Slashdot Mirror
Could You Pass Harvard's Entrance Exam From 1869?
erfnet writes "The New York Times remembers back to when 'college was a buyer's bazaar' and digs up 19th-century classified ads from Columbia, Harvard, Yale, and others. In competitive efforts to attract students from the limited pool of qualified candidates, applications were taken as late as September for an October freshman class. Vassar offered lush room accommodations. The expectations were high: Latin, Greek, Virgil, Caesar's Commentaries; Harvard's entrance exam from 1869 is posted (PDF). Could any of us pass the exam today?"
I'm in. If I could just get my time machine working.
I doubt they'd be able to pass a modern test either. These people grew up with a different curriculum than those at the latter half of the 20th century / new millennium.
Ah yes, the education of that day, based on assumptions that are still present in some form today.
Might have been a more refined age, though for today I'm pretty sure your average CS major needs to be able to quote Dante in his original language about as much as he needs an extra heavy bender prior to the big test.
"To circumscribe a circle about a given triangle."
I fail.
Too much dead languages, too little science.
...given that they weren't even able to manage to transcribe the number "1899" from a piece of paper to a web page.
I wonder if they were allowed to use calculators?
Man, if the examiner had been smart he'd written page 3-4 in LaTeX and saved himself a lot of handwriting!!!!
NB: The message above might reflect my opinion right now, but not necessarily tomorrow or next year.
I would if instead of Greek and Latin the languages were English and Spanish...
I must note that English is not my maternal tongue...
Maybe English and Mandarin? Different times, different places, different requirements...
What use is Latin and Greek today?
Could a Harvard graduate from the era be able to send an email from a laptop? Would he know how to even turn-on the laptop?
What is this? Slow-news Sunday?
Be very, very careful what you put into that head, because you will never, ever get it out. - Cardinal Wolsey
Dubya took.
Orwell: "In a Time of Universal Deceit, telling the Truth is a Revolutionary Act"
Could any of us pass the exam today?
My opinion is that, fortunately, most people today could not pass this test. I say that is fortunate because a great deal of the knowledge they required is not of practical use in the 21st century. In fact, besides some of the math, I daresay it wasn't practical in the 19th century either.
Better known as 318230.
I skimmed through the test. I think I'd do OK at the Latin, ace the mathematics, but completely fail the Greek and history sections. I guess history isn't nearly as constant as math is.
Its impossible for anyone to pass a test. What a stupid question...
Just as long as you are not black, asian, Jewish, or latin.
Could any of us pass the exam today?
Well, the theory of relativity, evolution, anything about computers, most modern medicine, etc., would be straight out because they didn't exist then. And I doubt many people here would disagree that knowing how to use a computer and a basic understanding of physics something every college would want in its students. It's no use trying to test ourselves according to the standards of over a hundred years ago... we know so much more about the world it's not even fair. The smartest person of that era would look like a total idiot today just trying to get by with what we take for granted -- driving a car, using a cell phone, browsing the internet, etc.
#fuckbeta #iamslashdot #dicemustdie
I could do the Latin when I was interested in applying to a University. Not the Greek, though. I could then (and can now) do most of the math. The geographical and historical questions are so imprecisely stated that it's hard to say.
I find it hard to believe they had PDF files in 1869.
True, the ink stamp on the documents is 1899, which is likely to be the date they were added to the Harvard library. You will note it is stamped on top of the content on each page and is clearly not part of the original page.
However, at the bottom of each page it gives the date as 1869. This date appears to be part of the original page.
Apparently you failed to read each page completely. One fundamental rule of all examinations: read the questions fully. That hasn't changed.
After utterly failing the Latin and Greek sections, I think I'd get a pretty bad reputation with any reviewer, even though I could do the rest just fine with a slide rule. Of course, I could follow up the geometry section with a lovely essay relating the theories of computability, genetics, and medicine, and the reviewer would be equally confused.
The parts that are important in modern innovation are still certainly appropriate for an entrance exam. The only difference I see between this and a modern exam is that the Latin and Greek sections have been replaced by English tests and some basic science questions. After all, the purpose for knowing Latin was that is was supposed to be the universal language of scholars, and during the burst of scientific progress following WWII, English took a firm grasp of that role.
You do not have a moral or legal right to do absolutely anything you want.
With the exception of the arithmetic, logarithms and trigonometry, algebra and plane geometry, not a chance in Hell.
Now, how well would a prospective applicant fare with some of today's knowledge? Introductory quantum mechanics can be taught at the high-school level. Now someone out Victorian era and give them the mathematical equations and they would fail due to not having the conceptual foundation to understand it.
Hold onto your seat for the big reveal: Knowledge advances over time, but correspondingly, some knowledge is made obsolescent. How well would any of do at knapping flint knives and spears? You might make a passable one, but not one that would qualify as a quality tool in the Paleolithic era.
Progress, folks. It's a good thing.
What use is Latin and Greek today?
Latin is very important today, especially with respect to the web. Have you tried to come up with a short decent sounding company name that is both trademark-able and has an available .com domain? I found it easier to accomplish with Latin than English, Perpenso.
While the Greek and Latin sections were frightening, the math section looked comfortingly familiar. Noticed a partial fractions question, a bunch of moderate geometric proofs. It's nice to see problems that look basically identical to something I'd have seen on a test just a few years ago.
I couldn't understand some of the questions that weren't questions though! They didn't end with question marks and didn't ask anything in particular.
"To circumscribe a circle about a given triangle."
Uh... alright. So, like, define the center point and radius in terms of (x_1,y_1),(x_2,y_2),(x_3,y_3) or what?
Could I pass it? Yes, assuming that I had an iphone with me. There's nothing there that requires anything more than either access to a web browser or rote memorization. I'm pretty sure that current testing requires more application of intelligence; taking knowledge and applying it than this test of the ability to memorize data and regurgitate it.
~ a low user id is no indication I have a clue what I'm talking about.
A very interesting historical artifact. History/geography and most of the math questions would still be good for a modern day entrance exam, but translating into Latin and manual numeric math problems (cube root by hand, et al), who gives a shit?
The Latin and Greek are almost entirely grammar, with the only translations from English into Latin/Greek (with the vocabulary given!) As the only reason for learning Latin and Greek is to read texts in these languages, it seems their curriculum was back to front. It would have been better to have given some passages in the original languages and asked for translations. (I did learn Latin and Greek at school but I have since forgotten most of it).
What's a passing grade in this case? 60% Yes, I could get 60% on this test. I studied Latin for 6.5 years and still have many books I read on the subject. I have done basic Ancient Greek informally, so I'd do sorta OK on that. The history is, in some cases, subjective, but I remember enough of that. Math is straightforward.
A lot of the comments so far are of the tack that "Greek and Latin are useless" or "CS majors don't need to quote Dante". I respond that they have no idea what a university education was for over its thousand year history. If you think you only go to university to learn how to write programmes and get a job in an industry, the 19th (and even 12th) century university man would tell you to get an apprenticeship - the early 20th century university man would tell you to go to a technical school.
Greek and Latin are still the most useful languages available for educated speakers of English because they allow you to decode almost any term in the English language, especially technical terms. Quoting Dante's Mediaeval Italian may make you as good a computer scientist as quoting Shakespeare's Elizabethan English, but the you will also be just as cultured - and I don't think anyone who understands what a university is for can claim that a cultured CS (all other things notwithstanding) is worse than an uncultured one.
Monty Burns is to old fashion to run a PC much less a phone.
reminds me an entrance exam i took to try to get into some private high school. the common theme being that they expected me to already know the material they were going to teach me over the next four years.
lose != loose
That's not a rebuttal--knowledge of things developed since 1869 doesn't show anything about the level of education of an individual, it only tells you that individuals are working from a different set of knowledge. Being able to give a brief definition of Turing completeness is both less knowledge and less useful to a modern student than latin and greek taught to a rigorous high school standard as it used to be taught. Latin in particular gives you a better understanding of word roots, as well as a better ability to pick up or read romance languages. It's a hell of a lot easier to teach turing completeness than it is to teach latin.
-- IANAL, this isn't legal advice, and definitely isn't legal advice for you. Also, Squee!
I recall that graduation ceremonies at Cambridge University in the UK (and many formal speeches) were in Latin back in the 1960s. Complete with the De Brevitate Vitae for accompanying music.
I wonder if that's changed.
... manual numeric math problems (cube root by hand, et al), who gives a shit?
Someone with dead batteries during an exam? :-)
The B-student in computer science who speaks Latin and Greek is worth five A-students who can't communicate in English.
Compass and straightedge construction.
That 1 test is 2 really hard 3 to read with all 4 those 5 numbers thrown 6 about.
I wonder if they were allowed to use slide rules.
Although you don't really need one--it's really only relevant to one or two questions.
-- IANAL, this isn't legal advice, and definitely isn't legal advice for you. Also, Squee!
I don't think 99% of public school students in the USA would be able to answer question #2 in the arithmetic section, especially without a calculator.
Then of course there is question #9 and #10.
The algebra at least is something that college bound students should be able to pass, and maybe some of the geometry proofs.
Latin at least was a little more well taught back then, with the Roman Catholic Church still using it completely in their Mass and rituals. I would have had more of it myself had the state not ruled that you needed to have at least 2 years of a foreign language, but Latin did not count. Taking more Latin would have meant that I would not have been able to double up on my math classes sophomore year ("geometry" and "algebra 2/trig"), which would have barred me from taking a dual credit calculus course (it was taught by the same professor as a local college, and counted a full credits at that college for calculus 1... the only difference is that we took all year to cover the material, while at the college, they would have done it in 15 weeks).
We were all warned a long time ago that MS products sucked, remember the Magic 8 Ball said, "Outlook not so good"
Also people seem to forget that the number of people who attended university has gone up. Back in the day, university was something almost nobody did, even those that were smart. It was only for those who wanted to devote their life to theoretical pursuits and become a professor or as a polish to an already fine education. Hence very high requirements.
Now many people go to university, a secondary education is becoming required for many things. That means that they aren't going to try to find trivial shit to keep people out with.
Please understand that the knowledge of ancient languages was trivial shit. It was not tested for because you really needed that to succeed in university, it was because they needed ways to weed out most people, and because they wanted people were interested in pure academic pursuits.
That's fine, but that isn't what we want today. The world is no longer a place where most people are labourers and an elementary education is all that is needed (if that). It is a complex, information based, place where people need to know more. That means more schooling for all.
A document that well typeset from 1869 ... right justified? [looks much like a latex produced document] Ok, so it might have been more recently typeset, but then, an attempt to put a rubber stamp (dated 1899) ... I might be out of sync here, but that too, looks out of time.
I am skeptical ...
"To circumscribe a circle about a given triangle."
locate the center-point of each leg of the triangle with a compass, and plot a line perpendicular to each, thus locating the center of the triangle at the intersection of these lines. Then, use the compass to plot the circle the center-point of the circle being the same as that of the triangle, and the radius of the circle being the distance from that pont to a Vertex of the triangle. beginning at any Vertex of the triangle, circumscribe the circle about the triangle, returning to the same vertex the circle began on.
more or less. its a word problem, with a word answer, perhaps a diagram would be expected to be drawn along with the answer.
I've decided to Diversify my Holdings. I've divided my cash between my left and right pockets, instead of all in one.
Given that about half the test was about being able to translate to/from Latin and Greek - no, I couldn't pass that. Nor would I be particularly impressed by someone who could, although they'd certainly deserve a few points worth of geek cred.
I glanced at the rest of the test, and I think I'd do okay even without studying.
#DeleteChrome
I'm two weeks away from a master's degree in Ancient Greek. I'm not sure I'd pass the Greek portion of the exam. Why? Because it focuses on extremely rigorous memorization of obscure details (and I'm talking obscure details of an arcane dead language, mind you). I can read even difficult Greek pretty well, but that doesn't mean I can decline 'trirs' (a noun in a highly unusual declension), or form the correctly-accented participles of 'histmi', or decline much of anything in the unusual dual number, off the top of my head and without consulting a grammar. Nor, I think, could most of my colleagues. The translation *into* Greek, however, is quite easy. It's a hard test for college freshmen, to be sure, but it's also testing based on a very different sort of educational objective. Passing the Greek section requires more memorization than actual competence in the language.
Translation:
1. Me non refero quam divitem esse Gygen. (Unsure how to decline 'Gyges' but we'll go with that for accusative. I guess it's a Greek paradigm.)
2. Quis clarior Graeciae quam Themostecles? Quis, cum in exilium expelleretur, injuriam suae patriae ingratae non tulit, sed idem quod ante viginti annos Coriolanus fecisset?
3. Primo veris venit consul ad Ephesum, et militibus ab Scipio acceptis apud milites contionem habuit, in qua, virtute sua collaudata, adhortabatur ad novum bellum cum Gallis suspicandum, qui (ut inquit) Antiochum auxiliis iuverunt. (I left in 'ut inquit' and 'in qua' although they were meant to be omitted. I wondered if the last bit should be infinitive/accusative construction due to indirect speech, however I think 'ut' demands the indicative.)
Grammar:
You could copy this out of Wheelock so I don't see the point of reproducing it here.
occultae nullus est respectus musicae - originally a Greek proverb
It's funny how many of the posts so far are defensive and beligerent. For the love of God, isn't it obvious that the test would be so different due to age that it's unlikely for anyone to pass it now? Isn't it just as obvious how little that reflects how knowledgable, intelligent, smart, or just plain egotistical you are? It seems to serve as an indicator of insecurity though. Bah.
WAAAH!!! I saw a joke abowt a Repubbican and teh demokrats ar werse!1! TEH DEMOKRATS AR WERSE!!11!1
... and where would we be without Lorem Ipsum! Without Latin we would not be able to have visually pleasing, meaningless paragraphs for testing typography!
Getting 5 significant digits on a cube root with a slide rule isn't easy.
Contribute to civilization: ari.aynrand.org/donate
If they don't need the knowledge, then forcing them to memorize it (which they would likely soon forget due to the fact that it isn't important to them) would be rather useless and counterproductive, would it not? I'd say some of the more advanced math classes should indeed be optional because many people won't really use the knowledge.
I would not advocate that everyone take college prep math classes. What I would advocate is that everyone take some sort of math class. Schools should have two math tracks, college prep and practical/vocational, and a student should be taking classes in one or the other. This is not an original idea, I'm basically describing what my grandmother told me about HS in her day. The practical/vocational classes included things like balancing a checkbook, calculating interest on a loan, calculating a bill with credits and discounts, calculating your paycheck given overtime and sunday pay, area and volume calculations you might use in the home or on the farm, fraction based calculations you might use as a carpenter, machinist or cook, etc.
I realize that there are spreadsheets, apps, etc for many of these things but in learning how to do these calculations yourself you also learn the mechanics of modern society. If more people had had such practical/vocational math when in HS then perhaps adjustable rate mortgages would not have been such a mystery?
Bottom line is students (on average) were held to a far higher standard then than they are today. In the ten years I taught public high school I saw an insistence on higher accountability collide with decreasing emphasis at home. Oh well, at least we all have a strong sense of self-esteem.
Two things bear heavily on the difficulty of being admitted to a school:
1) The reputation of the school at the time of application.
2) The pool of qualified students with the means to attend.
1869 was a time when most people in the US made their living through manual labor or subsistence farming. Neither occupation offers the means or the motivation for higher education.
And I have to wonder just how prestigious the Ivy League schools were in 1869. This was just 90 years after the revolution. I expect that "schooled in Europe" carried more weight than any kind of degree from Harvard. What did it take to get into Cambridge in 1869?
I have a feeling they added the last sentence because people were cheating.
surely the vast majority of Harvard applicants would fail this test. Greek and Latin or quite depreciated. Simply replace those languages with equivalent questions in relevant modern languages or subjects.
One strong point of modern college is that language classes have be depreciated for fields they have no bearing. A robotics or CS major will have zero use for latin or greek or really any language other than english.
On the other hand, Latin is an immensely useful language if you are planning a major in any romance language. Latin Italian but knowing Latin gets you Italian at an 80% discount, Spanish at 70% and French at 60% . Its learning 4 languages for the price of 2. Greek is pretty much useless in this regard, not many languages have a Greek base that isn't already covered by greek>latin loan words.
As other people have mentioned, some of the exam was politically driven. It had some ulterior motive built in to exclude those of a lesser social class. Sure, greek and latin had more value in education at that time but not so much that a business degree required such knowledge, especially greek.
At my high school in Mexico City we had an old teacher who taught Greek & Latin, he was considered quite an erudite, Also I'm pretty sure that greek & latin ARE required for any recognized highschool in Mexico, (then again maybe the whole education system needs to be modernized in Mexico), of course it was just one class, and with one class we never got the knowledge needed to solve this exam.. I'm glad I can at least read the words and understand the general meaning.
A robotics or CS major will have zero use for latin or greek or really any language other than english.
Not even Java, or C++ or....
Yeah, I know what you meant, but if you think about it, it's just a matter of one set being replaced by another.
Of course, if you want a Pretentious Latin Name, maybe you do want some familiarity with the language.
As an anachronism, I didn't stand a chance. Luckily, by late-nineteenth century standards I'm really quite wealthy and can afford to buy my way in.
While I agree that the languages section are blissfully quaint in their emphasis on Greek and Latin, I won't act somehow superior in noting that the Harvard reviewer somehow magically transported to 2011 would be baffled at our technological advances, that that makes us post hoc ergo propter hoc "smarter." The Arithmetic section is full of still relevant mathematics test questions that most of the populace (including myself) wouldn't be able to answer fully and correctly even today. I would also challenge someone from today to survive a month in the world of 1869 without air conditioning, clean water, cheap food located only as far as the nearest gas station and *GASP* our smartphones with built-in GPS!
For a lot of detail on this subject and a hilarious rant about how lazy and stupid modern children are (in the year 1903!), check out this book: A historical and critical discussion of college admission requirements. It's actually kind of interesting how around 1870, it occurred to the various universities that all this Greek and Latin was a huge waste of time. They very slowly started introducing science and modern languages.
This is the most recent comment on the article's page:
March 31, 2011 8:01 pm
Well, I guess my comment on the ads is that life continues to be not much more than a crapshoot, no matter how hard you work. My child applied to seven schools, got denied from six so far, even her safety school, and she was a national merit commended student with very good grades, 17 college credits, several foreign languages, extracurriculuars. Nada. She got in nowhere.
What now? She feels completely demoralized. It’s hard to know what to do. Even if she takes a gap year and reaplies to schools next year, what does she do differently? Hard to know, since there’s no way to know why she wasn’t accepted anywhere. And I’ve never been through this process before, because I didn’t go to college after high school, so don’t know what guidance to give her. It feels like the death of her youthful dreams. On to real life I gues. Get a job or something. I feel completely at fault. I misled her to think she could go to a good school, if she just worked hard. It’s what I was always told. I feel horrible.
--Stressed
Lets take the benefit of the doubt, and assume the college applicant had no obvious show-stopping flaw (to everyone but the poster and their 6/7 rejected daughter). It's much tougher to get by when everyone in the USA is expected to have a college education for most desk jobs, even if not required. A masters degree is slowly becoming more necessary to increase candidate differentiation when so many unemployed candidates already over-supply college degrees even where none are needed (most non-managers in IT.) In 1869 the article claims that higher-ed was rare enough to require stooping low enough to need paper ads, until WWII somehow allowed colleges to become selective.
At that point a buyer's market similar to today's job market materialized for some strata. Regardless, the poster may not realize that state-funded universities require nearly no proficiency (IIRC.) Selective schools like Harvard have zero ESL assistance (just like MENSA would never allow mentally retarded members.) In contrast, huge numbers of freshly immigrant low-english proficiency students get highschool-equivalency or even diplomas that inflate the numbers when they would never qualify elsewhere language-wise and educationally.
How many of us could pass this? The Prussian education system imported by Horace Mann was never intended to educate citizens, its intent was to create social obedience through indoctrination. Yes, you spent 12+ years memorizing state birds and capitols at your teachers behest so your cognitive abilities would by nonexistent, the ability to think robbed of you at gunpoint. Wikipedia it, its a fact. Contrast this with the trivium education, and you'll understand why the public (90% of Americans) is so stupid.
Comment removed based on user account deletion
At that time the best often went to study in Germany at many of its great universities. This situation didn't change much until the Nazis and WWII. Thus being able to communicate in German would be far more useful for most academics that either Greek or Latin.
I would LOVE to see the evolution of the Harvard entrance exam. This snapshot in time is still interesting on its own, though.
Could you masturbate somewhere else?
it weren't for the fact that racist liberals love to delude themselves into thinking that they aren't racists, so they fall all over themselves to bootstrap unqualified minority applicants.
The arithmetic section isn't that impressive. I wonder what MIT's entrance exam looked like back then.
Pfft... classical education is incredibly shallow/one dimensional compared to what a typical CS major in a competitive school faces on their first week of classes.
No, we couldn't pass that exam today, but then, I doubt someone from 1900 could figure out what half the things we use on a daily basis are even for, never mind how to use them.
If your doctor says you have hydro encephalitis it sounds a lot cooler than if you hear someone saying. "Ughh dude has like water in the brain or something"
No matter what you say you will sound sophisticated if you can say it in Latin, no matter how retarded it is. Hell, I bet I could be pulling all kinds of mad pussy, if I would just translate all my /. posts into Latin. I would also probably get all kinds of +5 insightful mods.
Also, Biology including evolution, Astronomy, Chemistry; Algebra, Trigonometry, Calculus; Computer programming; Print shop, metal shop, and actual knowledge about health. If you want to see more of that and less "social engineering", then more money should be put into them.
The US spending per student is already comparable to the UK, Sweden, Switzerland, Austria, Japan, Israel, etc. Perhaps the problem is not the current spending level but how/where it is being spent?
http://data.worldbank.org/indicator/SE.XPD.PRIM.PC.ZS/countries/1W?display=default
http://www.amazon.com/Climbing-Parnassus-Apologia-Greek-Latin/dp/1882926730 Anyone with any doubts to the importance of Greek, Latin, and the classics in modern day life should read this book.
the Political Inquirer
After all, the purpose for knowing Latin was that is was supposed to be the universal language of scholars
Well also scholars would actually read classic works which were originally written in Greek and Latin, and they were expected to read the original texts, not just translations. It's still the case to some extent-- if you're a classics scholar today, you'll be expected to be able to read works in their original languages.
This is a minor point, but Shakespeare and the King James Bible aren't Middle English; they're Early Modern English from the early 1600's. They are almost completely recognizable to a speaker of modern English, especially once the "thou/you" distinction is explained, and with the occasional vocabulary word. For an example of Middle English, the best known example is Chaucer's Canterbury Tales (late 1300's), http://www.librarius.com/cantales/genpro.htm. That's significantly more difficult to understand, though if you sound it out, and read about the rules of grammar, it doesn't take too much practice before you can read it without trouble.
But you're right, the big change was from Old English, which was a Germanic language that is far more intelligible to modern German speakers than modern English speakers. Our current language is highly influenced by the importation of French and Latin words after the Norman invasion of 1066.
The only dead language I barely can speak is French.
Open Source Network Inventory for the masses! Kuwaiba
Remembering that Harvard was a school that produced Bible scholars, it is requisite that a student have a good handle on Latin (to translate the Latin Vulgate) and Greek (for the Greek manuscripts, including the LXX). The history and geography were subjects that are standard for any high school student. It's been twenty years since I've been out of school, so I've pretty much forgotten all that stuff. (use or lose, yanno) As for the math, those problems are basic Algebra, Geometry, and Trig. Today's high schools are beginning to teach pre-calculus to the kids who are actually studying and not griping over the latest dramas or texting their idiot friends during class. Remember, there were no calculators for the math, either. And they had to memorize all the theorems and postulates for the geometric proofs.
I'm not parent poster. However, at least part of the language criticism is fair; those questions are on par for what a modern US 9th grade student would know at the end of their first year of a foreign language. In the 1800s, you needed Greek and Latin to read the old Greek and Latin literature, which has since been well translated into every major language (and added to in the past couple thousand years, of course).
The geography and history sections are all memorization (and naturally biased towards the greek/latin studies, which is completely understandable for the time). Not particularly difficult questions for anyone who studied those regions, either.
The math problems are mostly busywork. But the prime questions in 1 are easy, 8 is straightforward, 9 is easy. 11, 12, and 13 would be easy for modern students who'd just recently had trigonometry.
In the algebra section, problem 1 is long but not really difficult. Likewise 4. 3 is trivially easy. 7 is easy (write them as three linear equations and manipulate).
Of course, I only answered from the point of view of what I knew in high school. The polynomial division doesn't seem like the sort of thing taught in high school algebra these days (thought it's in college calculus). There's been a major de-emphasis on geometry and trigonometric in the last 50+ years in favor of additional algebra topics that are noticeably absent from this test, but which flow well into calculus. (For example, finding the roots of a quadratic). I've forgotten far more high school trigonometry than this test asks for, though. I'm rusty on geometric proofs, but they're not asking for anything fancy on this test either. Overall, the math questions are consistent with a narrowly focused math education and aren't any easier or harder than I'd expect from a good private school in the pre-calculator age. I was amused by the strong Greek flavor again in the geometry, I suppose (all that circumscribing, heh). The ones modern students would have trouble with are the raw computation ones that aren't done by hand anymore (like knowing the easy ways to factor arithmetic problem 1).
Also, we haven't been told what the grading standards of the day were. The last time I remember a test from that era coming up, it was a test for high school teachers - it had a punishingly hard grammar section, but apparently getting 10% right was considered a good passing grade anyway.
Up until relatively late in the 20th century, the classic method of language acquisition was the primary way of learning a language. And with that methodology you probably would be able to pass those portions of the test. You also would be completely unable to cope with trying to communicate with an ancient Greek, even if the materials you studied from were accurate.
You'd be conjugating verbs and reciting the declensions, probably studying less useful things like that and if you're lucky you might actually be able to apply it. But since its a dead dialect you'd end up spending all your energy reading and whatever you wrote may or may not actually be correct. And good luck when it comes to listening or speaking it.
On a very, very, very big slide rule, I could...
Really, I would do that one by hand, given only enough time. A problem of "find X to N precision" can be thought of as "guess a N-digit answer that's closer to X than any other N-digit guess". Extensive guesswork works just fine, though it takes about 20 tries...
Yes, I was using bisection to find solutions back in high school, when I felt particularly disinclined towards thought, and showing my work wasn't necessary. Yes, I often will solve such problems by hand. It's especially useful when you want to compute something that you know has only one optimum value, but it's painful (if even possible) to calculate directly. Of course, it's certainly not the answer Harvard's expecting, but perhaps it'd amuse some reviewer enough for credit.
Bisection also makes a fun hobby: Try to come up with problems that can only be solved quickly by bisection.
You do not have a moral or legal right to do absolutely anything you want.
Math in this test is such an easy level...
Latin and Greek is unknown to me 'cos I never learnt them
There is something to be said for the kind of liberal (in the old sense of the word) education that was once encouraged. Learning the about classic classical civilization and language taught one about the mistakes and glories of previous civilizations that once could bring that knowledge to bear, and play an important part in upholding the virtues of a strong republic. There is little in philosophy that wasn't discovered by the ancient Greeks. Unlike latter philosophy which has become more esoteric as time goes on, the Greek philosophers meant their philosophy to be practical, and provide a road map for living ones life.
History repeats itself. There are amazing similarities between 2nd century Rome and the USA that is being lost because U.S.Aians because we do not have this foundation in the classics. We do however know about baseball.
"I encourage all USAians to start using proper terminology. From now on football shall be called handegg because the egg shaped object is really carried in ones hand. Soccer, a fun sport in which is statistically more likely to result in serious injury than the less manly sport of handegg, shall be called football. I in return ask the Dutch to stop calling themselves dutch, Instead they shall refer to themselves as Hollandish or perhaps Netherlandish. Also the wold should realize that term 'metric' means a system of measures, so it really doesn't make sense to call it the 'measuring' measure system. Instead the metric system shall be termed the French metric, or perhaps the base 10 metric, or better yet the SI system."
-excerpt for President Bush's final speech before leaving office.
I took a very similar entrance exam when applying for the undergraduate program at Bangladesh Engineering of University & Technology in 2001. There were no Latin, Greek or geography questions but some physics/ chemistry questions and a very, very similar mathematical section. 60 questions, 180 minutes to answer. Calculators were not allowed. And you know what, this very difficult exam worked well funneling in the ones with dedication/ motivation since thousands and thousands were trying to get into the best school in the country, where tuition was also heavily subsidized. Kids practiced and prepared for months to get ready for the exam.
Unless we are talking about prior to the adoption of a Phonetician alphabet (like say the Linear B during the Mycenaean period) I wouldn't go so far as to call Greek a dead language. (or at least not any more than I would call the demise of Chaucer or Shakespearean English as indicative real English is a dead language). As I'm sure you already know, the main dialect of classical Athens was Attic. Later Koine became standardized Greek under Macedonian hegemony. During the middles ages there is also what is known as "Byzantine" today (which is actually a slew of Greek dialects)
I'm not sure if you've looked at any modern Greek but I was shocked by just how much it has in common with ancient dialects (far more than say Italian does Latin). I can't understand most modern (demotic) Greek spoken but the alphabet is the same one Aristotle knew and many words are spelled identically (or so close they are easily identifiable).Of course what represents a dialect versus a distinct language is hotly debated subject even among linguists.. (and politicized if you ask me)
On the other hand, Latin is an immensely useful language if you are planning a major in any romance language. Latin Italian but knowing Latin gets you Italian at an 80% discount, Spanish at 70% and French at 60% . Its learning 4 languages for the price of 2.
I see it the other way. Studying a handful of Romance languages (in my case, Portuguese, French, and Spanish) gets you all the Latin-root vocabulary that is supposedly so useful in English, while you don't have to deal with the rest of Latin (i.e., the complex grammar) which of no practical use, and you get living languages that you can actually use to communicate with people.
The Greek and Latin sections would be hard for a non-native user of any language, let alone those two. I agree with the comment that they emphasized technical detail and memorization rather than language competence, but that's understandable for college entrance (though it would make high school Latin and Greek a pretty miserable subject.)
The math parts I could handle, mostly (I don't remember offhand how many feet are in a rod, or pre-decimal English money; I'd have to dig deep for the geometric proofs.)
In 1899, relatively few went to college, let alone Harvard. Didn't the university bound spend a lot of time and tutoring preparing in those days, or go to a high powered private prep schools? As in, the average high school in 1899 didn't prepare someone for immediate entrance to Harvard? Nowadays it does, but I think that reflects lowered of expectations (much more so on the part of colleges) so that all the people who think they're entitled to a degree can get in.
This represents a kind of education that barely exists any more. I read about Oxford and Cambridge graduates a century ago and dream of being educated like they were. Instead I had to think, every day, how I was going to survive after college, and I passed up a LOT of available things I would have liked to do (or, admittedly, have done.) Maybe we need trade schools, but it's a shame to call them universities and it's an even bigger shame that so many once great schools went that route.
When things change and the student's narrow skill set is no longer relevant they are well and truly fucked.
If they have an idea of why things are done instead of merely a standard operating procedure then they are in a position to adapt to change or make improvements themselves.
The arts students you are writing about were also in that same category where they were merely at a trade school for teachers so merely had to parrot things back.
Merely having an Arts faculty at the University I went to meant that the library was full of interesting stuff on topics I'd never heard of which was to my benefit even though I had nothing but science electives for my engineering degree. It also added interest when I got shown the results of a collaboration between a historian and a materials scientist in my department.
A very narrow education is a barrier to progress and technology because people will resist change if they do not have the ability to go beyond standard operating procedures that they do not understand.
the purpose for knowing Latin was that is was supposed to be the universal language of scholars
Those days were long gone by 1869. The Latin and Greek classics are in that exam because they were seen as valuable in themselves, the same way Shakespeare is taught in our schools.
The focus on specifics is interesting - you're expected to be able to reproduce a map of Anabasis. Some non-English-speaking countries, Japan for instance, still have exams like this, where you reproduce slabs of information about a book rather than analysing it.
I don't think there was an international language for scholars in 1869. French was the language of international affairs and maybe of literature. German would become very important in science but maybe wasn't there yet. Italian and German both had deep roots in music and Italian, at least, in the arts. English mattered but I'm not sure how. I don't think any of them was dominant, it's a sort of interregnum for lingua francae, after the dominance of French had faded but before English replaced it.
There's an account written about 1800 of the War of the Spanish Succession (around 1710), which mentions Marlborough and the French general had to use an interpreter for their parley because Marlborough didn't speak French. It remarks that this feels amazing from the viewpoint of 1800, because in 1800 anyone educated and civilised speaks French. We've been through that cycle one more time since 1800. 1710 and 1869 are the troughs of the cycle.
I'm not surprised at all at what is on the entrance exam; they wanted to keep the peasantry out. So they found subjects that only those who could afford expensive tutors could learn and put those kinds of questions on the entrance exam.
If someone is passing you on the right, you are an asshole for driving in the wrong lane.
I think the whole thing speaks volumes to the disconnect between academia and reality.
Your post, and the fact that you are rated as "insightful" speaks volumes to the shift that has occurred. Your statement, and the rest of your post, where you claim that "...an education in the high points of historical philosophy might be of limited use..." speak volumes of a profound poverty of mind, where education and the search for truth is predicated in material gain. This intellectual poverty forms us into individual intellectual islands floating through time, neither looking backwards nor forwards. We are separated from the origins of our society, our culture, our values. We forget that our society was modelled after ancient Greece. Ideas such as private property, money, justice, freedom of speech, constitutional government all come from ancient Greece, and were refined and developed by the Romans (at least during certain periods of Roman history).
Before you write off classical education, read Plato's "The Apology", where you start to see the beginnings of the ethical underpinnings of our modern world. Read Plato's Gorgias, where Socrates carries on a debate about many issues that still rings true today. See if you can see in this quote a great summation of the modern field of advertising and public relations in his statement about "oratory":
Socrates: The same is true about the orator and oratory relative to the other crafts, too, then. Oratory doesn't need to have any knowledge of the state of their subject matters; it only needs to have discovered some device to produce persuasion in order to make itself appear to those who don't have knowledge that it knows more than those who actually do have it. Plato - Gorgias - 459c
Reading the first volume of Gibbon's "Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire" has given me a great appreciation for how civilizations develop and change, and about how valuable our current stable democratic systems are. When you look at long succession of Roman emperors who were all removed by various methods of murder, you start to realize the value of electing leaders.
When you speak of the "disconnect between academia and reality", I think you minimize the work of centuries of great thinkers. When you look at the world logically, you begin to realize that it is very strange. You start to realize your own limitations. It gives you a sense of humility, both for yourself and for the poor sods who think they have figured it all out. You start to realize what pathetic creatures we are, how we weave illusion upon illusion. It is the way we are, and the best we can do is to try to understand the world. However, we should never believe that we have "figured it all out", because when we do that, we effectively stop thinking. Socrates said that "as for me, all I know is that I know nothing". He spent his life questioning and seeking knowledge, but he always remembered his limitations.
Education cannot simply be about utility. It has to also be about making us more complete as human beings. It should help us in our search for wisdom and truth in the world. Socrates said that "the unconsidered life is not worth living." When you do not consider the purpose and meaning of your own life, you become a football, being kicked around in someone else's game.
This and no other is the root from which a tyrant springs; when first he appears as a protector - Plato (423 to 327 BC)
But I guess the average contemporary housemaker could wash, cook or clean up without contemporary tools, I doubt a lot of today's mathematicians know how to use a slide rule sensibly (did they even exist back then?) and let's not talk about anyone of us riding a horse, provided he doesn't do it for a pastime.
Of course, few students of today could pass an exam from the past. Most of the skills needed are simply no longer needed in reality. And if you ask me, colleges should require (and teach!) things that make sense in the temporal context, which also means that the curriculum has to be adapted every few years to stay in sync with the needs of reality.
And yes, this is a side blow at the often not quite current state of certain curricula.
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
I wouldn't disagree with that. I would say that Latin would give a more solid foundation that a piecemeal approach but that learning Latin is certainly not the only way. What may be more appropriate is to split the difference and learn Italian as your first romance language so you get a 'modern' grammar saving all the stress of Latin grammar while getting vocabulary that is as close to the common denominator as possible.
I learned French for a year but never was able to completely keep up in casual conversation. I did a year of Italian after which I was a much better Italian speaker than a French speaker. I went back to French for some refreshing and ended up becoming much more skilled at French as a result of learning just passable Italian. Spanish is the same. Basic Italian gives you about 70% of basic Spanish.
English is a whole other beast. French and German both give a lot of loan words over but Danish/Norwegian feels much more like the big contributor. So much of the Scandinavian languages are hidden in English. I have been learning Danish on and off for a few years, never really dedicating any significant effort but enough to get by, and every time I learn some more I can see how English was influenced by a Scandinavian language.
If I were to suggest base lanuages to learn english, Latin wouldn't be on the list. Learn a Scandinavian language, Italian, the German or French. The Latin roots are sitting there in Italian already so why waste effort on a dead language when you can get a living language cheaper right?
By 1975, it was gone. Now you have to go elsewhere for the classical education. Probably some small private college, because nearly everyone followed Harvard's lead and cut the core to just a few broad subjects.
Personally, only the Greek and Latin seem worrying. I'm sure that I could have passed the math section without a problem in HS. Now days, maybe not without brushing up a little. The geography/history sections seem easy too, but that might not have been so easy in HS. Of course, the HS I went to (in the 1990s) offered latin, but I didn't take it. But, on the other hand i'm betting there weren't to many Harvard applicants proficient in 5 major computing languages, like I was when I graduated HS. Frankly, even in the 60's knowing something about computers was probably much more valuable than knowing Latin/Greek. Hence the famous decision by Bill Gates to drop out in the mid 70's.
BTW: I remember having the foreign language discussion in a group with my guidance counselor. The basic statement at the time, was that two years of foreign language were still a requirement for admission to some schools, what language didn't matter. What did matter was that, almost all schools required, two years of foreign language, either in HS or in college, to graduate. She recommended doing it in HS. Frankly, my two years of french in HS were hell, Its quite possible I would not have graduated from college If I had to take them with my full engineering load.
Could you masturbate somewhere else?
Could YOU masturbate somewhere else?
easier than my "high school"(finnish equivalent, but not exactly, actually that exam was traditionally the university applicant exam and still is in lingo) exams, much easier. for example, only one foreign language? I had to pass english and swedish and I got no use for swedish at all.
but so what? can't stop progress. what was the exam like last year? this exam on some levels is pretty ok, it's just that a prep course for it would've been very simple apart from some latin nuances, wonder if some profs back then made a mint by giving prepping lessons.
world was created 5 seconds before this post as it is.
The math was trivial. The Latin wasn't so bad, but in modern times, it's not applicable. The Greek is a thorough waste of time. As you said, in these modern times, any of the four dominant languages (English, Mandarin, Spanish or Arabic) or of the more important of the political languages (English, Mandarin, Russian or Japanese... Korean is questionable as to long term importance) would be much more suitable. Dead languages are better left to the linguists and historians. I love Ancient Greek and Roman history and am impassioned by it, but outside of trivia, other than the main points, it's irrelevant.
Yes... these days, anyone can be educated on the topics in this paper quite easily. I don't think the math touched on anything past what I had been taught in the 9th grade. I admit, I struggled a bit with the polynomials as I don't work much with them anymore, I still don't see any direct application for them even after years of working in scientific computing. Therefore, I see them as a graduation test only, meaning "If we can force you to learn this, then we can force you to learn anything.". This is 2011 and we can let the mathematicians focus on the mechanics of math as such. The rest of the world will either simply forget it (that's about 98% of us) and the remaining handful that may actually find a need for such mundane topics of math will use Mathematica or Matlab to handle it. Or if you're a lazy dolt such as myself, you'll as the Ph.D. in digital signal processing sitting next to you or the Ph.D. in computational mathematics sitting behind you.
I really just hope that by the time my kids reach middle school, Mandarin or Arabic will be languages they can choose to learn. Currently, they would have the choice of French or German of which neither have any benefits outside of just being another language. The usefulness of Mandarin is dissolving at an alarming rate now as well since the Mandarin speaking world has managed to increase their English literacy at rates that should make the rest of the world blush.
After all... I doubt they'd get a single question regarding modern history even close to correct!
Nope, I can't, because I'm not some idiot who thinks bombastic levels of overachieving automatically equals "of value to society".
translation usually needs context.
that's why so many subs are so bad on commercial tv :.
world was created 5 seconds before this post as it is.
They would never let me in regardless of whether I passed the test or not. Next.
http://www.acetonestudio.com
Worth noting that a passing score isn't mentioned anywhere. It's quite possible that the bar on these exams was not particularly high...probably more dependent on how many empty seats they had to fill.
The latin and greek questions are actually pretty simple. Latin and Greek were still fairly common options in French high school in the 60's, and I studied all that. The Latin reference text here being Caesar's "De Bello Gallico," which we were studying in the 7th or 8th grade. The Greek reference text is Xenopho's Anabasis, which we were studying in the 9th or 10th grade. Both Caesar and Xenopho are considered "easy" - they use fairly direct language and constructions. Similarly, the grammar questions correspond more or less to your first or second year of language study. The references to roman and greek history, e.g. Actium, Pharsalis, Jugurtha may feel fairly obscure now, but are in fact part of the basic curriculum of "Ancient History." Bottom line, the test was not very hard for a high school who paid attention in class. I was surprised to see that they would provide the translations of the words as part of the question. We did not have that available when passing exams.
Most of the angry disregard displayed by younglings who could obviously not pass Harvard's 1869 entrance exam at ages coeval with their ancestors boils down to "No fair, nobody speaks Latin or Greek these days." That, obviously, is the damning point of the exercise.
I'm reminded of the Iowa State University 1964 standards expected for qualitative analysis laboratory notebooks; these were meant to be legal documents, as much as lab notes. I was unprepared by anything I'd encountered in high school, and shocked by the legibility and orderliness strictures, as well as the stunning news that a) no erasures would be tolerated, and b) a passing grade would be 95%. My God, who knew?!
``Tension, apprehension & dissension have begun!'' - Duffy Wyg&, in Alfred Bester's _The Demolished Man_
Predictably, half the comments here reply, "Oh, wow, this test is easy except the Latin/Greek because that's not important!"
Well, bullshit on all counts.
(1) The purpose of learning Latin and ancient Greek is not to enable you to speak Latin and ancient Greek. They've already been dead languages for millennia and they were arguably even more dead then (Greece being even less relevant). It's an exercise in the study of language and of foundations of European culture and literature. You don't get the same experience by learning "Japanese for anime fans".
Anyway, I "aced" Latin at school - that sort of thing was something I enjoyed and came reasonably naturally. Many years later, I have forgotten enough of it that I could not do a good job of these questions. The translations into Latin would today leave me hopeless without a dictionary. What is more, these aren't trivial Latin beginner questions.
(2) History/geography - at least some people are admitting that they don't know some of these, though I see a lot of "oh about half". Really? Did you actually sit down with that sheet and no references and write detailed geographical and historical answers? Did you then go one by one checking at the end that they were all correct? Or did you just think "oh yeah I've heard of that before" and sneak in a "check" to Wikipedia, confirming knowledge you didn't really have to mind?
The subject of my masters thesis was the history of an area of mathematics; background reading required me to be familiar with specific areas of classical Greek and Roman history. I enjoyed History at high school, though none of it was classical. Latin class included a certain amount of Roman history surrounding Pliny the Younger and Virgil, with an earlier school covering the historical context of the Odyssey and the Iliad. And yet I don't think I could do justice to any of the essay-type questions. "Pericles - the Man and his Policy" - really? Are even a significant minority claiming they even know more than a sentence or two about Pericles?
(3) The maths section. Oh, what a surprise, everyone is claiming that the maths section is trivial. Well, bullshit again. I have a postgrad mathematical education and, yes, I can probably answer these questions. But I would have to think about the plane geometry proofs (which, it is likely, the candidate would be expected to have simply memorised for this test) - I can't recite all of them off the top of my head and I bet I'd stumble on some details for some of them if I were to actually write the answers all out rather than just wave my hand over the paper dismissively and say "this is easy".
What is more, you annoying geeks, there were no electronic calculators in the mid-19th century. You know what this means? It means that half the challenge is doing the arithmetic quickly and without mistakes. And, whether by reading original Leibniz or the speling errors on /., there is one reassuring thing I have come to know (I am reassured because I do it myself and thought I was the only one): numerate geeky types make lots of trivial mistakes. A good mathematician - perhaps the sort who is intuitively familiar with geometry - might make a bad doctor or accountant, i.e. may fail in a profession where speed and accuracy with numbers is important.
Whenever I visit Slashdot and there's a topic where people have the chance to put their knowledge to the test, I always see a huge number of people claiming that they did wonderfully at the test. And yet, in real life, hardly anyone ever performs at such superheroic levels, whether dumb, average or intelligent. This isn't because /. isn't full of super-geniuses - even though it isn't - it's because the sheer amount of information accessible in the world today means that everyone necessarily specialises a great deal. No particular random test which has not been prepared for is likely to fit the knowledge of a random sample of even fairly bright individuals.
I guess it's just a predictabl
Choose a good shoes is very important,we offer you lots of fashion Christian Louboutin Uk shoes,the shoes have a good quality,you can buy it in Christian Louboutin Outlet with lowest price,and it will give you a big surprise.Don't hesitate to come to Christian Louboutin Sale shop online!
Christian Louboutin Uk
I would say that it is Latin words and not the actual language that are used in those fields. Out of all the medical professionals (luckily I don't know any politicians), none of them can converse in or read Latin. They will however be able to tell you what something with a Latin name is, and they'll know the basic meanings of the words that are combined to form other words our phases.
Places like Harvard, Princeton, Yale, more often than not, is more about getting to learn the right people rather than just subjects. Some people people try to network/schmooze a million other people in some pathetic attempt to advance, going to these schools allows you access to colleague that will be in the advanced ranks in coming years and have them see you as one of their own.
Right now, most SC justices are from Yale/Harvard despite the fact that most SC justices historically never even graduated from law school:
http://www.csmonitor.com/USA/Politics/DC-Decoder/2010/0511/Elena-Kagan-not-a-judge-Well-at-least-she-went-to-law-school
Of course, exceptional people can overcome that, but that requires extra work, and comparing 2 people who are pretty much the same, the one who went to the right schools has a definite advantage. Another aspect of that is the old "nobody got fired for buying IBM" type thinking.
Exceptional people go to these schools. That's why the high achievers tend to come from those schools.
Oh, you mean when I started college? ... maybe, but barely.
I'd be curious to know what sorts of differences there are between the old and the new. I can only assume that there's been a shift in focus and not a net omission of base knowledge.
I swear to God...I swear to God! That is NOT how you treat your human!
Nah, thats the academia propaganda... or to be trycky, the academia "narrative".
A good way to see how "very important" learning X or Y is, is to see how different time period or locations have a different idea of what X and Y are equal to.
The part of the equation we normally ignore here, is that academia is shaped for and by professors. So at any time, universities are a fisical representation of the bias of the cultured people at the time. If people think that learning to use a musical instrument must be mandatory, then you have that in a university. ...for years our cultural elite has ben spawn from these centres, and are functional people. So works.
So yes, academia is a lot about preserving ideas, bias and knowledge to the next generation. Is another self-perpetuation machine.
But... is a beneficial machine? for the most part yes,
University by itself, don't make much sense, but has a gear to transmit power to the next gear, is a important part of The System.
-Woof woof woof!
Put differently, if ancient Greek was a more important subject today, then you would know these things too, or else you probably wouldn't be finishing your master's.
Algebra Trigonometry Logarithm Arithmetic Geometry are EASY way easy.
I have no idea about others, they don't teach Latin or Greek in India at high-school level.
but question 8 blew it:
8. one metre = 39.37 inches. Compute from this datum the value of 4 miles in kilometres
Although I'm also unsure about what a "rod" is in terms of length (question 6), and how many d's make one s, and how many s's make one pound (question 7).
Why would a prospective Harvard candidate be expected to understand the old British pounds, shillings and pence currency system (Arithmetic section, question 7 on page 6)? I'm genuinely baffled by this.
if you're applying for an engineering degree, how would the greek/latin questions be relavent? but then again, if you're applying to Harvard, it's probably not the engineering program you're applying to.
the math/arithmetic questions are much better than the ones in the SAT... which are so dumbed down now. but a lot of the questions are on the imperial system. what if you're from a background that used metric? i guess there weren't as many overseas applicants back in those days.
...Fuck that!
Wanna buy a shirt?
https://www.redbubble.com/people/stealthfinger/shop?asc=u
You haven't heard from *all* the drop-outs, have you? And many of the people who didn't drop out, but stayed in the system a little too long, are guilty of the converse Kool-Aid.
There have been an increasingly dire series of reports that many (expensive) post-graduate degree mills are steering their studious lemmings over a career cliff.
This as it becomes increasingly unclear why a person needs to pay big money for higher education in a world where it's hard to think up anything you can't find out about in 30 seconds or half an hour.
If I had stuck it out in math class and learned how to do the Laplace transform and other manipulations of the s-domain, it would have saved me a phone call or two to other people who stuck it out in math class. And even without the training, I can fill in the blanks cook-book style, and I have a pretty good idea what the s operator is all about. I'd be hard pressed to improvise, but how many people out there would you trust to improvise on the subject of analog filter design?
I'd also like to figure out the structure of the electromagnetic field in our measurement product, but none of the people I know who stuck it out in math/physics class can do it any better than I can. If we're determined to know the answer, we're going to have to use an electromagnetic field simulator.
Here's an example of the knuckle cracking involved just to warm up to the problem:
The Velocity Factor of an Insulated Two-Wire Transmission Line
But I'm sure Lawrence Pritchard Waterhouse could scribble out the answer free hand on the back of his entrance exam, because it occurred to him while proving that "circles are to each other as the squares of their radii" that he had never constructed a Sierpinski curve that carpets the unit circle, and that lead to other things.
In my initial survey of computational options, I discovered MEEP, under the GPL, from MIT. Scheme/C++/Python front ends. I can do all that. Correctly setting up temperature and frequency dependent complex permitivities in several different bulk materials, and not missing out a crucial factor of 1/2 pi somewhere, I'd really want to have someone "educated" to check my work. On that little DIY proposition, I think just opening the box is a three day exercise. With another six years of formal math education, I could maybe even contribute some patches.
Kenneth Arrow
I quote this all the time. And this is old school, already. I'm amazed at the resilience of mass pyramid schemes in the modern workforce. It works this way in pro sports. For every four kids with the talent to "make it big", three drop out due to injury, bad timing, or circumstance with little to show for it, while the kid who makes tenure with the big club reaps huge rewards; not even counting the untold hours invested by kids who dropped out far earlier in the process. The same evolution is taking place in academia these days: $30,000/year as a post-doc shifting test-tubes in some dank over-lit basement. Sign me up.
In the post-Arrow world, the relationship of education to knowledge or common sense is becoming ever more tenuous. I think Temple Grandin has been underemployed in modern curriculum design. On a bad day it feels like the fundamental economic output of the modern labour force is income disparity.
Gone are the days, it seems, that one could get by having the skills and personality to make a positive contribution to the world around us. Yet the opportunity to contribute, as gated by the availability of the core knowledge, has never been greater.
What the world needs is a way for bright kids to drop out of the overpriced educational treadmill without being suspected of having a chip on their shoulder. Or educated voters who give a damn, but the second item seems out of reach. (Is it just myth that back when education was rare, presidents spoke inte
but only if they could fit in your backpack.
Violence is the last refuge of the incompetent. Polar Scope Align for iOS
This. In fact, lets go farther: Whereas literacy in math and science may have only been necessary for the best-educated in the 19th century, in today's technological societies, basic literacy in math and science is nearly as important as basic literacy. The mathematical portions of this exam would be appropriate as a precondition of receiving a high school diploma.
One issue that parent does not address is the conflation of trade schools and universities. There used to be at least three types of education that you could pursue after finishing your obligatory education: vocational training (carpenter, electrician, etc.), professional education (civil engineer, computer scientist, etc.), and university that gave you the traditional "liberal arts" education that prepared you for further study in law, medicine, or whatever.
These three levels reflected the very real needs of different professions, and also very real differences in the capabilities of individual people. Acknowleding differences in individual capability is now "politically incorrect". As a result, the lower two levels of education have been virtually eliminated in the US and UK, and are under serious attack in most other Western countries. The results are a mess: it's difficult to find tradespeople who actually know what they are doing - because no one receives an education in the trade (and the quality of workmanship is then what you would expect). Meanwhile, since everyone is "entitled" to a "world-class university education" - but most are incapable of achieving it - the quality of the university education has been massively reduced.
Anyone can pass touchy-feely courses on "human diversity", "women's studies", "modern society", etc. - as long as they don't choke when parroting the required political positions. If you actually demanded that everyone pass a course in calculus, and another in physics, and a third in computational theory - well, you'd have to fail 90% of current students, and re-create the vocational school that would actually teach them skills they could use to earn a living.
This post is politically incorrect - don't forget to mod it as "troll"
Enjoy life! This is not a dress rehearsal.
1.
2.
3.
You'll see them once /. supports unicode.
Violence is the last refuge of the incompetent. Polar Scope Align for iOS
Harvards last vestages of the classical education. By 1975, it was gone. Now you have to go elsewhere for the classical education. Probably some small private college, because nearly everyone followed Harvard's lead and cut the core to just a few broad subjects.
Harvard still has the best classics department in the US, if you want a classical education - it just isn't part of the canon anymore. So paying customers aren't forced to learn Ancient Greek anymore, but can focus on compiler design or underwater basket weaving, if they so wish -- just like in any other college. Not a big loss, in my opinion.
The current living language that is closest to Latin is probably Galician. This is arguable, but I'd say it's closer to Latin than Italian.
I can easily ace math. But, of course, I was educated in India till Bachelors.
Can do much of geography. Language.....no clue.
it's a geometric construction proof.
surely the vast majority of Harvard applicants would fail this test. Greek and Latin or quite depreciated.
It's deprecated, not depreciated - deprecate, from the Latin "deprecatus", that which is prayed against. Depreciation is the reduction in monetary value, from the Latin "depretiatus".
You'd know that if you'd studied latin ;)
I took both Latin and classical Greek in high school. Those languages provide great long term intellectual benefit. Learning those languages also teaches the student about English. You learn a dead language differently because you don't waste any time on the speaking part. The written language contains its truth worth as a language since it gets defined by its best writers. You deal with the words of really intelligent people, how they formulate their thoughts and how they use their language to express their thoughts. Really good stuff.
This is Athens
This is Sparta
All I learned about Greek, Latin and Sparta comes form movies. Close enough for the truth?
The math part I could get 100% on.
I guess Math is the only constant in the ever changing world.
Greek and Latin or quite depreciated.
Don't I know it. The last Latin I bought lost half its value just by driving it off the lot.
Is this a news report or a trailer for a motion picture?
Actually the cube root is trivial too and would have been trivial to them in those days as they were bereft of modern calculators but were able to adeptly use slide rules and apply the laws of logarithms.
You mean that there weren't two papers, one with a slide rule allowed and one without?
The Latin and Greek requirements make sense when one knows that at that time Harvard was primarily a school for training Christian clergy.
Education, as a field of study, was also in it's stages of infancy at this time. Knowledge was still believed to be acquired and much emphasis was placed upon rote memorization. The foundation set forth by Dewey was a good fifty years off and contemporary constructivism a full century.
I would imagine that the prep schools for the Ivy's were teaching to the test so not only were the students prepared, it may go to show that things haven't changed as much as we would initially think.
the math part seems easy, I think my entrance exam (math part) was actually harder. A lot of rote calculation there, that is rarely seen at University exams these days.
It's been over 21 yeas since I had any exposure to Latin, so I can read the thing and understand a few words here and there, but no way I could translate those sentences. No academic exposure to Greek whatsoever.
I would do OK in the geography part, but then again it strikes me as too fact recall based rather than understanding of processes type of thing.
As the island of our knowledge grows, so does the shore of our ignorance.
Plane Geometry? Kiddie algebra? Arithmetic?
C'mon, even in 1869 they had calculus.
The obsession with Classics (both languages and history) is period-typical, but really only served as a cultural unifier and something of an intelligence filter. The test didn't assess at all whether or not one could actually communicate in English either verbally or via the written word. Nor did it assess knowledge of actual real world contemporary history, government, literature or above all, science. It is rather a shadow of Oxford, and given the rather odd question involving pounds, shillings, and pence at interest, one wonders if Harvard wasn't just plagiarizing its older British cousins' exams so that they could claim to stand up to Cambridge as it were.
rgb
Even when the experts all agree, they may well be mistaken. --- Bertrand Russell.
Leonidas, Pausanias, Lysander.
What am I supposed to do ? Presumably this question format was familiar to students of the day, and they knew to
That's the correct method. Though that's not the center of the triangle (unless that's a qualified "center"). That point may actually lie outside the triangle.
I did horribly at this test. At my very best I still would not have passed any section of this test.
When applying for college I might have answered 10% of the math questions correctly given a whole day to do so. I might have been able to correctly answer a small part of a couple of the history questions. This is in spite of my taking my education seriously growing up and learning pretty much everything teachers presented to me in the "college-bound" courses at my public schools. From what I hear those schools do not even have advanced/honors courses anymore; everyone is mixed in together learning a lower level of curriculum. I did ace the ACT & SAT and got an academic scholarship to a state university based on those test scores but I would have gotten nothing but chuckles from an 1800's admissions officer.
At the point in college where I was most skilled and educated in math I might have answered 50% of the math questions correctly (assuming no calculator and no reference sheet). For context, starting with Honors Calculus 1 in college I proceeded to maintain a 3.6 average in math for a 6 course math minor (up through Dif Eq 2 if I remember correctly). I did not learn anything related to any non-math question from the Harvard Exam. This is in spite of intentionally taking as many challenging courses outside my major as permitted while obtaining my undergrad BS and a masters degree.
What has happened to so change the education system that people were better educated going into college back then than I was coming out of it?
OK, let's turn it around. Who would hire a Harvard graduate with the curriculum from 1869 for a job in today's marketplace?
Bisection also makes a fun hobby: Try to come up with problems that can only be solved quickly by bisection.
Which dog ate the TV remote?
Ceci n'est pas un sig.
The Latin and Greek translating sections or that era's history references are inheritance from earlier universities, which acted in some degree as a sort of social-status certification. Had you spent time learning *gasp* the classics? The first universities to teach engineering didn't have this idiotic obsession with academic circle-jerk, and I imagine their math sections would have been harder while being more practical as well. It hurts to see this introduced on slashdot as though we're supposed to marvel at how hard it is. Could anyone pass a test of Aristotelian medicine? If you could would it be valuable? I'm going to stop before my phlegm gets out of balance.
"There are some people that if they don't know, you can't tell them." ~ Louis Armstrong
This test was created in a time when there were certain things that you just needed to "learn." The test is about exclusivity, not intelligence. That's why the math proofs probably needed to be memorized prior to sitting for the exam. Sure, someone who can't remember anything accurately wouldn't pass, but neither would someone who hadn't had the highly specialized and basically useless preparation.
"There are some people that if they don't know, you can't tell them." ~ Louis Armstrong
In some ways, it simply seems to test on a different knowledge base.
For instance, never did Latin or Greek, and I'd be off on some of the math and history particulars.
I listen to both RIAA and non-RIAA stuff if I like the music, tangential business/politics nonwithstanding.
Considering majority of the financial executive who are behind the financial meltdown are either Harvard grads or Harvard faculty doesn't inspire confidence in the institution.
Just as an anecdote, I excelled at German in high school, but nearly failed when I tried it at university. I didn't do it because I had to, though - I had to do some non-science stuff and thought I would do well in German (and I enjoyed it anyway). Nope. I took some interesting history courses instead. The university (University of Rochester) had a very loose curriculum (no "core" classes at all), which is not the case for most universities in the US, so that helped.
I am trying to teach myself Thai now, and it's very, very slow going, even though my girlfriend is Thai. I think the only reason I did well in German in high school is because the classes were too easy, and it's fairly similar to English, which I was already quite good at. I think some people are just better at learning second languages than others.
I do not think Harvard would have accepted me in 1869, even if I were able to completely ace that exam. I assume I would have gone to Vassar or Mount Holyoke or some such.
I've got degrees in both anthropology and computer science. I've worked in the real world developing novel solutions to complex problems. I've had to do a great deal of creating thinking, trade-off analysis, system decomposition, communication (both visual and spoken), team building, and a long list of other tasks for which liberal arts education has been extremely beneficial - if not vital. I *hated* postmodernism and critical theory in college (thinking it was largely just mental masturbation), yet the skills I learned in that education have been a core reason why I've been as good as I am in my professional life. Why is foreign language important to a systems architect? Look at the modified Whorfian hypothesis and it will explain. Why is geography important to a mechanical engineer? Do some critical reading of Vitruvius or Sun Tzu - they lay it out pretty well.
There's a reason history is full of giants in engineering, science, invention, etc. and our modern world is largely bereft of anyone who can compare themselves to Bacon or De Vinci, etc. It's because our engineers don't have the liberal education they need to understand, analyze, and modify complex systems (ie. systems with thousands or millions of nodes) - all they can do is parrot scientific facts somebody told them years ago. They think that if they can run a cookbook test (i.e. add this solution to that solution and look at the color) that that makes them a "scientist". It's embarrassing. You know, I've gotten into discussions with "scientists" who didn't even know that the scientific method is based on certain philosophical tenets? If a "master" is somebody who knows how to effectively break with convention, how are these people who don't even know what the conventions are ever going to become masters??
As I said above: You fail to address the grandparent's point about reading/writing comprehension, unstated assumptions, and the need for a subject & verb in a fair test question. I have to razz other math professors about this same issue from time to time.
We know where leadership by an anti-intellectual "strongman" who scapegoats minorities and likes boisterous rallies goes
Yes the cube root is trivial. You can do cube roots in your head. See pp209-211 of "Secrets of mental Math" Arthur Benjamin & Michael Shermer.
As to slide rules cube roots there are the K and D scales - some basic slide rules do not have K and D scales.
Hope this helps some,
Jim
When I was reading books of the Leatherstocking Tales by James Fenimore Cooper (published ~1826), I ran into some dialog written in French spoken by a French soldier. I was waiting for one of the characters to explain what had been said, but it never happened. Then it hit me. PEOPLE READING THIS BOOK ARE ASSUMED TO BE ABLE TO UNDERSTAND FRENCH!!! We are all modern morons.
Last of the Mohicans is just wonderful, especially if you live in upstate NY where it takes place. The English is complex; 80 words just to say, "The forest was quiet." Great read.
Sorry, but gray text on gray background is making my eyes bleed.
I understand the Spartans had tough exams too.
The cube root question is asking for five decimal places, which is more than you can get off a typical slide rule.
"They redundantly repeated themselves over and over again incessantly without end ad infinitum" -- ibid.
Are You Smarter than a Knickerbocker?
I think I could solve it if I had access to Google and Wikipedia.
As I'm sure you already know, the main dialect of classical Athens was Attic. Later Koine became standardized Greek under Macedonian hegemony. During the middles ages there is also what is known as "Byzantine" today (which is actually a slew of Greek dialects)
I'm not sure if you've looked at any modern Greek but I was shocked by just how much it has in common with ancient dialects (far more than say Italian does Latin). I can't understand most modern (demotic) Greek spoken but the alphabet is the same one Aristotle knew and many words are spelled identically (or so close they are easily identifiable).Of course what represents a dialect versus a distinct language is hotly debated subject even among linguists.. (and politicized if you ask me)
All true, to be sure. I've had a look at Modern Greek, yes; I can sometimes make out the gist of the old Katharevousa dialect but not Demotic, which yields no more than a few familiar roots to my inspection. While there are a fair few common roots, the grammar has undergone massive changes since Aristotle, to the extent that the Attic and Demotic dialects are probably less mutually intelligible than, say, Italian and Spanish.
Depends. I know my University (went to undergrad there, currently doing grad school there) has multiple degrees (at all levels) for the classics. I know one such major requires two years worth of classes in Greek and Latin, as well as several classes on ancient civlizations and classic literature from those times as well.
"The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants." ~Thomas Jefferson
Well said... I didn't bother to go back and fix it when I realized the audience I'm speaking with. I tell people who don't know math or science with the term "scientific computing". I tend to work with codec and video filter development. Since I'm the engineer and not the scientist, I tend to apply the calculations as opposed to deriving them. By the time I receive the calculation, I'm typically given finished set of coefficients. If for some reason I need to calculate with polynomials, instead of grinding away at them, I just plug them into a Matlab or Mathematica. While it's useful to know how to do it, I don't see the point in beating myself over the head for the simple entertainment of doing so. The only time I actually bother myself with this type of math is when I'm intentionally trying to add complexity in order to stay within integer or fixed point space with the optimal precision. And in those cases where multiplying by some form of log2, I actually just calculate limits and then apply the maximum functional fixed coefficient that is a power of 2 achieving the same result.
So, I should say that I simply don't bother with calculating out things like dividing one polynomial by another. If the math is still in that form by the time it reaches my desk, then the scientists should still be in MatLab as the equation is still too complex for putting into real code.
1) Everything on the internet is fake. Any "facts" you don't agree with can be dismissed because of political bias.
2) There was never a country called Latinia so there can't be any language called Latin.
2) If this were a real test, the answer key would be available in a Google search.
If anyone knows where the test answers are posted, please let us know.
Sorry, but gray text on gray background is making my eyes bleed.
I don't consider it an unfair question. Because it is on a test in the mathematical section of that test, I safely can assume that the tone of that line is essentially "finish this paragraph" Now days, this sort of question would lead into a 5 option 'multiple guess' answer list, and would not have a question mark. Now, if this line is in the test without being numbered, or delineated from the preceding or following questions in any way, then i agree that it is unfair, but if it is marked out as a problem in the test (by numeration of the questions, or some other obvious pattern or means). The test simply requires a little more critical thinking than we are trained to produce for a test these days.
I've decided to Diversify my Holdings. I've divided my cash between my left and right pockets, instead of all in one.
The one thing we should all agree about is that reading actual entrance exams gives us a far better idea of what education was like at any particular time than most other resources. It's amazing how few exams there really are out there in cyberspace; with all of the resources available, it should be easier to compare education by looking at lots of exams in, say, the 1870's and the 1930's.
I've posted one exam, the entrance exam in 1932 to Chicago Normal College, a teachers' college rather than a full university. I have read several of the questions on this exam to my students before giving them a big exam, to let them know that my exams by comparison are not THAT difficult. Almost all of my students agree.
See how well you do on this test: http://academics.triton.edu/uc/1932test.html
One strong point of modern college is that language classes have be depreciated for fields they have no bearing. A robotics or CS major will have zero use for latin or greek or really any language other than english.
I'd agree on latin and greek but i'd think some modern foreign languages could be quite useful if only to increase the variety of places one could potentially work/study. While I know some institutions in other countries will let you take a PHD without speaking their language (becuase I saw a poster from a greek university advertising it) I wouldn't imagine doing so is much fun. It's bad enough being in a british university and being able to understand what the chinese are talking to each other about.
note: i'm known as plugwash most places but i screwd up registering that here somehow in the past and now can't register
Not even Java, or C++ or....
Yes the syntax and rules are new but all the wordy parts of the language are generally based on english. I wonder how well you would do at following a C program where all the identifiers and and comments were in a foreign language?
note: i'm known as plugwash most places but i screwd up registering that here somehow in the past and now can't register
I recommend that you brush up on your English grammar. Not only do you not see any problem with writing sentence fragments, but you're displaying the same thing in your own writing. Because of that, it's quite hard to understand what you're saying. Proper grammar is not the same thing as critical thinking; however, it can stand in the way of expressing your insights to others.
We know where leadership by an anti-intellectual "strongman" who scapegoats minorities and likes boisterous rallies goes
I'm struck by how this exam doesn't test problem solving. A few questions that begin like so:
"How would you go about . . ."
"Consider the following . . . Can you think of any improvements that could be made to this process?"
"Given Situation A and Situation B, which do you think is better and why?
would be a good idea.