The Ambassador asks you to accompany her husband to the doctor. This will involve a week long series of exams. You have a ton of work to do and a important report deadline for Washington. This will involve the whole week since you also have to serve as translator .
a) While you are out, one night her husband takes a detour and visits a whorehouse, What do you do?
b) The next day, there is a photograph of the husband in the paper with a hooker on the first page. What do you do?
You are management officer in charge of an FSN Embassy messenger. You have 6 2 hour tasks for the messenger to complete in the 6 hours left in the day. They are
1 deliver non-urgent mail to the local military base,
2 deliver brochures to the printer for an important embassy sponsored event due today,
3 Take the Ambassador’s wife’s dog for a walk,
4 take the housing contracts to the Amassador to be signed then to the local realtor’s office,
5 deliver requests for arrested citizens to the local english speaking lawyer.
6 Give the written test to potential local hire messenger FSNs.
You are a Public Diplomacy officer in charge of a new Embassy sponsored exchange program to send high school students to the US for study. You can provide 10 students with partial scholarships or 3 with full scholarships. What criteria do you set for getting the scholarships?
A. A vice-mayor who has helped the consulate with event before has a son who is one of the 20 finalists. You recieve a call from him to lobby for his child.
B. A FSO’s wife runs an school for Orphan children and suggests 4 low income, gifted students to this scholarship. There are questions to whether they would be able to support themselves if provided only a partial scholarship.
A visiting actor who wants to promote his new movie, but at the same time give the appearance of doing good in the world. How does the embassy get what they need out of him at the same time allowing him to fulfill his purposes.
A. Local VIPs want a chance to meet and talk with this Actor. But the actor wants to visit orphanages and refugee camps.
B. 4 mayors from the 4 big cities call you and ask for the actor to visit their city. The actor only has time to visit 3 however.
C. While visiting an orphanage, the actor meets an adorable child and decides he wants to adopt him and take him home immediately. In the local press there is immediate outrage and objections to this possible adoption.The adoption procedure usually take 3 months.
An 8.0 Earthquake has just hit a western province of the large authoritarian country. Most roads are blocked as are internet and phones. A peace corps leader calls on a satellite phone to inform you there are 200 tourists stranded in a Panda reserve with provisions and 20 Peace corps volunteers in nearby city that only have water and food for 3 days.
A) A parent of a peace Corps Calls the embassy and demands information on when the peace Corps Volunteer will be air lifted from the area.
b) One of the American tourists has been injured by a tree falling on her leg. She wants to be airlifted to the US for treatment. The chinese doctors say if she doesn’t get to a hospital in 2 days they will have to amputate the leg. She has no health or travel insurance and can not afford the emergency travel costs.
You are a public diplomacy officer stationed in a country which has had 6 months of ceasefire after a long 5 year civil war between the Musilim northern and Black south. You have been asked by DC office to accompany a US NGO aid worker distribute aid to people in the south of the country. On the journey you will pass through military check points , though the road has been de-mined. What do you do to prepare?
A) The trip goes smoothly and the aid is delivered to the refugee camp. During the trip, you hear from other NGO’s that this aid worker used to sell weapons and work as a contractor for the British CIA /MIA6.
B) Later you are contacted directly by the aid worker to come with him to deliver more aid. The camp he is delivering to is next to the southern forces main base. In addition many of the supplies he is sending are dual use items like radios, fertilizers that could be used in bombs etc. What do you do?
You are a consular officer in a south Asian country ruled by a military Junta. Recently there has been a large cyclone that has devastated the southern opposition strong province of the country near the large city that the Embassy is located in. Although there has been much aid delivered to the central airport not much has been distributed to the affected areas.The government is afraid of organized groups and has forbidden volunteers from sending food to the southern region by setting up road blocks.Peace corps volunteers in the affected area who refuse to leave ask the embassy to put pressure on the government to distribute the supplies.
A: Some local volunteers who want to deliver tents and food to the same region as the Peace Corps volunteers, come to the embassy and ask for help with transportation and information to deliver the supplies to that area.
B. Many parts of the affected area are in accessible by road and can only be reached by boat or helicopter. The country only has 12 helicopters that can help with supplies. An aircraft carrier is doing military exercises in the area and call you to offer their help air-dropping supplies or using helicopters to help distribute food. You know that the military government is very suspicious the US.
You are a management officer in a one party corrupt vote rigging, government. The government has been know to use intimidation, vote rigging and ballot box. In one week there will be national elections, in the rural countryside the ruling party is conducting a systematic intimidation campaign. All Foreign Journalists have been threatened not to interfere. The landlocked country is highly dependent on its neighbors for oil, electricity and food aid. Two US journalists come to you and ask for help in getting to the hospitals or other rural areas.
A: You take a diplomatic vehicle with a local driver to the rural area. After visiting some hospitals you see a road block in the road ahead of you. What do you do?
B:The Army militia man demands that you get out of the vehicle and come with them for “questioning” at the local police station. What do you do?
C: When you return back to your embassy the opposition presidential candidate, who has been beaten up and fears for his safety, asks if he can stay in the consulate for a few days. What do you do?
You are a Public Diplomacy Officer. The Prime Minister's aide and possible future PM is going to the U.S. for a State Department lecture program. The program does not allow anyone to take a spouse as the schedule is far too busy, but the aide plans on taking his spouse anyway. You keep telling him no, however, he still intends to take her and it could be embarrassing for the Ambassador. What do you do?
You are the Public Diplomacy Officer in a very hot, humid country. A Concert pianist is in town for concert. She is disturbed that a/c in concert hall is too loud and would distract from the sound of her playing. She demands that the a/c be cut off during the concert. What do you do?
She goes ahead and holds the concert without benefit of air conditioning. The audience loses interest and is not very enthusiastic. At a post–concert reception at embassy, she is overheard by a local journalist to complain that the locals have no appreciation for art and are boors, etc. What do you do?
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Practice Hypotheticals for the Foreign Service Ora 