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This test consists of 5 short answer questions, 10 short essay questions, and 1 (of 3) essay topics.

Short Answer Questions

1. Who comprised the Apostles?

2. Why was Ramanujan's scholarship changed?

3. What does Kanigel say Ramanujan learned from an old book?

4. What does Kanigel say people appreciated about Hardy?

5. How does Kanigel describe the seriousness of Ramanujan's condition?

Short Essay Questions

1. What practices did Ramanujan follow as a result of his religion?

2. What happened after Ramanujan left Pachaiyappas College?

3. Describe Ramanujan's experience at Pachaiyappas College in Madras.

4. Describe Ramanujan's wedding ceremony.

5. What was Hardy's experience at Winchester?

6. What problems in Ramanujan's thinking came from his use of 'A Synopsis of Elementary Results in Pure and Applied Mathematics'?

7. What was the Bloomsbury Group?

8. How did Hardy explain the value of math to his family?

9. How was Ramanujan's health as a child?

10. What gods did Ramanujan's family worship?

Essay Topics

Write an essay for ONE of the following topics:

Essay Topic 1

Ramanujan once ran away from home. Describe his relationship with his family, and the running-away temperament: what was he running to? Cite another time when he 'ran away' from things? Did he ever have a feeling of arrival in a place that redeemed the problems with his family or immediate environment?

Essay Topic 2

Describe the intersection the British culture of secret society and prestige with Ramanujan's culture of Brahmin prestige and privilege. How much did these cultures clash in Ramanujan's experience? How did they work together?

Essay Topic 3

Was Ramanujan different 'as a person' than he was 'as a mathematician'? Did his work in math redeem the discomforts or failures he suffered elsewhere in his life? How does his life balance out--was he a mathematician, or a fully-developed human being, who could adjust to any number of human experiences?

(see the answer keys)

This section contains 675 words (approx. 3 pages at 300 words per page) View a FREE sample