MIT Entrance exam (1869)

http://libraries.mit.edu/archives/exhibits/exam/algebra.html

by anemecek • 16 years ago

135 66 16 years ago

libraries.mit.edu

iuytgfrtyuik• 16 years ago

Isn't that kind of high school level algebra?

I thought we were all supposed to have been dumbed down compared to our illustrious forefathers?

irinotecan• 16 years ago

Well, since the entrance exam would likely be geared toward people graduating high school, wouldn't the entrance questions have to be at that level of educational experience?

endtime• 16 years ago

For a normal university, yes. Not for one of the foremost technical institutions in the entire world.

kwantam• 16 years ago

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 trajectory).

Obviously, it was the men and women of the 1950s, who built computers and airplanes from nothing with little more than their wit, a grease pencil, and some twine, who were of the utmost in mental capacity and grit.

Since we're only 60 years from 1950, whereas 1869 is 81, we must be smarter than them. In fact, we're about as smart as people were in 1890. Ten years ago, we were as smart as people in 1900, but sadly such intelligence is ten years gone.

A corollary: in another 21 years, people will look back at this exam and just barely understand it. A few years after that, all hope is lost.

amelim• 16 years ago

I'm sorry, but being able to perform arithmetic does not equate to higher intelligence or mental capacity. As society begins to perform more calculations via computer, it will allow us to begin address more abstract and higher level mathematics, problems which would be near impossible to address had we been required to do the math with grease pencils.

Conrad Wolfram recently gave a wonder TED talk on the subject. http://www.ted.com/talks/conrad_wolfram_teaching_kids_real_m...

ludwigvan• 16 years ago

>A few years after that, all hope is lost.

I loved how you wrapped it up! humor at its best.

Another issue to consider, though, is specialization. 100 years ago, even 50 years ago, people could master all the breadth of their subjects (in math/sciences). Who is the current Gauss or Einstein? Hard to tell, possibly no one can now have that effect alone.

Even 20-30 years ago, when Woz singlehandedly invented the personal computer, it was very different. (he says he had it all in his head at once, really amazing). You can read a beautiful interview here: http://www.foundersatwork.com/steve-wozniak.html

makmanalp2• 16 years ago

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

cryptorchidism• 16 years ago

You bring up good points, but mental multiplication is a bad example. That's certainly more related to an inadequate notation for the task than any trend in human intellect.

http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1954217

zoowar• 16 years ago

Much easier than the 8th grade examination from 1895 posted the other day. http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1959690

ashot• 16 years ago

the geometry section is much harder:

http://libraries.mit.edu/archives/exhibits/exam/geometry.htm...

TheEzEzz• 16 years ago

The English section is much harder.

eitally• 16 years ago

It wouldn't be for a modern American high school student in an advanced English (wouldn't even have to be AP/IB) class. At least, I'm confident that 75% of the people in my AP English class would have known 85%+ of the answers. Dating myself slightly, that would've been back in '94.

devinj• 16 years ago

The geometry section looks like something I could have passed after taking high school geometry. i.e. an American or Canadian 14-15 year-old could probably do it easily.

verroq• 16 years ago

Not really

1. Construct a triangle ABC. Construct a line parellel to AB through C. Alternate angles and angle sum of triangle shows it is 180 degrees

2. Use congruent triangles

3. A number of ways doing this. I would cut it into two triangles

4. 360/6 = 60 degrees. Thus each sector is a equilateral triangle.

5. 100 pi

6. Basic algebra, let x be the length of the perpendicular. x = 12, solve for sides using Pythagoras. 20 and 15

7. x : x^2

Would expect to be year 7 or year 8 level.

kingkilr2• 16 years ago

Yep, the algebra was frankly also elementary school level IMO.

sidek2• 16 years ago

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

nutjob123• 16 years ago

anyone have a more recent copy? took me 15 min.

prat2• 16 years ago

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

bigbang• 16 years ago

Some questions have more than one answers right and all answers have to be marked to get credit =)

long• 16 years ago

what's considered a good score on the iit?

prat2• 16 years ago

in 1998, we used to aim for 50-60% on all 3 (P,C,M) to get in top 500 out of total ~2500 seats - all india topper that year scored himself at 85% (they just tell you the rank you have to score yourself later).

signa11• 16 years ago

from what i remember 1987's jee maths was the toughest. with the cutoff's in the lower teens or something....

sdave• 16 years ago

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.

chr15• 16 years ago

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

etfb• 16 years ago

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.

spicyj• 16 years ago

Any positive number has two square roots, but the (present-day) notational convention is always to take the positive square root.

sidek2• 16 years ago

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

DanielN2• 16 years ago

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 federal funding in the 1940's and 50's is really interesting to read about as it completely transformed the school and in a broader sense transformed higher education in the US as a whole.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_the_Massachusetts_In...

tibbon2• 16 years ago

Interestingly enough, many students there currently are all about 'keeping tradition' and are very adverse against change. There's an uproar currently over potentially required purchase of dining hall plans. In the not too distant past, they had such as well from what I understand, but now students want to keep things as they were.

Thunder_Child• 16 years ago

As a current MIT undergraduate, I would say that this isn't the whole story. The reason that people are in an uproar about the new dining hall plan is not that we dislike change. It is because the new plan will cost incoming students an additional $3,000 per semester (students already enrolled will only have to pay $2,500). Also, our administration was dishonest in drawing up these plans (releasing them for student input during finals week, blatantly ignoring the input we are currently providing).

EDIT: well, maybe not blatantly ignoring our current input, but the concessions that they are making are too little too late in my opinion

cma• 16 years ago

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).

DanielN2• 16 years ago

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.

trurl123• 16 years ago

It's usual exercises for school in Russia. I don't find any difficult problems. I mean all except English.

varjag5• 16 years ago

True, but it wasn't typical Russian school level in 1868.

migiale• 16 years ago

check this out http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/a/a7/BogdanovB... this is a painting from 1895 pupils were supposed to do calculations like the one on the blackboard in their heads, without any writing

zppx• 16 years ago

I would love to see Göttingen's or Cambridge's entrance exams of the early 20th century, if there was an exam for these institutions.

spc476• 16 years ago

Odd. One of the English questions asks "Who is Count Bismark?" The answer given is, "Count (Otto von) Bismark (1815-1898) was creator and first chancellor of the German Empire (1871-1890)." But this is the MIT Entrance Exam of 1869-70, one year before Count Bismark became the first chancellor. Either the year of the exam is wrong, or it was expected that Bismark was going to become the next ruler of Germany.

michael_dorfman• 16 years ago

More likely, the answers provided are not from an original answer sheet, but were researched by someone more recently.

(Note that they are not scanned in from an original document like the questions.)

Bismarck was already a world-historical personage by 1869, and anybody applying to MIT would have likely been able to identify him.

nopinsight• 16 years ago

The Math sections are about the level of high school entrance exam in many countries in Asia (for students who just finish grade 9 equivalents applying to high school).

It is only a bit harder than SAT I Math, in my opinion. I've always wondered why SAT I Math is so easy--a good middle school graduate in Asia would have aced it. If anyone here can comment/point to references on the matter, I will appreciate it.

jan_g• 16 years ago

I agree, geometry/algebra/arithmetic seem almost too easy. But then again, 1869 is not 2010. Maybe the expectations were different 130 years ago. Namely, if the tests were any harder, how many students would pass?

I am from central Europe and have gone to schools here as well.

pshirishreddy• 16 years ago

I already feel like a MIT Graduate :D :D

javanix• 16 years ago

Weird. It was apparently easier to get into MIT in the late 19th century than it was to pass the eighth grade.

tomrod• 16 years ago

Hahahahaha. This cracked me up. That 8th grade exam was difficult, no?

bm98• 16 years ago

Am I the only one who was struck by how much that exam looks like something produced by LaTeX?

http://bm98.posterous.com/did-they-have-latex-in-1869

MIT Entrance exam (1869)

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