View a FREE sample

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

Multiple Choice Questions

1. Who wrote the work known as the Principia Mathematica?
(a) Galileo and Copernicus.
(b) Aristotle and Epecruis.
(c) Edwin Hubble and Isaac Newton.
(d) Bertrand Russell and Alfred North Whitehead.

2. What culture was the first to use a written language?
(a) Italian.
(b) English.
(c) Egyptian.
(d) Chinese.

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

4. Why did businessmen immediately take to the telegraph?
(a) Orders no longer had to be hand written.
(b) Businessmen could save money on travel expenses.
(c) Orders and market information could be transmitted quickly over long distances.
(d) Businesses did not have to hire as many workers.

5. 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 maximum amount of information that could be transmitted.
(b) The maximum size a message could be.
(c) The limits of computing.
(d) The virtual size of the message in microns.

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

7. What jobs were created to handle the increasing number of telephone calls?
(a) Call center personnel.
(b) Switchboard operators.
(c) Secretaries.
(d) Office assistants.

8. Eliminating noise in Shannon's model meant looking at language in terms of what factor?
(a) Frequency.
(b) Randomness.
(c) Possibility.
(d) Probability.

9. How did sub-Saharan African tribes communicate over long distances?
(a) By smoke signals.
(b) By witchcraft.
(c) By messenger.
(d) By drums.

10. How did the drummers of Africa differentiate between similar words?
(a) The main drummer was assisted by another drummer.
(b) The drummer added short descriptive phrases.
(c) The drummer had to let those receiving the message figure out the right words.
(d) The drummer added special emphasis.

11. What was the Morse code based on?
(a) Symbols.
(b) The alphabet.
(c) Numbers.
(d) Dots and dashes.

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

13. What uses one symbol to represent one "minimal sound"?
(a) Sub-Saharan drums.
(b) Radio waves.
(c) The alphabet.
(d) Morse code.

14. Who devised a way to multiply and divide numbers by adding or subtracting their logarithms?
(a) Isaac Newton.
(b) John Napier.
(c) Aristotle.
(d) Thomas Fincke.

15. 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.

Short Answer Questions

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

2. What was the Morse code comprised of?

3. How were telegraph messages priced?

4. What was provided in "A Table Alphabeticall"?

5. Who first thought of constructing a machine that could calculate logarithms?

(see the answer keys)

This section contains 479 words (approx. 2 pages at 300 words per page) View a FREE sample