Answer

That evening, I told Vivian the question on ethics in our final MB.

My wife was, understandably, surprised.

"How could anyone answer that?" She said.

"Well, I could - at least for two-third of it," I murmured, "But, the point is not whether a candidate knows the answer. In my opinion, it is not a question on ethics, but on how a student respond to a question that he or she knows nothing !"

"What ?" My wife was startled.

"That's true," I was affirmative, "It is a capability in its own right to answer a question that you have absolutely no idea what is being asked."

"Doesn't that simply mean going around and saying something non-specific and non-committing?"

"Of course not," I smiled, "To say the least, that's a very inferior way to tackle the problem. In contrast, a sophisticated student would analyze and appreciate the setting of that question."

"Well?"

"Well, the situation at hand is a short assay. In other words, no marks could be deduced even if you say something grossly wrong. More importantly, the examiner has no chance of responding by putting up follow up question. Therefore, one should actually use a shotgun approach and say a whole lot of specific statements - even though they may contradict with each other. Hopefully some of the answers would be correct and score some points."