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Jewish problems

arxiv.org

1–10 of 203 posts

Re: Jewish problems

#3
I don't understand how these problems would be harder for Jews than anyone else. It's controversial in my opinion to claim that educated Jews are worse at these based on their ethnicity.

edit: wow people responded too quickly, sorry if it was to something I edited out

Re: Jewish problems

#4
post #3

I don't understand how these problems would be harder for Jews than anyone else. It's controversial in my opinion to claim that educated Jews are worse at these based on their ethnicity. edit: wow people responded too quickly, sorry if it was to something I edited out

This was a set of problems only given to Jewish candidates.

Re: Jewish problems

#5
post #3

I don't understand how these problems would be harder for Jews than anyone else. It's controversial in my opinion to claim that educated Jews are worse at these based on their ethnicity. edit: wow people responded too quickly, sorry if it was to something I edited out

They're not supposed to be; the goal was to give Jews harder questions which had supposedly simple answers:

> One of the methods they used for doing this was to give the unwanted students a different set of problems on their oral exam. I was told that these problems were carefully designed to have elementary solutions (so that the Department could avoid scandals) that were nearly impossible to find.

Re: Jewish problems

#6
post #3

I don't understand how these problems would be harder for Jews than anyone else. It's controversial in my opinion to claim that educated Jews are worse at these based on their ethnicity. edit: wow people responded too quickly, sorry if it was to something I edited out

[deleted]

Re: Jewish problems

#7
post #4
post #3

I don't understand how these problems would be harder for Jews than anyone else. It's controversial in my opinion to claim that educated Jews are worse at these based on their ethnicity. edit: wow people responded too quickly, sorry if it was to something I edited out

This was a set of problems only given to Jewish candidates.

[deleted]

Re: Jewish problems

#8
post #3

I don't understand how these problems would be harder for Jews than anyone else. It's controversial in my opinion to claim that educated Jews are worse at these based on their ethnicity. edit: wow people responded too quickly, sorry if it was to something I edited out

The Mathematics Department of Moscow State University, the most prestigious mathematics school in Russia, was at that time actively trying to keep Jewish students (and other \undesirables") from enrolling in the department.One of the methods they used for doing this was to give the unwanted students a different set of problems on their oral exam. I was told that these problems were carefully designed to have elementary solutions (so that the Department could avoid scandals) that were nearly impossible to find. Any student who failed to answer could easily be rejected, so this system was an eective method of controlling admissions.

It was arbitrary.

Re: Jewish problems

#10
I once had a question on a first year calculus exam that broke down to problem 17. It took a while to figure it out, but the exam got bell curved up by almost 50% in the end.
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