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This quiz consists of 5 multiple choice and 5 short answer questions through Chapter 4.

Multiple Choice Questions

1. Who was the sixth editor of the Oxford English Dictionary?
(a) John Simpson.
(b) Mark Twain.
(c) Lord Byron.
(d) Thomas Edison.

2. What type of lists did Babbage create about livestock, fabric, letter combinations in various languages and other facts?
(a) Random.
(b) Alphabetical.
(c) Statistical.
(d) Numeric.

3. What machine was constructed by Charles Babbage?
(a) The difference analyzer.
(b) The computer.
(c) The calculator.
(d) The difference engine.

4. What was the main form of communication in the late 1940s?
(a) Letters.
(b) The telegraph.
(c) The telephone.
(d) Special couriers.

5. What new word did Claude Shannon, a mathematical researcher at Bell Labs, introduce in the in-house journal called "A Mathematical Theory of Communication"?
(a) The transistor.
(b) The circuit.
(c) The relay.
(d) The bit.

Short Answer Questions

1. How many years ago was the first language established?

2. How did the drummers of Africa differentiate between similar words?

3. Who devised a way to multiply and divide numbers by adding or subtracting their logarithms?

4. What culture was the first to use a written language?

5. What word book by James Murray was first published in 1879?

(see the answer key)

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