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Cornell University Entrance Exam (Rowers Version)

Time Limit: 3 WKS

1. What language is spoken in France?
2. Give a dissertation on the ancient Babylonian Empire with particular reference to architecture, literature, law and social conditions OR give the first name of Pierre Trudeau.
3. Would you ask William Shakespeare to (a) build a bridge, (b) sail the ocean, (c) lead an army or (d) WRITE A PLAY
4. What religion is the Pope? (a) Jewish, (b) Catholic, (c) Hindu, (d) Polish, (e) Agnostic (check only one)
5. Metric conversion. How many feet in 0.0 meters?
6. What time is it when the big hand is on the 12 and the little hand is on the 5?
7. How many commandments was Moses given? (approximately)
8. What are people in America's far north called? (a) Westerners, (b) Southerners, (c) Northerners
9. Spell -- Bush, Carter and Clinton
10. Six kings of England have been called George, the last one being George the Sixth. Name the previous five.
11. Where does rain come from? (a) Macys, (b) a 7-11, (c) Canada, (d) the sky.
12. Can you explain Einstein's Theory of Relativity? (a) yes, (b) no
13. What are coat hangers used for?
14. The Star Spangled Banner is the National Anthem for what country?
15. Explain Le Chateliers Principle of Dynamic Equilibrium-OR-spell your name in BLOCK LETTERS.
16. Where is the basement in a three story building located?
17. Which part of America produces the most oranges? (a) New York, (b) Florida, (c) Canada, (d) Wisconsin
18. Advanced math. If you have three apples how many apples do you have?
19. What does NBC (National Broadcasting Corp.) stand for?
20. The Cornell University tradition for efficiency began when (approximately)? (a) B.C. (b) A.D. (c) still waiting

*You must answer three or more questions correctly to qualify

Dairy Rower

Short powerstrokes use cream for max resistance and quick butter-making. Anyone who likes rowing marathons could experiment with yoghurt (as long as the gym is fairly warm and the DairyRower hasn't been cleaned recently so that a nice microbe colony has developed).

And those of you lucky enough to live and erg in the tropics could experiment with cake mix. Alternatively erg in the kitchen with the oven door open and the end of the erg just sticking in.

Or how about lowering the temperature to -18 or so? Lovely home-made ice cream - in HUGE quantities.

Please remember that using your DairyRower for cake-making could invalidate your warranty
-unknown poster, rec.sport.rowing

Boat Personalities

Stroke - 'It's a tough job but only I can do it.' The meekest, most frightened non-rower in the world - when plugged reluctantly in the stroke seat, stays meek up until the first few strokes. The first few paddle strokes, a thought grows in the wimps' sniveling little mind that this job is his/hers for life. Back on the shore, the real personality will percolate back to the surface. 'I hope you guys could follow me ok'. In the boat they're thinking: 'stop rushing, you weenies!" Strokes are born and made to be the most competitive person in the boat by far, and if they stroke long enough, become overly competitive in everything they pursue, or don't pursue.. Don't expect to finish a game of Monopoly, Risk, or Golf with a stroke. The only one that can beat him to the chow line is the three man (more later) because the stroke was delayed trying to put more oars away in the rack than anyone else.

7 seat - The seven seat is the Bitch Niche. I don't know if whining, overly bossy, big mouthed complainers are born, and I can't believe that the cosmic effect of this seat could possibly be so instantaneous, but you could teach Mother Theresa to row in a tank, stick her in an eight at seven for the first time, and as the stern four is rowing away from the dock, she'll turn around and yell at the bow four to 'set up the f*cking boat'. The longer one rows at seven, the more sophisticated and complex the bitching becomes, changing from a crude verbal rowing suggestion to the six man in the early stages to long winded level-voiced reasoned treatises after every piece explaining why the crew is slower now than last week. Ever wonder why when a coach drives up shell-side to ask how a piece went he says: 'So how did that go, fellas? -Not you seven.' I was a team captain, looked up to leader of my college crew, kept my mouth shut and did my job. I raced one week at seven, my coach told me to 'shut up Sullivan' in a post race meeting.

6 seat - If you bred Arnold Swartzeneggar with a Golden Retriever, you get a six. Six is also Seven's yin. The gentle giant, gorilla in the mist. Six absorbs most of seven's bitching and keeps it from moving through to the rest of the crew. Six nods and agrees a lot. It is a hard thing for a normal person to row six. It seems like such a great seat, you're in the stern, the boats more stable here, but you are done with a rowing career at six, you find you been used. Sixes are characterized by great competence in execution of rowing and life, but poor self confidence and a propensity to self-flagellation. Take your 3 year stroke out of the stroke seat and stick him/her at six for a week. This will be the first time you ever hear him/her say: 'My fault, fellas', at the end of a poor piece. Sixes meditate. Sixes marry, go to work for, and lend their power tools to sevens. This support system keeps sevens with thriving businesses, mates they can walk all over, and a garage full of power tools at their disposal that they don't have to fix when they break.

5 seat - God. Yahweh. Allah. Buddha. It's not that the five seat IS those things, it's just that's how (s)he gets treated. Five's stool don't stink, the catches don't hang. They're the older brother or sister that gets special treatment, and has no idea. If a photo is taken of the crew, five will look great, everyone else is caught with shirtaills out, and snot on the lip. At heart and soul, five forgets to change oil, pay phone bills, and turn in the forms to the IRS. Five is an example of what happens to a bum that is treated like a king, they act like one. Five has the greatest delta between image and reality. The fortunate thing is that the unearned unabashed worship lasts only as long as the time on the water. Five's on his own back at home. Five wears aviator glasses. ,br>

4 seat - The Amnesia-seat. Take a genius with a photographic memory. Row said genius at four. Listen to him ask for the third time in the same warmup. 'How many of these 500s are we doing?'. Four seat is not stupid, just has immediate and catastrophic memory loss. At a start and 20, four settles at 21 because in the time the cox yelled 'settle in two', he forgot. In a Novice boat where the seats have been removed and cleaned, it'll be four's that went back in backwards. Four will forget to tell the boatman about his(her) stripped rigger nut - usually from the time he is told by the coach, until he arrives at the boatman's bench wondering what he's doing there. On that first day on the water as the ice is breaking up, who is rummaging around the back of the boathouse looking for a sweatshirt? Four is why racing shirts are handed out on race day.

3 seat - Late in the water. Late to practice. Late to class. Late to work. Late out of the water. Late to his date. Late to the team bus. Late for everything but chow line. There is no competitiveness involved here, just an uncanny knack to have the first three rowers into the dining hall stopped by friends for a brief discussion while three breezes on by to the tray stack. Three generally gets assigned a sitter.

2 seat - Lean to the Left, Lean to the right, stand up sit down fight fight fight. Cheerleader. What is amazing, is to sit at four or five after a particular piece - seven is whining about the balance, the spacing, no swing, rushing: two is back there with pom poms saying: ALL RIGHT GUYS! LETS DO THAT AGAIN!.... Two calls out names of power 10s. 'Awright guys - OAR CLASH TEN!' If he says something funny, he repeated something the bowman prompted him with.

Bow - Comedian. The bow seat creates a strange fatalism. They know that in a catastrophic collision, they'll be the only one to die or get paralysed. Consequently there is a constant quiet stream of one-liners that two or three could probably hear if two were not cheering loudly. If the bow is joined by a cox in a front-loader, this trait completely disappears, since someone is now likely to hear him joke about three being late, five not pulling hard, or the coxn's course looking like a signature. (S)he can be humorless and witless off the water, but on the water when there is breath to spare, you're sure to catch a chuckle if you listen.
-Michael Sullivan, rec.sport.rowing

Star Wars Crew

Stroke: Han Solo - other crews won't take him without a fight, and he's made the Henley run in 12 parsecs (suck on that, Redgrave). Is good at keeping younger oarsmen from getting cocky when they've just won their first heat. Can seem selfish, even mercenary: but he's obviously only joking when he says he's in it for the money (ha!) An experienced campaigner, he's been from one end of the regatta circuit to the other and seen a lot of strange racing. Has finally come out of the shadow of the 'Emperor', Bob Palpatine, whose career went down the Death Star garbage chute when, after one particularly tough race, he started emitting blue sparks and lots of smoke.

Seven: Wedge - cool and reliable, lots of BMT. A great lieutenant, backs up his stroke perfectly. Has a disconcerting habit of referring to all other crews as 'womp-rats', but wins the spot from the more experienced Biggs, who sported a dodgy moustache and had a habit of 'dying' in the middle of a race.

Six: Chewbacca - well, it's kind of obvious why: he'd sink the boat if you put him at bow. He can rip opponent's arms out of their sockets if he loses (no-one wants to end their rowing career because of a lack of arms), and he, like most sixes, doesn't talk a whole lot of sense. It can be difficult to hear the cox, though, when he gets upset about something. Something of a reluctant boatman, he is nonetheless skilled at welding broken riggers, and always brings new boardgames to camp. Had a slight selection scare when a dark horse, the enormous Rancor, looked to have usurped his position: but in the end Chewie won out. Coach Lucas was quoted as saying: 'Ranc has tremendous upper body strength, but he didn't fit into our pattern of rowing: Chewie has long levers, while Ranc has quite stubby little limbs. I was rather surprised at how weedy his arms and legs are. Dropping him was a bit frightening, but he took it like a real sportsman.'

Five: Vader - great for start-line intimidation, he specialises in fixing opponents with glowering death stares/throes. Doesn't seem the most flexible at first sight, but can show remarkable agility. There are question marks over his fitness, though, and he is almost impossible to coach. Has the added benefit of the allegiance of the dark side: when asked in a recent interview why he took up the sport, he replied that once he had started down the towpath, it had forever dominated his destiny. Has been known to order people around, throttle new club captains and be a bit of a loner. Has made the five-seat his own since he deposed long-time engine-roomer and President of the club drinking team Jabba 'the slug' Hutt.

Four: Darth Maul - his skill, sharpness and awareness keeps the bow four focussed. A bit of a poser, he always seems to arrive late for training on a funky new motorbike, while his insistence on trying to scare opponents with his war-paint and 'horn' gelled hair can be a bit annoying for the rest of the crew. Fought a running battle for his seat with Boba Fett, who, it was felt by Lucas, was going to make a bigger impact on the season, but whose propensity for showing up at training after a night out looking like he'd been swallowed by a pit-dwelling monster finally convinced the coach to go with the newly-transferred, but untried, Maul.

Three: Stormtrooper - not too bright, doesn't mind being the vehicles for other people's glory, never talks back, and if he gets injured/cut in half by a lightsabre, there's no shortage of able replacements. Rather weak-willed, he can be a bit of a 'footsoldier' and often finds himself at the butt of bow's Jedi pranks. Got the better of the selection battle with a whole army of droids who, whilst incredibly efficient in the water, and with a great power to weight ratio, were prone to 'switching off' during racing: Lucas felt he couldn't trust them if something - like the cox-box failing - went awry halfway down the course.

Two: Luke - weedy and too useless to be a bowsider, Luke takes 'club incest' to a whole new level. A number of observers, including the man at bow, feel he has the potential to be a something of a saviour for the rowing galaxy, if he can only overcome his admitted immaturity. Turned out to be a real draw-card by the end of the season, though. A bit of a pretty boy, the rest of the crew felt the turning point in his season came when he was savaged by the women's captain - aka 'the Ice Creature' at the club's Winter Ball: after hospitalisation, he came back a more serious, determined rower, and managed to shrug off a nasty hand injury which could have ruined the career of a lesser oarsman. Came into the crew as a replacement for the veteran Moff Tarkin: there had been concerns about 'Grand's' fitness during the off-season, despite his unwavering ruthlessness, but the final straw was when he 'blew' at the end of the first race of the season.

Bow: Obi-Wan 'Blade-Bending Ben' Kenobi - age might not on his side, but his experience and undoubted power (especially since Vader struck him down in training and made him more powerful than Rob Waddell could possibly imagine) make him an invaluable dweller in the sharp side of the boat. Great in a bar fight, Ben has a disturbing habit of concealing lethal weapons, and has often had to help Luke out when grizzled veteran rowers, who delude themselves into believing they're wanted by 12 other clubs, pick on him. It was felt by many that he might lose his place to the up-and-coming Lando Calrissian, but the latter defected to the club across the river, mainly because he had run out of women to pick up, albeit unsuccessfully, and felt he needed to exploit other 'natural resources'.

Cox is the most hotly contested spot in the boat:

Yoda - wisdom and experience in bagloads, you will never have a problem when it comes to him steering a straight course. On the flip side, he may have trouble connecting with and motivating his crew, particularly some of the younger, more hot-headed members, not to mention the downright stubborn one at five. Some of his commands can be a bit hard to follow, too: can you imagine trying to figure out what 'bow pair, out you must drop, 5&6 in come' means during early morning sessions? Also has to carry sand-bags to make weight.

Leia - feisty, hot and with a damn fine aim. Takes no shit from her crew, who know she's in charge. May run into trouble with race officials, mouthing off at them and referring to the aligner as 'a floating carpet'. She prefers to race in the Janousek 'Blockage Runner' - old and a bit battered, but can move when it wants: not fast enough, however, to outrun the Emp-erial Star Destroyer.

In the end, however, the rudder lines go to the young Queen Amidala - scrupulously polite to race officials, who are likely to be so dazzled by her charm, beauty and fabulous body (which she makes evident even in the unflattering confines of the cox's seat) that they dq other crews at the drop of a hat.

Problems: can be naive in expecting justice to prevail in a clash; if Han had trouble controlling his catch last season with Leia around, can you imagine how difficult he's going to find tapping down at the finish with this facing him? Not to mention the hair: serious handbrake in terms of wind resistance. (Leia definitely wins on this point.) Despite these drawbacks, however, she is a serious talent, and the crew really seem to respond to her.

Boat:What else but the Vespoli Millenium Falcon? Despite it being held together with duct tape, the crew has a real emotional attachment to the boat. Its softness (it has been around for a while, and is in constant need of repair) means that the 'hyperlegdrive' push at the 1000-metre mark is sometimes less than effective, but it always comes good when it matters and besides, five would almost certainly refuse to travel in anything but black. They've tried modified X-wing riggers, but found them a bit iffy. The crew were rather upset when they were evicted from docking bay 94, and have since failed to secure a permanent boathouse, being chased out of a number of makeshift abodes, but this has not managed to dent their confidence and desire for victory.
-Indiana, rec.sport.rowing