Is there a way to understand if its a monopoly by just looking the quantities (Q), marginal costs (MC), marginal revenue (MR), and average costs...

What you can actually detect is market power, not monopoly per se.

Monopolies have market power, but there are other ways to get market power such as oligopoly and monopolistic competition. But these are also similar in many ways to monopoly, so in a broad sense you can detect "monopolistic situations" just by looking at marginal revenue and marginal cost.

Specifically, a firm with market power will set its marginal revenue equal to its marginal cost:

MR = MC

Compare this to a competitive firm, which would set its price equal to its marginal cost:

P = MC

The marginal revenue is typically smaller than the price, because increasing the quantity sold will also decrease the price as long as the demand curve is downward-sloping.

Specifically:

MR = d[PQ]/dQ = dP/dQ Q + P

If the demand curve is downward-sloping (as they usually are), dP/dQ is negative and thus MR < P.

Therefore we expect a monopoly (or more generally a firm with market power) to set a price higher than its marginal cost and sell a quantity smaller than the optimal quantity a competitive firm would sell.

Why does the narrator have a "light heart" in "The Tell-Tale Heart"?

Poe's classic short story, "The Tell Tale Heart," is one of the first and best examples in literature of the unreliable narrator. The unreliable narrator tells the reader one 'truth', but the author's skill allows the reader to see past that, into the actual truth. 

The young man, who modern medicine would categorize as a psychopath, tries to convince the reader of his sanity.

"How, then, am I mad? Hearken! and observe how healthily --how calmly I can tell you the whole story."

His obsession with the old man's cloudy eye causes him to kill, then dismember the old man, burying him under the floorboards. When the police arrive at 4AM, someone having heard a scream, the young man has "a light heart" as he opens the door. His heart is light for two reasons - he's done away with the dreaded "vulture eye" that haunted him, and successfully hidden his crime. It is scientifically documented that many psychopaths feel a great sense of peace after killing.

The young man's light heart disappears, however, when he 'hears' the old man's heart beating, ever louder, beneath the floorboards.

Discuss how I could go about answering the following question: How would you rate the experiences you had so far in your life in experiencing the...

Any answer to this question will require you to engage in some reflective thought.

You need to talk about your own experiences with these diversity and how you personally feel about them. Have you encountered people with divergent experience, perhaps students living with same-sex parents, or Muslim neighbors who experience prejudice and distrust?

You could also address the issue personally.  Simply put, have you experienced what it's like to be an outsider?  This could be deliberate acts of exclusion or insinuations that reflect prejudicial attitudes; overt or covert acts could be a part of your experience. 

The question wants you to ponder the issue of diversity from a personal experience and "rate" the quality and scope of your own experience: Have you led a life that brings you in contact with other people living lives similar to your own or have you lived a life that puts you in contact with people who have lives representative of diverse situations, relationships and circumstances?

What are some rhetorical devices used in Romeo and Juliet that relate to physical love?

To begin, we must first understand what is meant by "rhetorical device." A rhetorical device is language that is used to persuade, or to convey specific meaning. (See the link below for a list of rhetorical devices.)

The physical love between Romeo & Juliet is strongly alluded to throughout the play, but is particularly potent in the balcony scene. Consider Juliet's words in her famous "Wherefore art thou Romeo" speech:

What's Montague? it is nor hand, nor foot,
Nor arm, nor face, nor any other part 
Belonging to a man. (II.ii.42-44)

In this snippet, "nor any other part belonging to a man" refers rather overtly to genitalia. And in the conclusion of that speech, she goes on to say:

Romeo, doff thy name,

And for that name, which is no part of thee,

Take all myself. (II.ii.47-49)

In this section of the speech, she is offering up her virginity to him. Consider also Romeo's speech from the beginning of the scene:

Arise, fair sun, and kill the envious moon, 
Who is already sick and pale with grief, 

That thou, her maid, art far more fair than she.

Be not her maid, since she is envious;

Her vestal livery is but sick and green

And none but fools do wear it; cast it off. (II.ii.4-9)

In this speech "her maid" indicates Diana, who is the goddess of the moon and the patroness of virgins. A "livery" is a piece of clothing worn by servants of a lord or patron, and "vestal" indicates chastity. In this section of the speech, Romeo is asking Juliet to shirk her role as a virgin maid of Diana.

The language becomes more overt in Act 3. Consider Juliet's speech:

Lovers can see to do their amorous rites 

By their own beauties; or, if love be blind,

It best agrees with night. Come, civil night,

Thou sober-suited matron, all in black

And learn me how to lose a winning match,

Play'd for a pair of stainless maidenhoods. (III.ii.8-13)

In this speech, Juliet is essentially saying that lovers can make love by the light of their own beauties. Or, if they're not beautiful, then they can copulate in the dark. But she wants night to come so that she, and her new husband, can both loose their virginities together.

The play, being about teenagers in love, is full of examples of speeches about physical love. It is full of lust and the speeches are beautiful.

What role does desperation play in Act two of The Crucible?

There are many instances of desperation from the beginning of Act Two. The characters' desperation adds to the drama and tension of the play as a whole and indicates their distress and feelings of hopelessness against the authority of the court and the accusations of others.

Although the Act commences in a reasonably convivial mood where John Proctor and his wife Elizabeth, are making small talk, it quickly changes when we read of John's desperate attempts to make Elizabeth happy:

Proctor, with a grin: I mean to please you, Elizabeth.

Elizabeth - it is hard to say: I know it, John.

He gets up, goes to her, kisses her. She receives it. With a certain disappointment, he returns to the table.

There exists an obvious tension between the two, born from John's earlier illicit affair with Abigail Williams, their erstwhile maidservant, who had since been dismissed. The tension increases when Elizabeth raises the issue of John going to town. Elizabeth is desperate that he should go to denounce Abigail for she fears that the girl wishes to harm her.

Elizabeth: I think you must go to Salem, John. He turns to her. I think so. You must tell them it is a fraud.

When Mary Warren, their new maid, returns from court and reports about the events there, Elizabeth becomes even more desperate. John is upset that she had gone to town and at one point threatens to whip her. Mary then tells the couple that she had saved Elizabeth's life, for she had been accused of witchcraft. Once Mary has gone to bed, Elizabeth declares her suspicion that it could only be Abigail who implicated her. She desperately demands that John goes to court to speak to Abigail:

John, with so many in the jail, more than Cheever's help is needed now, I think. Would you favor me with this? Go to Abigail. 

Elizabeth believes that Abigail thinks that she still has John's affection and that she would use the witch trials to get rid of her and take her place.

It is her dearest hope, John, I know it. There be a thousand names; why does she call mine? There be a certain danger in calling such a name - I am no Goody Good that sleeps in ditches, nor Osburn, drunk and half-witted. She'd dare not call out such a farmer's wife but there be monstrous profit in it. She thinks to take my place, John.

John, however, seems to be quite reluctant to do as his wife requests and accuses her of being too suspicious and unforgiving. In desperation Elizabeth eventually cries out:

You'll tear it free - when you come to know that I will be your only wife, or no wife at all! She has an arrow in you yet, John Proctor, and you know it well! 

She is clearly in despair and wants John to tear himself free of his guilt about his affair and release himself from Abigail. In her anguish, she threatens that she will leave him if he does not do so.

After Reverend Hale's arrival, Elizabeth's desperation is once again obvious, for she tells John to inform him about Abigail's deceit just when the Reverend is about to depart:

Elizabeth, with a note of desperation: I think you must tell him, John.
Hale: What's that?
Elizabeth, restraining a call: Will you tell him?

More desperation is displayed with the arrival of Giles Corey, who expresses dismay that his wife has been arrested on a charge of witchcraft. He is clearly desperate and feels responsible for her arrest after having previously made a careless remark about her reading books and he not being able to pray when she did. Francis Nurse also enters and utters the same about his wife, Rebecca:

Giles: They take my wife...

Proctor, to Francis: Rebecca's in the jail?
Francis: Aye, Cheever come and take her in his wagon.

The men are very obviously distraught. Rebecca, for example, has been arrested for murder and they appeal to Reverend Hale to intervene.

Francis, going to Hale: Reverend Hale! Can you not speak to the Deputy Governor? I'm sure he mistakes these people -
Hale: Pray calm yourself, Mr. Nurse.
Francis: My wife is the very brick and mortar of the church, Mr.. Hale - indicating Giles - and Martha Corey, there cannot be a woman closer yet to God than Martha.

The tension heightens ever further with the arrival of Ezekiel Cheever and Marshall Herrick. They procure a warrant for Elizabeth's arrest. Evidence has been found that she practices witchcraft by using a doll. Abigail Williams had supposedly been harmed by Elizabeth's witchery when a needle was found protruding from her stomach. Abigail claimed that she had seen a doll in Elizabeth's possession. The two men are there to find the doll.

When the doll is discovered, the officers want to arrest Elizabeth even after Mary Warren confesses that it was her poppet and that she had given it to Elizabeth as a gift. A needle is found protruding from the doll's belly, which to them is irrefutable evidence of Elizabeth's evil, although Mary again admits that she herself had placed it there for safe keeping.

Elizabeth hears of Abigail's accusation and cries out:

'The girl is murder. She must be ripped out of the world!

To Cheever, this is irrefutable proof that Elizabeth wants to harm Abigail. John realises the severity of the situation and, in desperation, snatches the warrant from Cheever's hands and tears it up. He demands that thy leave.

Reverend Hale tries to calm John down, but he is clearly overwhelmed and shouts at him:

Get y'gone with them! You are a broken minister.

In his desperate need to save his wife, John demands to know whether the reverend will allow them to take his wife away. Reverend Hale states that the court is fair and just and that he has to abide by its commands. Proctor, even more desperate, passionately cries out:

Pontius Pilate! God will not let you wash your hands of this! 

Elizabeth then calmly tells John that she has to go. He finally accedes and Elizabeth is arrested.

A final act of desperation in the Act is displayed by both John and Mary Warren, when John asks her if she will testify about Abigail's manipulation. John is desperate to prove Elizabeth's innocence and wants Mary to accompany him to court the next day. Mary is clearly terrified of Abigail and the other girls, and cries out:

I cannot, they'll turn on me - 

She desperately cries out repeatedly that she cannot testify, but John is adamant that she must:

Proctor, grasping her by the throat as though he would strangle her: Make your peace with it! Now Hell and Heaven grapple on our backs, and all our old pretense is ripped away - make your peace! He throws her to the floor, where she sobs, "I cannot, I cannot...And now, half to himself, staring, and turning to the open door: Peace. It is a providence, and no great change; we are only what we always were, but naked now. He walks as though toward a great horror, facing the open sky. We are naked! And the wind, God's icy wind, will blow!

The scene closes with Mary sobbing desperately: 'I cannot, I cannot, I cannot.' 

What is Aristotle’s definition of politics? And do you agree with his definition?

As with all Greek thinkers of the period, Aristotle categorized human activity within three domains.

A human, on the most basic level, functions as an individual. The study of ethics (set out in Nicomachean Ethics) and of the nature of the individual soul (set out in De Anima) both pertain to the person as an individual, making his or her own moral choices.

Next, the human is part of a household or "oikos", which in antiquity would consist of husband, wife, unmarried children, slaves, and perhaps other unmarried female relatives. Our term, economics, derives from oeconomia, the study of the organization of the household, including its finances and the roles of different members of the household. 

Finally, in Greece, people lived in city states, or "poleis" (singlular: "polis"), which normally consisted of a densely occupied urban area, including residences, religious buildings, markets, administrative areas, and education, sporting, and cultural venues, surrounded by the "chora" or countryside, which consisted of farms, mines, forests, quarries, and in general any part of the polis which was not the central urban area. Politics, for Aristotle, was the study of the polis, or how humans interacted, organized themselves, governed, and made ethical choices within the context of groups larger in size than the oikos, which in ancient Greece would have meant the polis. 

For Aristotle, the central aim of the polis was the human good, and the study of politics (by which he meant what we know would term political philosophy) was practical, making decisions about what forms of government and legislation would most promote the human good.

There are two areas in which you can agree or disagree with Aristotle's definition. First you can agree or disagree with his notion of the goal of the state. Second, you can agree or disagree with his notion that the study of politics is practical and moral. Personally, I neither agree or disagree, believing that one can approach the study of politics in many different ways, and that different definitions and different modes of analysis are appropriate to different specific problems. 

Explain what happens to light when it travels through air and water.

When the light travels through the boundary between the air and water, it changes direction. This phenomenon is called refraction. It can be easily observed by filling a glass with water and putting a straw in the glass. The straw will appear to be broken.

The refraction occurs because the speed of light in air is different than the speed of light in water. The speed with which a light wave propagates in a given medium is determined by the electromagnetic properties of this medium, which are different for air in water. In the air, the speed of light is very close to the speed of light in the vacuum, `3*10^8` m/s. In the water, the speed of light is less. Thus, when the wavefront of propagating light hits the boundary between air and water, it sort of breaks and the ray of light travels in a different direction than the original. (Please see the reference link for a more detailed explanation, and also to learn how to determine the angle at which the light refracts.)

The phenomenon of refraction also explains why we can see rainbows. The various colors we can see correspond to different frequencies of the light waves. Normally the light is composed of waves of mixed frequencies and appears white. However, these waves with different frequencies refract at different angles when they pass the boundary between air in water. Then the light waves of different colors become separated, and we can see a rainbow.