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This test consists of 15 multiple choice questions and 5 short answer questions.

Multiple Choice Questions

1. How was the telephone superior to the telegraph?
(a) It was less expensive.
(b) Anyone could use a phone.
(c) Ease of use, no need for encoding of the message, and its availability.
(d) It was the preferred means of communications by government.

2. What did Shannon call the units of information that he was able to measure in a message?
(a) Data.
(b) Microns.
(c) Bits.
(d) Bytes.

3. How were phonetic sounds represented in language?
(a) By characters.
(b) By codes.
(c) By images.
(d) By numbers.

4. What was Shannon able to theoretically compute by measuring a message in bits? By measuring information in bits, he could theoretically compute the maximum amount of information that could be transmitted through a given channel.
(a) The limits of computing.
(b) The maximum amount of information that could be transmitted.
(c) The maximum size a message could be.
(d) The virtual size of the message in microns.

5. What was Claude Shannon fascinated with?
(a) Communications.
(b) Cryptograms.
(c) Electronics.
(d) Computing.

6. What is the system of dots and dashes used to communicate telegrams called?
(a) Bell's Code.
(b) Morse Code.
(c) Tele-Com Messaging.
(d) Electronic Messaging.

7. 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 bit.
(c) The relay.
(d) The circuit.

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

9. Seventeenth numerical tables were set up so that what factor could be learned about each number?
(a) Pi.
(b) The base number.
(c) The logarithm.
(d) The square root.

10. What word book by Robert Cawdrey was published first in 1604?
(a) The English Language.
(b) A Table Alphabeticall.
(c) Oxford English Dictionary.
(d) The Written Word.

11. What were conflicting statements created by the Principia Mathematica called?
(a) Circular arguments.
(b) Recursive.
(c) False positives.
(d) Non-conclusive results.

12. Claude Shannon and Alan Turing were working on separate cryptography project and shared what astounding possibility?
(a) That machines could cure disease.
(b) That machines could think.
(c) That machines could take over the human race.
(d) That machines could have emotions.

13. Before "A Table Alphabeticall", how were most catalogs and word lists arranged?
(a) By order of the philosophers.
(b) By order of the king's scribe.
(c) By topic.
(d) By frequency of use.

14. Where was knowledge stored prior to the written word?
(a) In the mind.
(b) By legend.
(c) In tribal strongholds.
(d) Word of wise men.

15. Prior to the electric telegraph, an invention by the same name was created by Claude Chappe and his brothers during what conflict?
(a) The Spanish-American War.
(b) World War I.
(c) The French Revolution.
(d) The Russian Revolution.

Short Answer Questions

1. There was no "looking up" of information prior to what invention?

2. What development was the last stage of writing?

3. The early telegraph had trouble functioning under what conditions?

4. How did people save money in sending telegraph messages?

5. What culture grouped characters in categories such as tools, weapons, plants, animals, and buildings?

(see the answer keys)

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