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

Multiple Choice Questions

1. All known alphabets are based on the original alphabet that emerged about 1500 B.C. in what area?
(a) The Mediterranean region.
(b) Egypt.
(c) Asia.
(d) South America.

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

3. By 1930, what had replaced the telegraph as the most advanced means of communication?
(a) The computer.
(b) Ship to shore communicators.
(c) The two-way radio.
(d) The telephone.

4. The early telegraph had trouble functioning under what conditions?
(a) Overuse.
(b) Migratory seasons.
(c) Sunny skies.
(d) Fog and rain.

5. Who first defined the concept of "bandwith"?
(a) Alexander Graham Bell.
(b) Samuel Morse.
(c) Albert Einstein.
(d) Harry Nyquist.

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

7. How did people save money in sending telegraph messages?
(a) By bribing the operators.
(b) By compressing the message.
(c) By not using it.
(d) By creating their own code.

8. What was the Morse code comprised of?
(a) Symbols.
(b) Short pulses, called dots, and long pulses, called dashes.
(c) Letters.
(d) Numbers.

9. 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.

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

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

12. Why did Lovelace publish her mathematical arguments anonymously?
(a) She didn't want to embarrass her father.
(b) She wasn't sure her arguments were correct.
(c) She didn't want to appear more intelligent than Babbage.
(d) Women were not expected to engage in scientific or academic efforts.

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

14. What word book by James Murray was first published in 1879?
(a) Oxford English Dictionary.
(b) The Birth of Writing.
(c) The First Language.
(d) A Table Alphabeticall.

15. What was changing language at the time the first English dictionary was developed?
(a) Advanced education.
(b) Travel and conquest.
(c) Increased population.
(d) International trade.

Short Answer Questions

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

2. Before "A Table Alphabeticall", how were most catalogs and word lists arranged?

3. Where was knowledge stored prior to the written word?

4. What is the system of dots and dashes used to communicate telegrams called?

5. Prior to the electric telegraph, an invention by the same name was created by Claude Chappe and his brothers during what conflict?

(see the answer keys)

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