Makes the SAT look like a joke...
The SAT is a joke.
Totally.
Harvard's 1899 Entrance Exam [pdf]
11–20 of 99 posts
Re: Harvard's 1899 Entrance Exam [pdf]
#12I've just applied to university, and it's interesting to see how the maths questions have changed. For example, there are a lot of questions on calculating fractions. Nowadays this would no time at all to work out (put it in a calculator), but back then you would be expected to be able to calculate it mentally, with written notes.
It's strange how as the technology used to solve mathematical problems changes, the ways in which mathematical ability is measured changes too.
Re: Harvard's 1899 Entrance Exam [pdf]
#13They give almost all the words. I've had harder Latin tests.
The history stuff is weirdly worded. Probably the hardest part of the test.
Re: Harvard's 1899 Entrance Exam [pdf]
#14Hurray for algebra! Still as relevant today as it was a hundred years ago.
Are programming languages going to be equally durable?
Re: Harvard's 1899 Entrance Exam [pdf]
#15Am I just being an engineer, or is the math way easier than the rest of this test?
My maths is relatively weak, and I found the maths component trivially easy. Perhaps mathematics had a smaller part to play in society at this stage, because asking a university level student what a prime number is or how to do long division seems trivial.
Re: Harvard's 1899 Entrance Exam [pdf]
#16This test shows what was valued - at least at Harvard - in the late 1800's. Greek and Latin were more important, as well as knowledge of geography of the known world and algebra and geometry.
Algebra and geometry, I feel, are still important today (see SAT). Greek and Latin are less important, although they are still in the background. The humanities have changed and we now learn about more modern authors / topics and the humanities classes in general have cooler names (i.e. Microcomputer Application in Kinesiology or Topics in African Society and Culture).
There's probably some bigger point I'm missing here like "those who don't learn from history are doomed to repeat it" or something similar.
Teaching kids about how to conjugate Latin verbs or some other rote activity always seemed pointless to me. Perhaps I'm preaching to the choir, but learning about entrepreneurship or practicing selling things would have been much more useful to me than many of the things I learned in high school or undergrad.
Re: Harvard's 1899 Entrance Exam [pdf]
#17Like all tests, it's not hard if you know the stuff that's asked. If you've studied ancient greek in school, that part of the test is probably as easy for you as the algebra part must seem to anyone who went to school in the past couple of decades (it looks about as hard as math homework from when I was 15 or so). edit: It's interesting. I do have a certain romantic attachment to this kind of classic humanist educati…
But to become a fully erudite member of modern society, you might want to also study
zipWith :: (a-> b -> c) -> [a] -> [b] -> [c]
Re: Harvard's 1899 Entrance Exam [pdf]
#18What is truly amazing is how easy it is to find those answers today. With Google, Wolframalpha, etc. retrieving information is cheap both time wise and money wise.
Perhaps a test could be made today that would test a person's ability to search for obscure knowledge and comprehend it. A person would have to determine which sources are trustworthy and what conclusion could be made from the information received. Is this what is really meant when we say someone is intelligent?
Re: Harvard's 1899 Entrance Exam [pdf]
#19Am I just being an engineer, or is the math way easier than the rest of this test?
I teach mathematics at a community college and I can tell you that for most people the mathematics on the test is hard. Our course with the largest number of students is on arithmetic and the students just don't comprehend fractions. They can't even comprehend how to convert a decimal to a percent. Especially when given a problem like:
Conver 0.25% to a decimal. That really throws them off.
Re: Harvard's 1899 Entrance Exam [pdf]
#20I found some Cambridge exam papers from 1899 a while back. I don't have scans, but there's a few of the more interesting/mysterious questions at:
http://beebo.org/lately/2001-07-10_cambridge.html
I quite like the 2.5 hour "English Essay" for bizarreness:
Write an English Essay on one of the following subjects:
1. English country life in the 18th century. 2. The battle of Blenheim. 3. The character of Rachel Lady Castlewood. 4. Duelling.