What is a word which begins with an unvoiced stop, has a tense vowel, and contains a voiced fricative?

Great question, and one which has many answers, but let’s take “teething” as an example. It begins with a voiceless stop, the “t” that does not involve the vocal cords in its production. Next, we find the tense vowel, sometimes called a long vowel in English, pronounced at the front of the mouth. Finally, we see the voiced dental fricative in the “th” sound. This sound is made with the tongue held between the upper and lower teeth. Note that the “th” sound at the end of “tooth,” for example, is not the same—try pronouncing both of these and you will hear the difference and feel the ways in which you hold your mouth and teeth differently in relation to your tongue while saying the words.

Is comedy a criticism of life?

I think comedy can be a criticism of life, certainly, although there is comedy that is not. Very "broad" comedy appeals to our funny bones in a different kind of way, much like the difference between our appreciation of witty repartee in a film as opposed to our laughter at the very physical comedy of something like the Three Stooges.  Some comedy is meant simply to entertain us and nothing more. There are many examples in literature, though, of comedy that is meant to critique or comment on some aspect of life.
I just finished reading Bill Bryson's latest book, The Road to Little Dribbling. Like most of his books, this one is filled with humorous criticism—in this case, of his adopted country, the United Kingdom. He pokes fun at British things in a very entertaining way, but the reader can see these are aspects of British life of which he is genuinely critical. What keeps Bryson from being just a grumpy old man is that he never hesitates to make fun of himself, too, which is, I suppose, a criticism of life. 
In a far older example, Chaucer's The Canterbury Tales uses humor to comment on and criticize the society of his time and place, particularly the Church. The hypocrisies of the day are exposed, as these travelers on their spiritual quest are far more concerned with matters such as lust and wealth.  
Catch-22 by Joseph Heller is a comedic critique of society, in particular military bureaucracy. The term "catch-22" did not take very long to catch on in its day, since the pointed humor of the novel resonated with anyone who had any experience of bureaucracy.
There is no question that there is comedy in literature that is meant to just entertain, but much comedy in literature is meant to make a point that critiques some aspect of life.   
https://www.britannica.com/art/comedy

College Algebra, Chapter 1, 1.3, Section 1.3, Problem 38

Find all real solutions of $8x^2 - 6x - 9 = 0$.


$
\begin{equation}
\begin{aligned}

8x^2 - 6x - 9 =& 0
&& \text{Given}
\\
\\
8x^2 - 6x =& 9
&& \text{Add 9}
\\
\\
x^2 - \frac{6}{8} x =& \frac{9}{8}
&& \text{Divide both sides of the equation by 8 to make the coefficient of $x^2$ equal to 1}
\\
\\
x^2 - \frac{6}{8} x + \frac{9}{64} =& \frac{9}{8} + \frac{9}{64}
&& \text{Complete the the square: add } \left( \frac{\displaystyle \frac{-6}{8}}{2} \right)^2 = \frac{9}{64}
\\
\\
\left( x - \frac{3}{8} \right)^2 =& \frac{81}{64}
&& \text{Perfect square, get the LCD of the right side}
\\
\\
x - \frac{3}{8} =& \pm \sqrt{\frac{81}{64}}
&& \text{Take the square root}
\\
\\
x =& \frac{3}{8} \pm \frac{9}{8}
&& \text{Add } \frac{3}{8}
\\
\\
x =& \frac{3}{2} \text{ and } x = \frac{-3}{4}
&& \text{Solve for } x

\end{aligned}
\end{equation}
$

Describe how events in chapter 18 show that Brian has changed during his time in the Canadian wilderness. How would the old Brian have reacted to these events?

The summary of the chapter is fairly straightforward. Brian is at the plane, and he's trying to get the survival bag. He uses the hatchet to get inside the plane, but he drops the hatchet at one point. He retrieves the hatchet, gets into the plane, gets the bag, and makes it back to shore.
This particular chapter is a good chapter to use in order to point out how Brian has changed from earlier in the book. Paulsen doesn't try to hide the change either. In fact, the narration quite explicitly tells readers that even Brian recognizes that he has changed. This is most clearly illustrated right after Brian drops the hatchet into the lake. He's angry that he dropped the hatchet, but he's not angry at the situation. He's angry at himself. He knows that dropping the most important tool for survival was something that his earlier self would have done.

"That was the kind of thing I would have done before," he said to the lake, to the sky, to the trees. "When I came here—I would have done that. Not now. Not now..."
Yet he had and he hung on the raft for a moment and felt sorry for himself. For his own stupidity. But as before, the self-pity didn't help and he knew that he had only one course of action.
He had to get the hatchet back. He had to dive and get it back.

Notice how quickly Brian moves from emotional anger to logical problem solving. That wouldn't have happened before. He would have wallowed in self-pity for much longer, but his experiences have taught him that self-pity isn't helpful. Brian now knows that he has to act.

Please list five ways in which women were legally or socially relegated to a secondary status. How does this inferior status manifest itself in the Helmer household?

Henrik Ibsen’s A Doll’s House was first published in 1879. At this time in Norway a woman lived under her father’s authority until she married, at which time she lived under her husband’s authority. As Nora explains to Helmer that she’s leaving him in the final scene of the play, she says, “…I passed from father’s hands into yours” (120). At that time it was illegal for a woman to borrow money on her own, which is why Nora forges her father’s signature on the I.O.U. Her childhood friend, Mrs. Linden reinforces the fact that a woman is unable to obtain credit when she says, “Why, a wife can’t borrow without her husband’s consent” (29). Nora acknowledges that women are valued for their looks when she fantasizes about an older wealthy gentleman leaving everything to her in his will, for “When one is so… attractive as I am…” (29). When Helmer refuses to give in to Nora’s request that he keep Krogstad on in his position at the bank, he explains to her, “…so long as a willful woman can have her way…! I am to make myself a laughing-stock to the whole staff, and set people saying that I am open to all sorts of outside influence?” (68). It’s Helmer’s belief that taking council from a woman will paint him as weak in the eyes of his subordinates. In one of Nora’s last lines to Helmer she says, “…when a wife leaves her husband’s house, as I am doing, I have heard that in the eyes of the law he is free from all duties towards her” (127). This shows her understanding that the home they shared does not belong to her and that because she’s choosing to leave her husband, she isn’t entitled to benefit from the wealth they built during their marriage.

What does Buddy's friend discover after flying her kite on their last Christmas day together?

After they fly kites together on Christmas day, Buddy's friend has a revelation about the Lord in Truman Capote’s story “A Christmas Memory.” 
Buddy and his friend open presents with the rest of the family before escaping the disappointment and stuffiness of their home by going to the pasture to fly kites. The kites were the handmade gifts they shared earlier that day.  It is a beautiful afternoon with perfect blue skies and amazing kite flying winds. The two unwind in the deep grass with the afternoon sun shining upon them while simply enjoying each other’s company.
As they relax in the sun, Buddy’s friend realizes her belief that one would have to be near death to see the face of God may be flawed. She finds herself so taken with the idyllic afternoon that she decides the Lord shows himself in such perfection. He does not wait until the end of life, but he is present in life’s common, but precious moments. She explains her revelation to Buddy so he will understand how God presents himself in nature, and in the seemingly mundane, but wonderful moments of everyday life.

That things as they are"—her hand circles in a gesture that gathers clouds and kites and grass and Queenie pawing earth over her bone—"just what they've always seen, was seeing Him. As for me, I could leave the world with today in my eyes."

In The Dispossessed by Le Guin, how would you analyze the discussion of the terms “higher” and “more central” in relation to Derrida’s ideas concerning binary oppositions? Does the term “more central” in reality avoid the problem that Shevek identifies with the term “higher”?

Binary oppositions are a part of structuralist thinking that identifies with the human tendency to think in "opposites." Saussure defined binary oppositions as "means by which the units of language have value or meaning" with "each unit... defined against what it is not." Thus, the concepts of positive and negative associations were born: good/evil, male/female, and, in the case of The Dispossessed, superior/inferior.
Derrida believes that such oppositions ultimately overlap and become deconstructed due to their instability. We can clearly see this happening in The Dispossessed when Shevek notes that:

Each [of us] took for granted certain relationships that the other could not see. For instance, this curious matter of superiority and inferiority... they often used the word "higher" as a synonym for "better" in their writing, where an Anarresti would use "more central."

Thus, the binary approach of superior/inferior that was a value system inherent to Urras became one of the major causes of revolution against Urras; as a result, Anarres was formed as a "more central" community that attempted to centralize values between "superior" and "inferior." The trouble with this approach was that the concept of "more central" still operates as a binary in relationship to "less central." The term does nothing to avoid the problem because it still contains an ideological locus.