Do You Think You're Clever?

The Oxford and Cambridge Questions

John Farndon, Libby Purves

• Publisher: Icon Books
• Year: 2009
• eBook ISBN: 9781848311565
• Topic: Education
• Subtopic: Higher Education

What happens if I drop an ant?
What books are bad for you?
What percentage of the world's water is contained in a cow?The Oxbridge undergraduate interviews are infamous for their unique ways of assessing candidates, and from these peculiar enquiries, professors can tell just how smart you really are. John Farndon has collected together 75 of the most intriguing questions taken from actual admission interviews and gives full answers to each, taking the reader through the fascinating histories, philosophies, sciences and arts that underlie each problem.This is a book for everyone who likes to think they're clever, or who thinks they'd like to be clever. And cleverness is not just knowing stuff, it's how laterally, deeply and interestingly you can bend your brain. Guesstimating the population of Croydon, for example, opens a chain of thought from which you can predict the strength of a nuclear bomb...and that's just the start of it.

Table of contents

• Introduction
• Do You Think You’re Clever?
• The Questions
• Do you think you’re clever?
• What happens when I drop an ant?
• Why is the pole vaulting world record about 6.5 metres and why can’t it be broken?
• If you could go back in time to any period of history, when would it be and why?
• Are you cool?
• If there was an omnipotent god, would he be able to create a stone that he couldn’t lift?
• Should someone sell their kidney?
• Is it moral to hook up a psychopath (whose only pleasure is killing) to a reality-simulating machine so that he can believe he is in the real world and kill as much as he likes?
• Should obese people have free NHS treatment?
• Why did they used to make the mill chimneys so tall?
• Why can’t you light a candle in a spaceship?
• If I could fold this paper an infinite number of times, how many times must I fold it to reach the moon?
• Can history stop the next war?
• Where does honesty fit into law?
• What books are bad for you?
• What would happen if you drilled through the earth all the way to the other side and then jumped into the hole?
• Does a Girl Scout have a political agenda?
• What does it mean to be happy?
• Smith sees Jones walking towards a cliff. Smith knows Jones is blind but doesn’t like him, so allows him to walk off the edge. Is this murder?
• How would you measure the weight of your own head?
• What is fate?
• How would you describe an apple?
• The stage: a platform for opinions or just entertainment – what are your thoughts?
• I am an oil baron in the desert and I need to deliver oil to four different towns which happen to lie in a straight line. I must visit each town in turn, returning to my oil tank between each visit. Where should I position my tank to drive the shortest possible distance? Roads are no problem, since I have a sheikh friend who will build me as many roads as I like for free.
• Think of a painting of a tree. Is the tree real?
• Does a snail have a consciousness?
• Why is there salt in the sea?
• What is the point of using NHS money to keep old people alive?
• You have a 3-litre jug and a 5-litre jug. Make 4 litres.
• Was it fair that a woman’s planning application for painting her door purple in a conservation area was declined?
• Do you think Chairman Mao would have been proud of the China of today?
• Why isn’t there a global government?
• Is the Bible a fictional work? Could it be called chick lit?
• Is feminism dead?
• What percentage of the world’s water is contained in a cow?
• If you’re not in California, how do you know it exists?
• When are people dead?
• Chekhov’s great, isn’t he?
• What is the population of Croydon?
• Why are big, fierce animals so rare?
• Are there too many people in the world?
• How many animals did Moses take on the Ark?
• How many grains of sand are there in the world?
• Was Romeo impulsive?
• How would you describe a human to a person from Mars?
• What do you like most about the brain?
• Why do so few Americans believe in evolution?
• How would you reduce crime through architecture?
• Would you say greed is good or bad?
• If my friend locks me in a room and says I am free to come out whenever I like as long as I pay £5, is this a deprivation of liberty?
• How would you travel through time?
• Can a computer have a conscience?
• What would happen if the Classics department burned down?
• Don’t you think Hamlet is a bit long? Well I do.
• Is there such a thing as ‘race’?
• Is nature natural?
• Is the environment a bigger crisis than poverty/AIDS etc?
• Why do the words ‘God’ and ‘I’ have capital letters?
• Is it more important to focus on poverty at home or poverty abroad?
• What makes you think I’m having thoughts?
• So Who’s Clever Now?