8 ms·
MIT Entrance exam (1869)
- iuytgfrtyuik 16y agoIsn'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 16y agoWell, 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 16y agoFor a normal university, yes. Not for one of the foremost technical institutions in the entire world.
- hugs 16y agoIn 1869, was MIT a normal university, or one of the foremost technical institutions in the entire world?
- Travis 16y agoConsidering construction finished just 3 years before this exam was published, and the charter was formalized just 10 years before, I would say that MIT (known as Boston Tech from 1866-1916) was not among the foremost technical institutions. At the time. From the wiki page, it seems like it was actually one of the first technical unis around: "a new form of higher education to address the challenges posed by rapid advances in science and technology in the mid-19th century that classic institutions were ill-prepared to deal with." (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_the_Massachusetts_Institute_of_Technology#Vision_and_mission http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_the_Massachusetts_In...)
- kwantam 16y agoDepends 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.
- deleted 16y ago[deleted]
- amelim 16y agoI'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_math_with_computers.html http://www.ted.com/talks/conrad_wolfram_teaching_kids_real_m...
- shadowfox 16y ago> 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. This is quite likely true, especially for scientists and mathematicians. An interesting question for me though is whether the average citizenry is becoming better or worse at mathematics over generations.
- zoowar 16y agoMuch easier than the 8th grade examination from 1895 posted the other day. http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1959690 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1959690
- ashot 16y agothe geometry section is much harder: http://libraries.mit.edu/archives/exhibits/exam/geometry.html http://libraries.mit.edu/archives/exhibits/exam/geometry.htm...
- TheEzEzz 16y agoThe English section is much harder.
- eitally 16y agoIt 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.
- deleted 16y ago[deleted]
- devinj 16y agoThe 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 16y agoNot 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.
- kingkilr 16y agoYep, the algebra was frankly also elementary school level IMO.
- nutjob123 16y agoanyone have a more recent copy? took me 15 min.
- prat 16y agolink to IIT joint entrance exam (JEE) http://www.wiziq.com/tutorial/98820-IIT-JEE-Mathematics-Paper http://www.wiziq.com/tutorial/98820-IIT-JEE-Mathematics-Pape...
- bigbang 16y agoSome questions have more than one answers right and all answers have to be marked to get credit =)
- deleted 16y ago[deleted]
- long 16y agowhat's considered a good score on the iit?
- prat 16y agoin 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 16y agofrom what i remember 1987's jee maths was the toughest. with the cutoff's in the lower teens or something....
- sdave 16y agoThis 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 16y agoAnswers: http://libraries.mit.edu/archives/exhibits/exam/algebra-answers.html http://libraries.mit.edu/archives/exhibits/exam/algebra-answ...
- etfb 16y agoTheir 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 16y agoAny positive number has two square roots, but the (present-day) notational convention is always to take the positive square root.
- sid0 16y agoIndeed, and I think the reason it's done is simply to make square-root an easy-to-deal-with single-valued function rather than a multifunction. Remember the quadratic formula: the ± in it is in addition to the square root, not part of it.
- sidek 16y agoSometimes square root is assumed to refer to the positive one. I assume that was the case here.
- gmichnikov 16y agoOn every notable standardized math test in the US, and on any commonly used calculator, a square root is non-negative. Another example: http://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=sqrt(x) http://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=sqrt(x)
- deleted 16y ago
- DanielN 16y agoIt'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_Institute_of_Technology http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_the_Massachusetts_In...
- tibbon 16y agoInterestingly 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 16y agoAs 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
- andreyf 16y agoIs it just me, or would one expect the dining hall system to be open to use for anyone who is a student (and their facebook friends)?
- trurl123 16y agoIt's usual exercises for school in Russia. I don't find any difficult problems. I mean all except English.
- varjag 16y agoTrue, but it wasn't typical Russian school level in 1868.
- migiale 16y agocheck this out http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/a/a7/BogdanovBelsky_UstnySchet.jpg 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
- varjag 16y agoIt's not algebra, you wouldn't have gotten to MIT with that even back then.
- zppx 16y agoI 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 16y agoOdd. 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.
- deleted 16y ago[deleted]
- michael_dorfman 16y agoMore 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.
- deleted 16y ago[deleted]
- nopinsight 16y agoThe 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 16y agoI 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 16y agoI already feel like a MIT Graduate :D :D
- javanix 16y agoWeird. It was apparently easier to get into MIT in the late 19th century than it was to pass the eighth grade.
- tomrod 16y agoHahahahaha. This cracked me up. That 8th grade exam was difficult, no?
- bm98 16y agoAm 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 http://bm98.posterous.com/did-they-have-latex-in-1869