D.C. American Power Career Fair Quiz

There are no right or wrong answers to this quiz, no grades or scoring. No polygraph test will be administered at this time.
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You have registered for the United States Government Career Fair, Presented by Booz Allen Hamilton: "American Power."

Secretary of State Kerry has re-affirmed the three equal cornerstones of American Power: Defense, Diplomacy and Development. Implementing "The Three D's"will be key to ensuring American global pre-eminence in the 21st century.

The Career Fair takes place Tuesday, 10 a.m.-4 p.m. in Exhibition Hall A. Attached is a map of Exhibition Hall A. In addition to stands and representatives from the Department of Defense, Department of State and USAID, a number of civilian contractors will be represented.

For your convenience, Exhibition Hall A has been divided into three sections, each corresponding to a "D." In order to expedite and streamline your job search process, we strongly urge you to take the time to complete this self-screening, self-scoring quiz that will help determine the Three D sector of "American Power" best suited to you. The quiz has been developed by psychographic researchers at Sandia National Laboratories. There are no right or wrong answers to this quiz, no grades or scoring. No polygraph test will be administered at this time. Please do not ask for an extension. Print the completed quiz and bring with you to the Fair, along with photo ID and proof of U.S. citizenship.

1)In your opinion, what is a "well-funded program"?
•$1 billion (proceed to Defense section of Hall A)
•$1 million (proceed to Diplomacy/Foreign Service section of Hall A)
•$100,000 (proceed to Development/Aid section of Hall A)

2)What are your preferred alcoholic beverages?
•Vodka, sour mash whiskey, domestic major-brand beer (Defense section of Hall A)
•Imported wine, Belgian beer (Diplomacy section of Hall A)
•Sake, American micro-brews (Development section of Hall A)

3)Answer the following question truthfully: what do you think of international treaties?
•Hate treaties (Defense section)
•Love treaties (Diplomacy section)
•Would love treaties if U.S. ever signed one. In meantime, love reparations for past wrongs, and debt forgiveness (Development section)

4)You have been posted to Washington, D.C. Which of the following best describes your "perfect day"?
•Touch football, Irish pub/Gordon Biersch, dog walking, barbecue, cigars (Defense)
•Kickball, Kramerbooks, cupcakes, wine-tasting, Asian-Latin fusion tapas, live show at Black Cat or 9:30 Club (Diplomacy)
•Coed mani-pedis, concert on the grass, pot-luck dinner/collective paella-making, midnight living-room jam session featuring acoustic guitars, tamburitza, zeze, something made of bamboo, and tabla drums (Development)

5)Should you be assigned to work in Washington, D.C., what neighborhood would appeal to you as a place to live?
•Suburban townhouse, preferably gated, away from crime, with parking and open carry gun laws: Crystal City, Alexandria (Defense)
•Suburban, but looks hygienically fake-urban: Roslyn, Clarendon, Bethesda (Diplomacy)
•Gentrifying guilt-ridden urban, with a frisson of crime to enliven late-night bar exits: 16th Ave, U Street, Logan Circle (Development)

6)What is your college education?
•The uniformed service academies (West Point, Annapolis or Colorado Springs) + one Big Ten graduate degree; alternatively one of Caltech, MIT, Texas A&M, or Virginia Tech (Defense )
•Combine any two of the following (undergrad + grad): Stanford, Tufts, USC, Vanderbilt, Yale, Chicago, William & Mary, Georgetown (Diplomacy)
•Followed a strict formula of one U.S. degree + one western European degree + one degree from a developing country. For example, 1) Berkeley/Wisconsin plus 2) School of Oriental and African Studies at University of London ("achieving a contact high walking into the student union"), plus 3) Pontificia Universidad del Peru (Development)

7)Which of these statements best describes your online or cyber-personality?
•I enjoy SIPRNet and JWICS; cyberwarfare; cell phone intercepts; developing malignant viruses targeting enemies of U.S. (Defense)
•I enjoy tweeting about flying in an aeroplane with the Secretary, while attaching humorously-captioned, humanizing photos of the granite-faced "Boss Man"; alone, I enjoy guiltily reading leaked US government documents (Diplomacy)
•I enjoy reading aloud leaked documents from my iPhone; I post falsely modest Facebook photos of myself surfing in Sierra Leone, with the accompanying comment from a local that I am the first person to surf Tokeh since the Civil War; undeterred, after surfing I post a second FB photo showing me shirtless, sweating, while pitching in with manual labor to revive the local eco-tourism infrastructure (Development)

8)Which of the following musical acts most closely conforms to your own tastes?
•Killers, Kid Rock, Nickelback, Jimmy Buffet, Public Enemy, Jay-Z, Offspring, Rage Against the Machine (Defense)
•Florence and the Machine, Pink Martini, Kings of Leon, Dave Matthews, Woody Guthrie, Phish, Billy Bragg, Pavement, Nick Cave, Mumford and Sons (Diplomacy)
•Amadou and Mariam, Angelique Kidjo, Karsh Kale, Macy Gray, Afro-Cuban All-Stars, Boyz II Men, Mariah Carey, Verdi, Mozart, Japanese Noh (Development)

9)Which of the following is your preferred professional sport?
•NFL (Defense)
•Major League Baseball (Diplomacy)
•Soccer/futbol (Development)

10)Should you be posted to a foreign country, which of the following elements best describes how you would like to spend your time there?
•Stay on the base with the buddies, beer, gym, satellite TV; venture outside base once for souvenir shopping and more than once if a topless beach located nearby (Defense)
•A nice townhouse/villa and domestic staff with not too horrendous a commute in typically-notorious developing world traffic; attend high-brow cultural events and the Taylor Swift show at local soccer stadium when she comes to town (Diplomacy)
•Shared house with colleagues, street food, take the bus to work, hit dance clubs, organize a book club, collect seriously-oversized totemic tribal masks that look hideous/menacing once back in cramped 16th Ave. apartment (Development)

11) Jobs with the U.S. government come with tangible as well as intangible status symbols and buzzwords. Which of the below most closely align with your career aspirations?
•A top-secret security clearance, resulting in conversation like "Are you a foreigner? Only a Canadian? Still, I have to write you up tomorrow on our secret internal e-mail system."(Defense)
•Building pass and crucifix color-matched (Defense)
•Hazard pay and using words like "hooch" when posted to Iraq and Afghanistan (Diplomacy)
•When posted to D.C., poor pay compensated by inflated titles like "Acting Deputy Assistant Under-Secretary," unaware this grandee moniker about as rare as "Vice President" in the insurance industry (Diplomacy)
•Instead of name-dropping, place-dropping. For example, constant use of: "Last week I was in Nairobi, and ...." It is important to be seen to be in constant motion to and from Nairobi (Development)
•When describing the sad things one sees while traveling, I often compare them to the Holocaust; likewise the perpetrators of those sad things to "the Nazis," even if they are not strictly speaking right-wing or national socialists. (Development)
•Add the word "eco" to all aid projects, as well as to many nouns: "eco-refugees", "eco-conflict", "eco-reparations," "eco-falafel stand"(Development)

12) Which of the following best describes your ideal vacation travel?
•Primarily CONUS: Mardi Gras, Orlando, Vegas, Virginia Beach, hunting, fishing; venture as far as Cabo/Cancun for honeymoon (Defense)
•Skiing, windsurfing, tennis, U.S. national parks, London, Paris, Spanish paradores, driving Perigord, Austin, TX (Diplomacy)
•Cities culled from Monocle magazine's unchanging list of hippest: Tokyo, Stockholm, Buenos Aries, Montreal, Shanghai, Beirut, Bratislava, Melbourne (Development)

13) What is your typical work dress?
•Men: Tailored Ermenegildo Zegna, Burberry suits, possibly Brooks Brothers on Casual Friday, Italian shoes, tie clips, flag lapel pin. Women: Pantsuits with ruffled collars, short jackets from Filene's, T J Maxx, Loehmann's, Dress Barn, too-tight shoes from DSW (Defense)
•Men: Off the rack suits from Jos. A Bank, Men's Wearhouse; occasionally linen suits, straw hats, boaters or other odd headgear; sport jackets with elbow patches; casual Friday khakis and blue shirts like Volkswagen showroom staff. Women: pantsuits minus ruffled collar (Diplomacy)
•Khakis and blue button-down shirt 2-3 days a week; skinny jeans, pashmina, scarves worn as belts, midriff-exposing "No Logo" t-shirt the other days (Development)

14) Which of the following most closely conforms to your political views?
•Republican patriot out to ensure US stays No. 1; suspicious of most other countries (staunch allies Britain and Israel included), non-state actors, and occasionally of the U.S. government itself (Defense)
•Centrist swing-voting patriot (with caveats); holding strong sympathies towards older civilizations with charming town squares (Diplomacy)
•Committed progressive who votes based on core personal issues; patriot of persecuted ethnic/linguistic minorities in countries in which they are posted (domestically this sympathy is transferred to another persecuted minority, labor unions); suspicious of U.S. interests and intentions (Development)

15)What do you like to read?
•Quality American history (e.g. Rick Atkinson), Early Bird media report, occasional David Ignatius, Tom Clancy thriller (Defense)
•Quality fiction, Economist, New York Times, The New Yorker (Diplomacy)
•Poetry, foreign fiction in the vernacular, The Nation, The Onion, books about poverty, McSweeney's, Nick Kristof, Howard Zinn

16) Which statement most closely matches your attitude towards the television series Seinfeld:
•A bit too "New York Jew", not as good as its contemporary, Home Improvement (or later, South Park) (Defense)
•Funniest show ever (Diplomacy)
•I concede it was funny though personally and without wanting to seem a buzzkill, I think it indulged in offensive racial portrayals, made light of serious social issues, and did not contribute anything progressive to the national debate (Development)

16) What are your greatest fears, both professional and personal?
•Being replaced by a drone; cuts to big-ticket programs and salaries/benefits; having to work with other departments and agencies; the Chinese military; Israeli spies in the Pentagon (Defense)
•Getting assigned to Central African Republic; Chinese diplomacy; eating goat, dog or insects (Diplomacy)
•Not getting assigned to Central African Republic; being mocked by people trying to help; rising global prosperity meaning fewer countries in which to work (thank God for Africa); Americans who spell "Colombia" with a "u" (Columbia); that Americans do not realize the food they are eating is not real Mexican food; that one day Chinese government will make me choose between supporting Tibet and buying Apple products (Development)

Please total your score and visit the section of Hall A where you scored the highest number of "D's". On behalf of Booz Allen Hamilton and "American Power," thank you and good luck!

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