The Castaways and Their New Home:
All in late adolescence, the participants are chosen based on aptitude on certain exams and personality profiles submitted many months before to a committee of Producers and Casters. They are the ones who consider the contestants? physical, psychological, and creative strengths, for one must have these elements of wit to survive. Once the election process is complete, the contestants are invited to begin their new life. They arrive expectant at the island.

There they live side by side with the others chosen, all packed into tiny rooms, with the most basic of modern conveniences ? bed, chair, dresser, phone, computer jack. Some find that they share rooms with other castaways, others find their precious luck has given them a private domicile. Patience is tested as the one small kitchen facility and three toilets and two showers are shared by as many as forty residents.

The task is cohabitation: building a synergetic, insular, and cooperative society.

Mark I: The Initiation
Certain initiation rites are designed by the Council of 12 to make the transition to the Hill fun and exaggeratedly informative. They are subjected to trial after trial: physical (Olympics- involving swimming tests, timed Hot Pocket digestion, and speed-staggering home from the West End), mental (quiz shows, packet upon packet of must-know information), and emotional (school-spirit activities, roommate heart to hearts, arduous social gatherings)

Can the Castaways absorb it all? Will their hamstrings bear the strain of another kegstand? Will they be able to navigate through the quagmire of confusion when the rite leaders (who abandon them after the first week) disappear from their immediate horizon? And, can they possibly hold on to the few precious alliances that they have made in this one short week?

Mark II: On their own
After the stout hand holding that the Council provided in the initial week, the Castaways are left to fend for themselves and immediately faced with onerous choices. Each Castaway:

-must make a schedule of five to four group meetings, each with pre-assigned topic matter, designed to challenge and stimulate her intellectually. But, ultimately, she must find and arrive at these meetings (somewhere on the Hill) herself. And, assignments or tests of recall and wit, are mandatory in all group meetings, and will be assessed by the Leader of the meeting, who serves to focus the progression of the discussions. Each contestant MUST pass these tests; failure to do so may result in expulsion from the competition.

-must be assessed in each group meetings by the Leader on a four point scale.

-must feed himself. The choices are endless on the Hill, but the decision making difficult, and it often leads to severe weight gain

-must find their own social environment, and make alliances. He cannot go to bars alone, nor play Quake in his room every weekend evening. Some social interaction is an essential aspect of the Challenge.

-must complete randomly presented tasks. E.g.- uncover the mysterious origin of a legal block on her participation in the competition (named a "Hold on Registration"), evacuate living quarters when certain alarms go off whenever the hell they feel like it, develop creative strategies to overcome sexile, ISO members, food stealers.

-tries to combat typical resultant aspects of closing living: syphilis, repulsion of men (for the women), disillusioned spirits regarding the nymph-like fantasy of women (for the men), public inebriation of others, public vomiting of others, responsibility for property damage, and malaise.

Mark III: The Reward
Leaders provide immediate gratification as they distribute their assessments to the Castaways and average all points amassed. The one with the highest average after the full eight years receives a tremendous pat on the back and perhaps a silver bowl.

All who at least pass their tests receive a paper with Latin on it. The name of the Competition is recognizable still to a few academics.

It is predicted that some contestants will feel a certain amount of self-satisfaction and post-sederlike fullness will be felt as they finish theCompetition.

For others still, forecasts proclaim they will feel robbed, empty-pocketed, enslaved to the Banks, and/or unfulfilled.