View a FREE sample

This test consists of 5 multiple choice questions, 5 short answer questions, and 10 short essay questions.

Multiple Choice Questions

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

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

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

4. Why were there so many message errors with the early telegraph?
(a) Poor weather conditions.
(b) Passing the messages between too many operators.
(c) Political unrest.
(d) Untrained workers.

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

Short Answer Questions

1. What was the main form of communication in the late 1940s?

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

3. How was "A Table Alphabeticall" intended to help people?

4. What theory was not only useful in practical communications, but had applications in psychology, biology, and physics?

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.

Short Essay Questions

1. Who developed the Principia Mathematica and what did it provide?

2. What are the two "wordbooks" that Gleick refers to in this chapter?

3. Why did Ada Lovelace publish her mathematical arguments anonymously?

4. How was binary code of 0s and 1s which is the foundation for computing first conceived and by whom?

5. Who first at the concept of "bandwith" and in what context was it first conceived?

6. What innovation was made in the 17th century by Scot mathematician John Napier?

7. In modern times, what innovation has had the most impact on language?

8. Who invented the telegraph and what is its fundamental functionality?

9. What advanced form of communication was beginning to emerge in the 1840s?

10. What did Claude Shannon create from examining the statistical makeup of the English language?

(see the answer keys)

This section contains 743 words (approx. 3 pages at 300 words per page) View a FREE sample