The answers would be typed in a computer and administered by a neutral 3rd party (accounting firm).
* No credit for partial answers, they fail the test.
* Students would also have to pass the Iowa test of basic skills for their grade or they would fail the Rice Test too. This would prevent people from only studying the answers to my test.
* Capitalization would not matter for most of the test except where specified.
* Any time a name is requested, Both First and Last name must be supplied. Fully distinguishing middle initials are required if two people on the same list have the same name.

My questions would include the following:
1. List (numbered) all the presidents of the United States, including their first and last names, and the years of their terms in office.
2. List all the Vice Presidents of the United States, including their first and last names, and years of their terms in office.
3. List all the the Supreme Court Justices of the United States, including their first and last names and terms in office, indicating which were Associate Justices and which were Chief Justices.
4. List all the currently serving senators, the states they represent, who is senior senator, and their party affiliation.
5. List the 25 most senior members of the 2004 U.S. House of Representatives and their party affiliations (no ordering needed).
6. Name all 50 states, the year of their induction into the union, their capital city, their largest city, their postal abbreviation, and name the 15 United states territories and their postal abbreviations.
7. Create a periodic table of elements from a sheet of graph paper. Provide for each the full element name, abbreviation, atomic number, and approximate atomic mass (to 3 significant digits).
8. Name the Nobel Prize categories and the winners of each for the last 5 years (last names only).
9. Name the largest 9 planets the solar system in order, up to their largest 10 moons each; their distance from the Sun in AU's (to 3 sig. digits), their mass in kg to 3 significant digits; ordering is from innermost to outermost orbit.
10. Name 100 largest countries in the world in order by population, their capitals, their top 2 languages, top 2 religions, and top 2 exports by dollar value as of the year 2000.
11. Spell the English alphabet in reverse order.
12. Spell the ancient Greek alphabet (alpha, beta, gamma, etc.) in order and write the upper and lowercase characters for each letter.
13. Spell the Russian alphabet in order with upper and lowercase printed (not cursive) letters.
14. Spell the phonetic alphabet.
15. Using the phonetic alphabet, for each of the following languages, spell their words for the following: Hello, thank you, please, excuse me / sorry (for a common accident like stepping on on someone's toes), yes, no, and beautiful; the languages are: Spanish, French, Italian, German, Mandarin Chinese, Japanese, Russian, Hindi, Egyptian Arabic, Swahili, Hebrew, Romanian, Dutch, Turkish, Vietnamese, and Farsi.
16. Name the counties in Illinois in alphabetic order and their county seats.
17. What are the the following mathmatical constants: Pi to 15 digits; e, sine, cosine and tangent of 30, 45, and 60 degrees, square roots of 2, 3, 5, and 7 (to 8 digits each).
18. Write a times table matrix for numbes 1 to 20.
19. Write the powers of 2 to 2^16th.
19. Name the bones in the body and what limb they are in (hand, arm, leg, torso, neck/head).
20. Name the teams in the NFL and which city they are from.
21. Name the teams in the MLB and which city they are from.
22. For Apollo Missions 1 to 16, name the members and their mission number, and each person's destination (test, orbit moon, orbit earth, moon landing).
23. Name the 10 most common equations in physics: F=ma, E=mc^2, y=.5at^2+v0t, vf^2=v0^2+2ad, Fg=2mm/r^2, PV=nRt, (etc.)
24. Draw the Ohm's law pie chart.
25. Name the quadratic equation and the equation for triangles (a^2 + b^2=c^2).
26. Name the books of the Bible, old and new testament, in order.
27. Name the rulers of England (Kings, Queens, and regents) from King John to the present.
28. Name Shakespere's plays (no order required).
29. Name the U.S. Great Lakes, the 5 biggest U.S. rivers, the Oceans and the 7 seas.
30. Name the 7 wonders of the ancient world.
31. Name the organs of the body: skin, brain, liver, kindeys, eyes.
32. Name the 10 most effective means of birth control and their effectiveness percentages as determined by the U.S. National Institutes of Health.
33. Name the frequencies of the electromagnetic spectrum from radio waves to gamma rays.
34. Name the subatomic particles and their charges.
35. List the amendments to the U.S. Constitution in order, with a description (provided) of each amendment's protections.