can you pass the mit entrance exam ... from 1869.

[siteseer]

massachusetts institute of technology. the big i t. the not ivy league. the nerdy one. that one, yes but for the year 1869-70. brush up on these subjects before your attempt: english (and history, geography, people), geometry (triangles, circles, etc.), algebra (a, b, x, y), arithmetic (fractions and decimals).

answers provided, but how many did you get right? think you know more than your great-great-great-grandfather? are you smart enough to pass the mit entrance examination 1869-70 edition?

https://libraries.mit.edu/archives/exhibits/exam/english.html

 

[Septy]

I'm having a hard time even reading the questions.

 

[Fart Master]

Yes, but that's cause I have Wikipedia.

 

[FUME5]

Is this what you do in your spare time?

 

[siteseer]

oh yea, since they're pictures i might as well post the qs here.

'You may skip the first four questions in the first part and the fourth question in the second part.'

> english answers.

> geometry answers.

> algebra answers.

> arithmetic answers.

 

[JackBauer24]

 

[whitehawk]

Nope I wouldn't

 

[ishan]

I cant speak for the english but the math questions in that age mean something completely different in our age. We are way better trained in most countries high school to tackle these questions. To me this topic is silly if the english is equivalent to the math.

 

[Prototype Viktor]

Gonna fail the part on if Boston is wick awesome or awesomely wicked
Or if slavery is legal

 

[VegiHam]

Who was Alexander Hamilton, they ask.

Feel like people today might know that...

 

[Baphomet]

Naw, I'm too dumb.

 

[kami_sama]

The english part I can't do because it references something we don't have, but it'd be the worst one by far.
The other ones I can mostly do. Some answers I currently don't remember tho.

 

[SigmasonicX]

Math seems simple enough, but the English is incomprehensible for me.

 

[ReAxion]

i stroll in talking about the actual "discovery" of america and am declared professor god king by lunch.

 

[TheAbsolution]

Math seems simple enough, but the English is incomprehensible for me.

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I believe the first 3 were meant to come from passages that were spoken out loud, which is why they don't make any sense. At least, that's my theory.
Ah yeah, that's what the actual page says as well. The rest should be easy enough given some research beforehand.

 

[randompasserby]

Just eyeballing it briefly the math questions look doable enough.

 

[KillLaCam]

I have no idea what those first 3 sections are trying to ask. But after that everything seems like middle and early high school level questions.

 

[CassCade]

The math questions I can do and pass , the first 3 English questions on the other hand make no sense to me, am sure they are supposed to have an attachment or something. Even that aside, I still won't be able to pass that English exam, seems less of an English exam and more of trivia.

 

[Tagg]

I can figure out most of the math problems but I don't have a fucking clue what the English questions are asking.

 

[siteseer]

oh yea every one confused about the first 4 questions in 'english', yes, the examiner was supposed to dictate passages from some texts and the test taker would answer from his dictation. you can skip those questions and another one further down.

edit: links to the answers added.

 

[Htown]

I could do all the algebra and arithmetic ones, but I don't feel like spending the time.

The geometry section did, however, make me realize that I've forgotten how to do a proof.

 

[Euler.L.]

I cant speak for the english but the math questions in that age mean something completely different in our age. We are way better trained in most countries high school to tackle these questions. To me this topic is silly if the english is equivalent to the math.

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You have a calculator, they didn't.

 

[reKon]

yeah I'm lost in English

 

[CaviarMeths]

Yeah at first I thought this whole thing was going to be incomprehensible because those first four questions make no sense out of context, but the rest of it is fairly straight forward. Not sure why subjects of history and geography are included under "English" though.

And yeah, I forget how to do a proof, so I wouldn't be able to answer the first few questions of the geometry section either.

All of these questions are things that students would learn in high school or even middle school today. Maybe not the literature stuff. I don't think I took Chaucer until university. Thing is that high school fills students' heads with so much information that they never again use for the rest of their lives, so a lot of it just gets forgotten. An 18 year old would probably perform better at this exam than a 38 year old.

We really should maybe rethink the way we do secondary education.

 

[ishan]

You have a calculator, they didn't.

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Not at all. Im not used to having a calculator. I grew up in India for my high school and undergrad the concept of a calculator during an exam is considered cheating.

EDIt: Also as I said this seems easier due to our more advanced high school education in this age. Literally the idea of basic geometry was advanced math in 2500BC. Im not sure what your point is. Its nothing to do with calculators. Some of the questions are about basic math some are more advanced. Im implying asking if its hard or not is diluting the difficulty of the questions back then. When certain concepts were not learned in high school or earlier. its from so long back. I mean the bionomial expansion is known to many high school seniors but it took isaac newton to learn it for the first time back then. tests from 1869 are no way comparable to tests now simply because we as scientists over the ages have said we stand on the shoulders of giants.

 

[Static]

Ah yes, I remember charting the course of the various important rivers of Europe and America in English class.

Honestly a lot of the math ones look more like a bunch of pain in the butt work more than they do challenging or thought provoking. I can multiply out 31*24*60*60*18 to find out how many eighteenths of a minute there are in August, but what the fuck am I demonstrating by doing so. It's not interesting.

 

[EarthPainting]

I'm already quite lost on the English portion, so the answer is probably no. Not even sure what they're asking in some of them.

 

[Static]

I'm already quite lost on the English portion, so the answer is probably no. Not even sure what they're asking in some of them.

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First four questions have to do with a section of dictation that's missing from the exam. Ignore those ones and the fourth question below the divider.

 

[ishan]

Ah yes, I remember charting the course of the various important rivers of Europe and America in English class.

Honestly a lot of the math ones look more like a bunch of pain in the butt work more than they do challenging or thought provoking. I can multiply out 31*24*60*60*18 to find out how many eighteenths of a minute there are in August, but what the fuck am I demonstrating by doing so. It's not interesting.

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okay I get your original comment Euler.L. in context now. I was primaly focused on the algebra parts etc. So as someone who gave tests without calculators . It makes sense. When you have to do a lot of tedious arithmetic quick you have to improvise. Its obvious you arent supposed to multiply them all and find the answer that is the dumb way you need to figure out a way to do it faster etc. To me that seems normal but then again as I said I grew up taking exams without calculators.

EDIt: I mean if someone asks you sin(2.5yada yada) technically you could use a bunch of trig and sin(x) relation to sin(x/2) etc to get a approximation but its obvious without a calculator you have to realize something special about the number involved otherwise youre just wasting time and doing stupid tedious stuff. To me this is obvious but then again as I said Im used to taking tests without calculators.

 

[Pellaidh]

Not going to bother with the English part, but the math questions seem surprisingly straightforward. The geometry proof ones are probably the hardest conceptually, but none of them are particularly hard and I could do about half from memory, I guess. But that's from not studying these sorts of things for a while now.

The biggest difference from today's math to me is the arithmetic section, since at least over here math education heavily discourages just learning how to calculate stuff once you're past elementary school level. But I'd have to imagine most people these days can perform basic addition, multiplication and division. Except that I'm not really sure what question 5 is asking. Dividing the entire length of August with 7/18 minutes?

But overall, these seem much easier then high school math exams these days. No calculus being the biggest difference to me.

 

[behOemoth]

I could answer half of the English questions and I guess math should be pretty easy.

 

[Chaos2Frozen]

Math is doable, I haven't touched geometry in awhile though

 

[samoyed]

Math is piss easy but the english section depends on having been born in an era where reading all those works was considered a mainstay of culture.

 

[Static]

So as someone who gave tests without calculators . It makes sense. When you have to do a lot of tedious arithmetic quick you have to improvise. Its obvious you arent supposed to multiply them all and find the answer that is the dumb way you need to figure out a way to do it faster etc.

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I've also done most of my math sans calculators. I don't know what shortcut there is for that particular question but I'll take your word for it. It does make me curious what the time limits for this would be, because that can go a long way to determining the difficulty of the test.

 

[Deleted member 2809]

The math is pretty much baby mode
The english.. well that's another thing

 

[TheYanger]

Yeah, I couldn't do the geometry anymore, but I could've out of high school for sure. And the English part was woof, that's some specific random knowledge I definitely don't have./

 

[ishan]

I've also done most of my math sans calculators. I don't know what shortcut there is for that particular question but I'll take your word for it. It does make me curious what the time limits for this would be, because that can go a long way to determining the difficulty of the test.

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yup yup. Im guessing there must be some numbers which work out when do it correctly /cancel out when you use the actual days etc.

 

[jman2050]

I don't buy the answer given to question 5 of Algebra. Unless I'm way more rusty at my Algebra than I think I am, that expression can't actually be simplified at all.

EDIT - Ah wait I see my mistake now.

 

[PhallicBaldwin]

A friend of mine taught art history there years ago. She said it was absolutely fascinating. One whole class apparently was taken up by a discussion on how they would ship a very large painting across the Atlantic Ocean. She just let them roll with it.

Love those nerds.

 

[Deleted member 40797]

mainstay of culture

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The literature questions are interesting because some of the authors and works have fallen out of fashion. I expect that most people know in which centuries Shakespeare, Wordsworth and Pope lived (Question 7); who wrote Othello, In Memoriam, The Lady of Shallot, and the Rape of the Lock (Question 6); and could name one work by Chaucer, Tennyson and Washington Irving (Question 8). At the very least, I read works by those authors in high school and college. However, nobody reads Sir Walter Scott, William Morris, Thackeray or Whittier anymore; I couldn't identify the author of Lycidas despite having read Milton in college.

 

[peyrin]

The literature questions are interesting because some of the authors and works have fallen out of fashion. I expect that most people know in which centuries Shakespeare, Wordsworth and Pope lived (Question 7); who wrote Othello, In Memoriam, The Lady of Shallot, and the Rape of the Lock (Question 6); and could name one work by Chaucer, Tennyson and Washington Irving (Question 8). At the very least, I read works by those authors in high school and college. However, nobody reads Sir Walter Scott, William Morris, Thackeray or Whittier anymore; I couldn't identify the author of Lycidas despite having read Milton in college.

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Scott and Thackeray are still fairly ubiquitous? Certainly more than Morris and Whittier, and arguably Pope

 

[Deleted member 40797]

Scott and Thackeray are still fairly ubiquitous? Certainly more than Morris and Whittier, and arguably Pope

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I give you Scott, but Thackeray isn't widely read in American schools/colleges (I am coming from that perspective). My contention was that works like Ivanhoe and Rob Roy, despite being widely known, aren't much taught or read (in other words, if you weren't taken by their movie adaptations, they and their author would remain obscure). So many authors quote or comment on Pope that I doubt you could survive a semester of English literature without reading him.

 

[LL_Decitrig]

I cant speak for the english but the math questions in that age mean something completely different in our age. We are way better trained in most countries high school to tackle these questions. To me this topic is silly if the english is equivalent to the math.

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Yeah, the mathematical stuff is insultingly simple by modern standards. Having said that, the English test is attuned to somebody having a decent contemporary knowledge of pop culture and current affairs with a smattering of general knowledge. The actual grammar questions are even simpler than the algebra.

 

[Deleted member 40797]

Yeah, the mathematical stuff is insultingly simple by modern standards.

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I suspect the average person would have trouble with the geometry proofs. I had to translate the language into algebraic geometry to attempt them. Most people do not learn geometry in the sense required by the exam (this isn't a bad thing).

 

[LL_Decitrig]

I suspect the average person would have trouble with the geometry proofs. I had to translate the language into algebraic geometry to attempt them. Most people do not learn geometry in the sense required by the exam (this isn't a bad thing).

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I rather suspect this is where my age shows. I was taught geometry 100 years after this paper and the only difference is that I knew this stuff backwards by the time puberty hit.

 

[CHC]

We don't really learn much straight up geography or read Thackeray in US schools anymore, so section 1 is really hard.

I'm also tripped up by "prove" in the first 4 geometry questions. Like how rigorous of a proof do they want? Those are hard.

The algebra and arithmetic are extremely straightforward, though.

 

[SgtCobra]

It says something about my math skills when the English portion is easier for me to understand.

 

[CHC]

Also I wonder if back then, there were whole cottage industries devoted to preparing people for these tests, like with the SAT or the MCAT today?

 

[CloudWolf]

Who was Alexander Hamilton, they ask.

Feel like people today might know that...

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The guy from that sick hip-hop musical

 

[mclem]

I'm intrigued by the fact that the English exam are partially English knowledge questions, partially general social science questions (geography, history), and partially interview-style questions ("Mention any English writers you have read"); it suggests that the English course is a more generalised course in those days rather than being focussed solely on language and literature.

I think I can hold my own in VIII (not familiar with Whittier, but I believe I have works by the others - that said, I'd have to look it up to confirm them, particularly Thackeray). I feel I should know more from VI; Othello is easy enough, and I feel I ought to know both In Memoriam and The Earthly Paradise, but I'm wondering if I'm confusing The Earthly Paradise with The Garden Of Earthly Delights.

We don't really learn much straight up geography or read Thackeray in US schools anymore, so section 1 is really hard.

I'm also tripped up by "prove" in the first 4 geometry questions. Like how rigorous of a proof do they want? Those are hard.

The algebra and arithmetic are extremely straightforward, though.

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Yeah, that struck me; the straight questions are easy (although no calculator, of course, so I'm not sure what approximation for pi they would have used back then - 22/7?), but the proofs do require considerably more thought and detail, particularly if they're to be presented in a formal manner.

That said, when I did my uni entrance exam and had little idea what proofs were meant to consist of, I got by with sufficient handwaveyness to express that I had the basic concepts down just not the formal phrasing. Given this is an entrance exam, that might have been what they were looking for.