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MIT Entrance exam (1869)

libraries.mit.edu

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Re: MIT Entrance exam (1869)

#41

Post by cma »

DanielN wrote: post #19

It's worth noting that MIT didn't really become an academically prestigious institution until the 1940-50's. Before the second world war it was largely a Engineering and technical college and certainly wasn't one of the top 10 institutions in the country. More specifically, at the time of this exam the school was only ~8 years old and engineering wasn't considered the prestigious career it is today. The round up of f…

Along with the funding, prior to the 30's/40's guys like Norbert Weiner were excluded from places like Harvard due to their race, and ended up turning MIT into a powerhouse (on top of the federal funding).

Re: MIT Entrance exam (1869)

#42

Post by sidek »

ashot wrote: post #11

the geometry section is much harder: http://libraries.mit.edu/archives/exhibits/exam/geometry.htm...

Geometry is only harder to you because we teach more Algebra than Geometry in schools. They really are elementary.

Re: MIT Entrance exam (1869)

#43

Post by sidek »

etfb wrote: post #39
chr15 wrote: post #15

Answers: http://libraries.mit.edu/archives/exhibits/exam/algebra-answ...

Their answer to the first one is wrong. Square root of a positive number gives two results, plus and minus. I haven't checked my working, but I believe the correct answers are 15, -9, 21 and -3. Rather disappointed that I caught the trick question and the questioners, apparently, didn't.

Sometimes square root is assumed to refer to the positive one. I assume that was the case here.

Re: MIT Entrance exam (1869)

#45

Post by gmichnikov »

sidek wrote: post #43
etfb wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Their answer to the first one is wrong. Square root of a positive number gives two results, plus and minus. I haven't checked my working, but I believe the correct answers are 15, -9, 21 and -3. Rather disappointed that I caught the trick question and the questioners, apparently, didn't.

Sometimes square root is assumed to refer to the positive one. I assume that was the case here.

On every notable standardized math test in the US, and on any commonly used calculator, a square root is non-negative. Another example: http://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=sqrt(x)

Re: MIT Entrance exam (1869)

#46

Post by [deleted] »

gmichnikov wrote: post #45
sidek wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sometimes square root is assumed to refer to the positive one. I assume that was the case here.

On every notable standardized math test in the US, and on any commonly used calculator, a square root is non-negative. Another example: http://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=sqrt(x)

[deleted]

Re: MIT Entrance exam (1869)

#47

Post by sdave »

prat wrote: post #14

link to IIT joint entrance exam (JEE) http://www.wiziq.com/tutorial/98820-IIT-JEE-Mathematics-Pape...

This is from IIT JEE 1999. If i remember this was one of the most difficult Math paper in those years.check out question 11 at the end , nice one. Trivia: Check out JEE 1998 paper on physics & try out subjective questions at the end.Boy was that paper hard.

Re: MIT Entrance exam (1869)

#48

Post by btilly »

makmanalp wrote: post #33
kwantam wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Depends on how far back you go. For a Roman, mental multiplication was exceedingly difficult. Clearly this implies that there was a period of upward trend. If we believe that we're dumber than some of our forefathers, then there must have been a peak at some point in the past (or perhaps even multiple peaks, but we don't have enough evidence to suspect more than one, so let's assume it's an approximately parabolic tr…

Those roman numerals don't help with the multiplication at all .

They weren't meant to. The purpose of Roman numerals was to be a convenient notation that you would read on and off of an abacus. All actual calculations were done on an abacus.

Re: MIT Entrance exam (1869)

#49

Post by DanielN »

cma wrote: post #41
DanielN wrote: post #19

It's worth noting that MIT didn't really become an academically prestigious institution until the 1940-50's. Before the second world war it was largely a Engineering and technical college and certainly wasn't one of the top 10 institutions in the country. More specifically, at the time of this exam the school was only ~8 years old and engineering wasn't considered the prestigious career it is today. The round up of f…

Along with the funding, prior to the 30's/40's guys like Norbert Weiner were excluded from places like Harvard due to their race, and ended up turning MIT into a powerhouse (on top of the federal funding).

This is a really good point. They talk about this in "A Beautiful Mind". It was a big divider between places like Harvard and Princeton, and places like MIT and Carnegie Mellon. The latter would take in Jews and other immigrant populations. This pissed off Nash (an undergrad from CM and a Phd at Princeton) to no end.
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