We will grade the midterm as follows. The highest score will receive the grade of A+. The second-highest score will equal 100%, and begin the A's. From there, 90% will be A-, 80% B-, and so on. So, if the second-highest score is 55, then a score of 49 (90% of 55) will be the cutoff for A-, 44 (80% of 55) for B-, 38 (70% of 55) for C-, and 33 (60% of 55) for D-.

Here is a sample passage and question:

Passage:
When I came to the post-house, as I went to put in my letter I saw...[i]n the middle of the yard a small leather purse...with money in it, but nobody would meddle with it. I asked how long it had lain there; the man at the window said it had lain almost an hour, but that they had not meddled with it, because they did not know the person who dropped it might come back to look for it. I had no such need of money, nor was the sum so big that I had any inclination to meddle with it, or to get the money at the hazard it might be attended with; so I seemed to go away, when the man who had opened the door said he would take it up, but so that if the right owner came for it he should be sure to have it. So he went in and fetched a pail of water...some gunpowder...[and] a pair of tongs red hot...and first setting fire to the train of powder, that singed the purse and also smoked the air sufficiently. But he was not content with that, but he then takes up the purse with the tongs, holding it so long till the tongs burnt through the purse, and then he shook the money out into the pail of water, so he carried it in. The money, as I remember, was about thirteen shillings and some smooth groats and brass farthings.

Question:

Comment on the relation in this passage between contagion and economic exchange.

An answer that would receive full credit:

Daniel Defoe, Journal of the Plague Year, published 1722. While we usually think of money as the most liquid of commodities -- a thing that can be exchanged for nearly all other things -- here money's seemingly infinite exchangeability is almost stopped cold by the threat of another kind of exchange or transaction (catching the plague). That the money sits unclaimed in a busy place of commerce (the middle of a post-house yard) shows how powerful fear of the plague has become; the lengths to which the post-officer goes to procure the money (though claiming to be keeping it for the owner) supports this notion. So, this passage represents the relation between the fear of contagion and economic exchange to be a negative one -- the greater be the fear of contagion, furthermore, the less willing people will be to engage in other kinds of exchange. The point here is that the terror of the plague has become so great that even money has lost its liquidity.