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Harvard 1869 entrance exam

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Re: Harvard 1869 entrance exam

#81

Post by ricree »

wolf550e wrote: post #79
barrkel wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't think any of that is difficult ; it is, rather, a test of memorization, not ability. A lot of the mathematics section is also on the basis of memorization.

In those days, being an educated person meant memorizing a lot of things, because you couldn't haul your library with you everywhere you went, and in any case it didn't have full text search. Separate a modern educated person from google/wikipedia/etc. and see whether they can still converse at the same lavel. Most can't.

There was also a heavy emphasis on a particular subset of history that made up "classical" studies.

Besides the river questions, the history and geography questions were about ancient Greece and Rome.

There was nothing, for example, on medieval or renaissance history. I suspect that a comparable modern student would have a broader understanding of ancient history than what was shown on this test.

Re: Harvard 1869 entrance exam

#83

Post by [deleted] »

baby wrote: post #45
mortenjorck wrote: post #22

In a way, this reinforces my hypothesis that Latin in traditional Western higher education was never quite so much about Latin itself as it was about gaining a deeper understanding and greater praxis of your native tongue by reading its source code.

I don't agree with you. I did 2 years of latin and one year of greek. I don't feel like it really helped me. I actually found it pretty useless except the syntax/grammar part which can be good to understand new languages easier. It's exactly like learning scheme. Seriously who fucking cares about scheme? I see latin and greek in a Harvard test as a part of distinguishing highly educated kids from the others.

[deleted]

Re: Harvard 1869 entrance exam

#84

Post by estevez »

derleth wrote: post #9

Where is the modern history? Where are the questions on governments? Worse, this test doesn't call for much analysis; it's mainly regurgitation of memorized trivia and the most mechanical arithmetical techniques.

Plus ça change. There are no such sections in modern standardized admissions tests either.

Re: Harvard 1869 entrance exam

#85

Post by c4m »

baby wrote: post #45
mortenjorck wrote: post #22

In a way, this reinforces my hypothesis that Latin in traditional Western higher education was never quite so much about Latin itself as it was about gaining a deeper understanding and greater praxis of your native tongue by reading its source code.

I don't agree with you. I did 2 years of latin and one year of greek. I don't feel like it really helped me. I actually found it pretty useless except the syntax/grammar part which can be good to understand new languages easier. It's exactly like learning scheme. Seriously who fucking cares about scheme? I see latin and greek in a Harvard test as a part of distinguishing highly educated kids from the others.

> It's exactly like learning scheme. Seriously who fucking cares about scheme?

I'm a CS student at the University of Waterloo, where most early CS courses and many advanced courses here use scheme. There are thousands of students taking CS courses here so in fact there is a generation of grads being produced where a significant number (thousands at least) of them base much of their CS knowledge on scheme. That makes it very relevant.

Re: Harvard 1869 entrance exam

#86

Post by kijin »

pak wrote: post #75

The thing I noticed (sorry, LaTeX fan here) was how well they could typeset math and Latin all the way back in 1869! I have to say I'm impressed, and it makes me a bit sad that most of my college exams looked worse (typographically) than a paper produced over a century ago. Look at those goddamn gorgeously even margins, the ligatures, the kerning of the italics, and the protrusion of the hyphens. Hell, this makes the…

It's also interesting that the Greek portion of the exam was handwritten. Perhaps Harvard University Press didn't have movable types for Greek letters at that time? Also, I'm curious how they distributed the handwritten pages to all the applicants (hundreds?) without a Xerox machine.

Re: Harvard 1869 entrance exam

#87

Post by jamieb »

baddox wrote: post #37
impendia wrote: post #31

> What is the reason that when different powers of the same quantity are multiplied together their exponents are added? As a math professor, I think this is a great question. Students learn that math is about manipulating formulas and equations, or about excessive formalities. But being able to explain simple arithmetic facts in clear and plain English is often neglected, and is of the utmost value.

That question stood out to me as a particularly bad question. What is the answer supposed to be? I completely understand how multiplication of exponents works, but I have no idea how to describe the "reason." You can give a simple algebraic proof quite easily (especially if we're just dealing with integer exponents), but unless "reason" had a more specific mathematical meaning in that time, it seems like a very vague…

jamieb "google that for you service" (TM):

http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/reason

1. a basis or cause, as for some belief, action, fact, event, etc. ...

3. the mental powers concerned with forming conclusions, judgments, or inferences.

So, its the difference between "reasoning", which we do in math and logic all the time, and "belief" or "motive". That is "reason" did indeed have a specific mathematical meaning at that time, and it still does today.

One might also google "mathematical reasoning"...

Re: Harvard 1869 entrance exam

#88

Post by EGreg »

wvoq wrote: post #59
baby wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't agree with you. I did 2 years of latin and one year of greek. I don't feel like it really helped me. I actually found it pretty useless except the syntax/grammar part which can be good to understand new languages easier. It's exactly like learning scheme. Seriously who fucking cares about scheme? I see latin and greek in a Harvard test as a part of distinguishing highly educated kids from the others.

I care about scheme.

I don't. :)

Re: Harvard 1869 entrance exam

#89

Post by kevinpet »

baby wrote: post #45
mortenjorck wrote: post #22

In a way, this reinforces my hypothesis that Latin in traditional Western higher education was never quite so much about Latin itself as it was about gaining a deeper understanding and greater praxis of your native tongue by reading its source code.

I don't agree with you. I did 2 years of latin and one year of greek. I don't feel like it really helped me. I actually found it pretty useless except the syntax/grammar part which can be good to understand new languages easier. It's exactly like learning scheme. Seriously who fucking cares about scheme? I see latin and greek in a Harvard test as a part of distinguishing highly educated kids from the others.

The point of learning Scheme is that you can learn Scheme the language in five minutes and move on the actual topic of the course, which is about how a program gets executed.

Re: Harvard 1869 entrance exam

#90

Post by estevez »

seagaia wrote: post #57

does the requirement of Latin strike anyone as a bit elitist? or was Latin really that necessary in order to (presumably) study some Classics?

College education was intended for the elite. The proportion of the population that possessed a high school diploma, much less a college degree was infinitesimal. Indeed, as late as the 1950s, only ~8% of the population were college graduates.

In practice, the requirement for the classics was no impediment to elites; one could be admitted on the condition that shortcomings would be remediated. Once admitted, you could easily purchase the services of a tutor or cheat your way through.

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