nokuno

A stress test for your defense

This is a mock proposal defense: a stress-test simulator. You take one of five short research proposals and study it. Then you enter the room and convince a scripted committee it deserves funding. They will not be kind. Eight to twelve rounds, less polite as it goes.

• The committee is scripted, not intelligent. It pattern-matches your replies with simple heuristics.
• You can leave the room at any time. Walking out is allowed — and it counts as data.
• At the end, a debrief decodes every trick and shows what your own behavior measured.

How it works

1. Pick a proposal. Five short fictional studies — each one carries real weaknesses. The committee knows every weakness.
2. Study it. The passage appears on screen. Take as long as you like — nobody times you out loud.
3. Defend it. Answer the committee’s questions about this proposal. Convince them it deserves the money.

The committee members are fictional archetypes — no real people, institutions, or employers are depicted. The pressure targets the idea, the delivery, and the preparation — never the person.

Choose a proposal to defend

Five fictional studies. Each one has weaknesses — you’ll find some yourself. The committee will find the rest. Whichever you pick, you defend it as its author.

Back

Read it like you mean to defend it. You can stay as long as you like.

Answer like you would out loud — one to three sentences. Ctrl/⌘ + Enter sends. You can leave at any time. That counts too.

Debrief: what just happened