View a FREE sample

This test consists of 5 multiple choice questions, 5 short answer questions, and 10 short essay questions.

Multiple Choice Questions

1. How much of Ramanujan's work did Hardy believe was sound and original?
(a) Almost all of it.
(b) Five to ten percent.
(c) One to two thirds.
(d) Half to three quarters.

2. Who was Leonard Euler?
(a) A teacher at Cambridge.
(b) Ramanujan's tutor.
(c) A brilliant mathematician to whom Hardy compared Ramanujan.
(d) Hardy's protégé.

3. What was the result of Ramanujan clinging to his cultural practices?
(a) He taught English students how to cook Indian dishes.
(b) He brought Indian culture to English intellectuals.
(c) He remained an outsider.
(d) He generated fear and hostility in those around him.

4. What obstacle stood in the way of Hardy's plan?
(a) Ramanujan's inability to get a passport.
(b) Ramanujan's intractability.
(c) Ramanujan's resistance to sea travel.
(d) Ramanujan's poverty.

5. Who learned of Ramanujan's arrival by the newspapers?
(a) His mother.
(b) His in-laws.
(c) His wife.
(d) His old patron.

Short Answer Questions

1. What are partitions in math?

2. How does Kanigel describe the trip to England?

3. Who met Ramanujan in England?

4. What were Ramanujan and Hardy looking for in their work on partitions?

5. What did Hardy decide after conferring with John Littlewood?

Short Essay Questions

1. What is a formalist in mathematical thinking?

2. What accolades did Ramanujan receive for his work?

3. What did Ramanujan discover when P. C. Mahalanobis read him a puzzle one evening?

4. What was Ramanujan's interest in pi?

5. Where did Ramanujan go when he reached England?

6. Describe the decline of Ramanujan's health.

7. Describe Ramanujan's trip to England.

8. What was Ramanujan's decline like, and death?

9. How much did Ramanujan's bride share in his mathematical life?

10. Ramanujan kept extensive notes of his thinking. What was in Ramanujan's notebooks, and how much of his work was valuable, according to Kanigel?

(see the answer keys)

This section contains 691 words (approx. 3 pages at 300 words per page) View a FREE sample