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Harvard's 1899 Entrance Exam [pdf]

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Re: Harvard's 1899 Entrance Exam [pdf]

#31

Post by technotony »

SandB0x wrote: post #26
jclaassen wrote: post #7

Am I just being an engineer, or is the math way easier than the rest of this test?

Have a look at the UK's STEP mathematics papers. They're the toughest school-level exams we have, used as entrance tests for a handful of degree courses. There are three papers each year, in increasing level of difficulty and assumed knowledge, and each candidate takes papers I and II or papers II and III. http://www.admissionstests.cambridgeassessment.org.uk/adt/st...

Thanks for sharing that... I found the paper from 1998 that I took... I don't remember how to answer any of the questions anymore which is pretty scary given I did OK back then!!

Re: Harvard's 1899 Entrance Exam [pdf]

#32

Post by sliverstorm »

jclaassen wrote: post #7

Am I just being an engineer, or is the math way easier than the rest of this test?

Math transcends time and often language.

It also helps that the field of math has expanded and progressed a decent amount since the time of the exam, (i.e. what was cutting edge and difficult then is common knowledge now) while the fields of Latin and History haven't progressed so much as just gotten older.

Re: Harvard's 1899 Entrance Exam [pdf]

#34

Post by tybris »

yequalsx wrote: post #18

What 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…

I think we're moving from single answer knowledge to multi-answer understanding of the matter. This involves being able to absorb large amounts of information, rather than being able to find obscure information. We probably need more knowledge than ever before, but it has more breadth and less specificity.

A historian might be asked to discuss why Spain and Portugal were the first of the European countries to build a colonial empire. You wouldn't directly find that on wikipedia and there is not one single answer that will suffice. To be able to answer it, you need to be aware of the Reconquista, abundant military resources, conquered wealth, etc. and be able to support any claim you make about them. You can search for the details, but you need to have a broad enough knowledge to know what to search for.

A mathematician might be asked about the importance of prime numbers in mathematics. Again, not something on wikipedia, Google, or wolfram alpha, or with a single answer.

Re: Harvard's 1899 Entrance Exam [pdf]

#35

Post by nanijoe »

mjs wrote: post #20

I 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 Cast…

I'm not sure what you find bizarre, having to write an essay or the choice of topics? This type of question is pretty much standard on (high school) English exams in many commonwealth countries, even today.

Re: Harvard's 1899 Entrance Exam [pdf]

#36

Post by gaius »

nanijoe wrote: post #35
mjs wrote: post #20

I 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 Cast…

I'm not sure what you find bizarre, having to write an essay or the choice of topics? This type of question is pretty much standard on (high school) English exams in many commonwealth countries, even today.

They have duels in your country?!

Re: Harvard's 1899 Entrance Exam [pdf]

#37

Post by gaius »

andjones wrote: post #16

This 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 an…

The point of Latin was that it is the root of many European languages, so by studying it early on in education, you would later more easily be able to pick up one of its descendents.

Re: Harvard's 1899 Entrance Exam [pdf]

#38

Post by AlecSchueler »

jclaassen wrote: post #7

Am I just being an engineer, or is the math way easier than the rest of this test?

Arty type here. I found the history/geography section way easier. But in saying that, I did get the feeling that a lot of the maths would have been trivial if I'd even just briefly studied it.

Re: Harvard's 1899 Entrance Exam [pdf]

#39

Post by eru »

gaius wrote: post #36
nanijoe wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not sure what you find bizarre, having to write an essay or the choice of topics? This type of question is pretty much standard on (high school) English exams in many commonwealth countries, even today.

They have duels in your country?!

No, but they are still a topic in fiction / history.

Re: Harvard's 1899 Entrance Exam [pdf]

#40

Post by derleth »

light3 wrote: post #28
derleth wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'd characterize it as 'pointless tedium' and I'm glad our educational system is rid of it. It's easier to justify teaching Latin than that drudgery.

Of course if you're doing it by trial and error on paper it is pointless tedium. But I'm sure that the point of doing these exercises were not bore you to death, but to really make you understand arithmetic so you can do most given problems faster. If all you knew was how to multiply and divide numbers by hand, that problem would take you hours to solve! A great example is the section 'lucky numbers' in Feynman's boo…

True enough, except it's also along the lines of memorizing the works of Cicero or knowing all of the books of the Bible off by heart: It's useful at developing a skill that the correct tools render obsolete (cheap books in the case of the memory feats, computers in the case of the arithmetical ones). Similarly, knowing Latin and Greek had a purely practical motive as well back then: It marked you as a member of the social elite, defined as people who had enough leisure to study objectively useless things such as Latin and Greek. Memorizing paradigms wasn't something a farmer's son could be expected to do, after all.

I suppose my point, which I expressed poorly, is that it can be interesting to examine how technology impacts coursework.

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