Where did McCandless get a ticket?

Chris McCandless abandons his yellow Datsun in Lake Mead National Park after a flash flood. He burns all his money, buries his rifle and sets off on the next leg of his journey, hiking all the way to Lake Tahoe and the Sierra Mountains.
Chris receives a ticket for the abandoned car, which wings its way from California to his parents' house. Chris's parents are understandably concerned about their son, but at least now they have some information as to his whereabouts. With the ticket as evidence, they hire a private investigator to track him down. The P.I. is able to establish that Chris has donated his money to charity, but beyond that there's not much more information he can give. This isn't surprising as Chris is constantly on the move along the West Coast, from where he hopes to travel across the border into Mexico.

Discuss the steps taken for randomized clinical trials. Why are these steps considered the gold standard in research? Give two examples of such trials. Explain how randomized clinical trials provide evidence of causation over association. Be specific.

A randomized clinical trial (RCT) is an experimental trial in which subjects are randomly assigned into different groups which then receive different interventions. RTCs have at least two groups: a group that receives the intervention being tested and a control group that receives a different intervention or no intervention at all.
There are four steps to a randomized clinical trial: enrollment, allocation, follow-up, and analysis. During enrollment, participants agree to participate in the experiment. Trial administrators assess participants to make sure they meet basic qualifying criterion. During the allocation phase, participants are randomly assigned to their trial groups. Here, trial administrators make sure each group is balanced, reflecting similar numbers in terms of gender, age, ethnicity, and other demographic factors. After allocation, subjects receive the intervention. The third step is follow-up where administrators collect data from subjects. Finally, administrators analyze the data and report their findings.
The reason randomized clinical trials are considered the gold standard is because the process reduces many forms of testing bias, including sampling bias, selection bias, and confirmation bias:

With other variables equal between groups, on average, any differences in outcome can be attributed to the intervention. (Gail Sullivan, MD)

There was a study that focused on smoking reduction with oral nicotine inhalers, which was a double-blind, randomized clinical trial of efficacy and safety (British Medical Journal). In another case, there was a study that focused on motivational interviewing prior to cognitive behavioral treatment for social anxiety disorder, which was a randomized controlled trial (J Affect Discord). Additionally, there was a study that observed the effects of muscle energy technique on pain, range of motion, and function in patients with post-surgical elbow stiffness. Thus was also a randomized controlled trial (Hong Kong Physiotherapy Journal).
All of these are linked below.
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/31156315

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/31158718

What does "they also serve who only stand and wait" mean?

Essentially, these lines mean that those who are patient and bide their time waiting to be asked to do something are just as useful to God as those who are always rushing about in service of him "without rest." Milton is reassuring himself that every man has his place in the world, and we are all different, able to serve God in different ways.
In Milton's case, his concern is that he will be less useful to God, and less of a Christian, because he has gone blind, making his one talent—that of writing—seemingly "useless." But he reminds himself that God does not need "man's work," provided that his servants on earth are still loyal to him and are prepared to wait for him to call them. While some serve God in active ways as befits their active bodies, there are others who provide their own form of service, and God will not be any the less worshipped because of it—he has plenty of active people to do his bidding. And of course, as Milton reassures himself that he is not useless, he also proves it: in the writing of this sonnet, he makes it evident that his talent is not lost simply because he is blind—he can still dictate to others. He can still serve God by writing about God's power and his own dedication to him.

How can a person be serving God by only standing and waiting? Milton compares God to a great king who has thousands of servants to do whatever he orders.
...his State Is Kingly. Thousands at his bidding speed And post o're Land and Ocean without rest: They also serve who only stand and waite.
Naturally when a king employed so many servants there would be some who did not have errands or other services to perform. These supernumeraries, however, would be required to be on duty. They would do two things: stand at attention and wait for orders. Milton is saying that he is performing his duty by waiting attentively for God to give him an order, which for Milton would come in the form of an inspiration to write a poem or an essay, since that was his one talent. In spite of his blindness, Milton wrote many great works by dictating them and having them read back to him for editing. One of the pieces he obviously composed while blind was the sonnet "On His Blindness" itself. Milton dictated the whole of Paradise Lost to various aides including his daughters from 1658 to 1664, and dictated Samson Agonistes on the blind Samson in 1671. He said that the lines came to him during the night. He was able to remember most of them and dictated them the following morning. In addition to his creative talent, Milton had formidable memory, will power, and sense of duty.
The sonnet "On His Blindness" is referring to the parable of the talents in Matthew 14-30:
14 ¶For the kingdom of heaven is as a man travelling into a far country, who called his own servants, and delivered unto them his goods.
15 And unto one he gave five talents, to another two, and to another one; to every man according to his several ability; and straightway took his journey.
16 Then he that had received the five talents went and traded with the same, and made them other five talents.
17 And likewise he that had received two, he also gained other two.
18 But he that had received one went and digged in the earth, and hid his lord’s money.
19 After a long time the lord of those servants cometh, and reckoneth with them.
20 And so he that had received five talents came and brought other five talents, saying, Lord, thou deliveredst unto me five talents: behold, I have gained beside them five talents more.
21 His lord said unto him, Well done, thou good and faithful servant: thou hast been faithful over a few things, I will make thee ruler over many things: enter thou into the joy of thy lord.
22 He also that had received two talents came and said, Lord, thou deliveredst unto me two talents: behold, I have gained two other talents beside them.
23 His lord said unto him, Well done, good and faithful servant; thou hast been faithful over a few things, I will make thee ruler over many things: enter thou into the joy of thy lord.
24 Then he which had received the one talent came and said, Lord, I knew thee that thou art an hard man, reaping where thou hast not sown, and gathering where thou hast not strawed:
25 And I was afraid, and went and hid thy talent in the earth: lo, there thou hast that is thine.
26 His lord answered and said unto him, Thou wicked and slothful servant, thou knewest that I reap where I sowed not, and gather where I have not strawed:
27 Thou oughtest therefore to have put my money to the exchangers, and then at my coming I should have received mine own with usury.
28 Take therefore the talent from him, and give it unto him which hath ten talents.
29 For unto every one that hath shall be given, and he shall have abundance: but from him that hath not shall be taken away even that which he hath.
30 And cast ye the unprofitable servant into outer darkness: there shall be weeping and gnashing of teeth.

How is Mrs. Mallard a dead duck or a sitting duck? Does this little joke add anything to the story?

This isn't a joke explicitly made by Chopin in the story, but we could certainly argue that it is implied through Chopin's choice of names for her characters. Her protagonist, Mrs Mallard, has a name which necessarily makes us think of the mallard, a common type of duck. A sitting duck is a colloquial term for a person who is, essentially, open to attack -- someone who has no protection against anything that might happen to them. This is true of Mrs Mallard in a number of ways.
At the beginning of the story, we are told that Mrs Mallard had "heart trouble," with the result that the news of her husband's death is broken to her very carefully. Her relatives are afraid, then, that by breaking this news to her, they may kill her -- she is a sitting duck, vulnerable to attack and unable to protect herself. However, this first attack, as the relatives perceive it, does not have the effect they feared. Louise Mallard is able to weather it, although she holes herself up into a room on her own and goes over the news repeatedly.
The irony in the story, then, comes in the fact that it is not this initial news which kills the sitting duck in the house. Louise Mallard is in her house, in her vulnerable state, believing her husband is dead, when Brently Mallard walks through the door at the end of the story. It is this shock which actually kills her, although her relatives make an attempt to protect her from it. So, while the reader -- and Louise's relatives -- may have felt a sense of relief that the initial "shot" of shock has not damaged Louise's heart and she has survived, this turns out to be ill-placed. In actuality, Louise has simply been placed in an even more vulnerable position, and the reappearance of her husband kills her immediately through disappointment.

How does Dahl use contrast?

Roald Dahl uses one of the oldest literary and artistic devices in "Lamb to the Slaughter." This is the device of contrast, which is to be found in almost any good work of art. When the story opens, Mary is waiting for her husband to return from his job. She is six months pregnant, and this condition makes her feel happy and peaceful. Here is Roald Dahl's description of her mental and emotional state:
Now and again she would glance up at the clock, but without anxiety, merely to please herself with the thought that each minute gone by made it nearer the time when he would come. There was a slow smiling air about her, and about everything she did. The drop of a head as she bent over her sewing was curiously tranquil. Her skin—for this was her sixth month with child—had acquired a wonderful translucent quality, the mouth was soft, and the eyes, with their new placid look, seemed larger and darker than before.
Mary loves her husband, and she believes he loves her. She is looking forward to having their baby, and she believes he is looking forward to it, too. But her husband Patrick is in an entirely different mood. He has been brooding over his feelings about their relationship for a long time, and now he is ready to drop the bomb.
Mary's change of mood from a loving wife and blissfully expectant mother to an enraged murderess is all the more understandable—and effective—because her mood had been so utterly beatific before Patrick's announcement. It was this sudden betrayal and denial of everything she wanted and treasured that shocked her out of her dreamworld into the world of reality and prompted her to take such a drastic action. We can believe in Mary's transformation because we identified and sympathized with her when she was still in a state of blissful ignorance.

In the poem "Father and Child" by Gwen Harwood, what stylistic features are used? How can this improve the standard of students' writing?

One stylistic feature in the poem is the use of personification in the second stanza. The boy who narrates the poem sneaks out at "Daybreak" and says that his father is "robbed of power / by sleep." Sleep is here personified as the robber, and the personification of sleep suggests that the boy's father is a victim. Personification is a useful technique for a student to use to improve the standard of their own writing. By giving human characteristics to something that is not human, a writer can emphasize the power of that something. Indeed, by personifying sleep in this poem, the writer implies that sleep has a will of its own, and when something has a will of its own, it is of course more powerful and more dangerous.
Another stylistic feature used in this poem, which is a good feature for a student to use to improve their writing, is the evocation of different senses. In the opening stanza, for example, the boy describes "Daylight" and "the sun." In the third stanza, the boy says that he is standing "in urine-scented hay," and in the final stanza the boy says that he "fired" his gun once more, to put the barn owl out of its misery. The evocation of different senses (sight, smell, and sound) helps the readers to imagine the scene more vividly and immerse themselves in it more completely.

Gwen Harwood's poem "Father and Child" includes two poems—"Barn Owl" and "Nightfall"—separated by many years. In the first poem, the speaker is young and inexperienced. She seeks out the barn owl to kill it, feeling at first powerful and almost god-like. Once she commits the act, she discovers she was not prepared for its outcome, the "obscene / bundle" into which the bird collapses. Her father advises her to complete the act, as it is the most humane thing to do now, and he then serves as a literal shoulder to cry on as the speaker processes this experience. In "Nightfall," the speaker's father is 80 years old and apparently near death. At this point, the speaker sees innocence in her father and wishes she had the power over life and death she saw herself as having that time in her early life when she shot the owl.
In the poems, Harwood makes use of first-person voice, anecdote, and imagery, along with some figurative language. Both poems are told in the first person voice by the speaker, who is the "child" of the title. This allows the reader to directly access the speaker's feelings before, during, and after the events of "Barn Owl," and of course to understand the speaker's complex feelings toward her father's mortality in "Nightfall." "Barn Owl" makes use of anecdote, as the story of the speaker killing the owl to prove her own power over the world around her serves as an example of a lesson learned. The anecdote also gives a context that allows the reader to understand the relationship between the father and the daughter.
Both poems include extensive imagery. "Barn Owl" sees the speaker describing the owl itself and the scene of the owl's gruesome death in vivid detail. "Nightfall," on the other hand, makes greater use of figurative language. Though the speaker implies that the father and daughter are literally on a walk, the speaker also often refers to more abstract concepts through her description. For example, in the second stanza, the speaker writes,

Since there's no more to taste
ripeness is plainly all.
Father, we pick our last
fruits of the temporal.
Eighty years old, you take
this late walk for my sake.

In this section of the poem, the speaker refers to the father's (and her own) mortality by saying there is "no more to taste" of life. They have "pick[ed] [their] last / fruits." This is a figurative way of saying that life is nearing a close. The final lines, though, return to the literal walk. The figurative language is more suited to the latter poem, "Nightfall," as even the title is metaphorical (or at least more symbolic) than purely literal. The title refers to the close of life, as nightfall signals the close of the day. The speaker grapples with metaphysical concepts in this poem, so figurative language is better suited to her purposes.

Any time students analyze a piece of literature and think about how and why the author constructed the piece in a particular way, and what effects that construction has on a reader, they are thinking about writing as a craft. This allows students to be metacognitive about their own writing. They will become more aware about the effects of their choices of words, their phrasing, and their use of sensory detail or figurative language. They will think about and practice the connections between form and content.

How does Holmes feel about Dr. Roylotts death?

It's fair to say that Holmes isn't exactly all cut up over Dr. Roylott's death. He knows just what kind of a nasty, thieving, murderous brute of a man he really was.
One night, Holmes and Dr. Watson cautiously enter Miss Stoner's bedroom at Stoke Moran, where they hope to get to the bottom of the mystery once and for all. After the two men wait in the darkness for what seems like an eternity, Watson suddenly notices a light emanating from the ventilator. The light quickly goes out, but then there's a strong smell of burning oil and heated metal. It's clear that someone in the next room has just lit up a lantern.
Not long afterwards, a snake slithers through the ventilator, causing Holmes to start up at once and attack it with his cane. This drives the snake back through the ventilator and into the next room, where it attacks and kills its master, none other than Dr. Roylott himself. He had used the snake to kill Julia, and would've done the same to his sister Helen had Holmes not saved the day.
At the very end of the story, Holmes casually acknowledges that he was indirectly responsible for Dr. Roylott's death. But he won't lose any sleep over it. Or, as Holmes puts it:

I cannot say that it is likely to weigh very heavily upon my conscience.