Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Harvard's 1899 Entrance Exam [pdf]

graphics8.nytimes.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

91–99 of 99 posts

Re: Harvard's 1899 Entrance Exam [pdf]

#91

Post by gcb »

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…

how do you measure the hours someone used to write something?

i'd have studied decorative calligraphy and spent 2.5 hours on the title.

Re: Harvard's 1899 Entrance Exam [pdf]

#95

Post by cma »

cdavid wrote: post #27
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…

Latin is and most likely already was in the XIXth century a tool to discriminate people, which is one of the role of education (even more so in the XIXth century maybe ?). There are at least two ways to look at education from a purely economical POV: signal theory (I take someone from Harvard because he was able to go to Harvard) vs human capital theory (I take someone from Harvard because of the things he learned at…

Not likely, definitely. Veblen wrote about Latin being used for that purpose in 1898 in The Theory of the Leisure Class.

Re: Harvard's 1899 Entrance Exam [pdf]

#96

Post by ahh »

aristidb wrote: post #30
fhars wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But to become a fully erudite member of modern society, you might want to also study zipWith :: (a-> b -> c) -> [a] -> [b] -> [c] :-)

Allowing one to simplify to: fibs = 1 : 1 : zipWith (+) fibs (tail fibs) Involving zip`ap`tail, the Aztec god of consecutive numbers: fibs = 1 : 1 : (zipWith (+) `ap` tail) fibs Or, pointlessly: fix $ (1:) . (1:) . (zipWith (+) `ap` tail)

Your second example does not typecheck.

Re: Harvard's 1899 Entrance Exam [pdf]

#97

Post by felixc »

gcb wrote: post #91
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…

how do you measure the hours someone used to write something? i'd have studied decorative calligraphy and spent 2.5 hours on the title.

Presumably you're merely allotted 2.5 hours. How you spend them is up to you, but the resulting essay is graded.

Re: Harvard's 1899 Entrance Exam [pdf]

#98

Post by aristidb »

ahh wrote: post #96
aristidb wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Allowing one to simplify to: fibs = 1 : 1 : zipWith (+) fibs (tail fibs) Involving zip`ap`tail, the Aztec god of consecutive numbers: fibs = 1 : 1 : (zipWith (+) `ap` tail) fibs Or, pointlessly: fix $ (1:) . (1:) . (zipWith (+) `ap` tail)

Your second example does not typecheck.

It does.

let fibs = 1 : 1 : (zipWith (+) `ap` tail) fibs in fibs :: (Num a) => [a]

according to ghci 6.12.1

Re: Harvard's 1899 Entrance Exam [pdf]

#99

Post by ahh »

aristidb wrote: post #98
ahh wrote: post #96

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Your second example does not typecheck.

It does. let fibs = 1 : 1 : (zipWith (+) `ap` tail) fibs in fibs :: (Num a) => [a] according to ghci 6.12.1

I get No instance for (Monad ((->) [a])) -am I missing some module include?
Post reply on HN