Rummaging through my drawers just now I found the General Paper I took in 1981 to get into Cambridge. I haven’t copied Section A, which involves writing a precis of a rather lengthy article about voting systems, but Sections B and C involve different forms of writing challenge.
I don’t remember which questions I answered, but most of the topics are still interesting and/or controversial enough to be topics for a blog post, at least. Which would you have chosen?
Incidentally, the whole paper was of 3 hours duration and all sections were equally weighted so you would be expected to spend about an hour on each question.
I think we should do much more to encourage science students to develop their writing skills nowadays. I think most present-day physics would find these exercises very difficult, simply because they don’t get enough practice at putting pen to paper (or even fingers to keyboard).
If you are feeling keen, and have an hour to spare, feel free to submit a piece through the comments box!
Time starts now…
In the Dark 