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

Multiple Choice Questions

1. What is the state of Ramanujan's work now?
(a) Not completely published.
(b) Not completely collected.
(c) Completely published and evaluated.
(d) Fragmentary.

2. When do mathematicians believe Ramanujan did his best work?
(a) During his illness.
(b) On the ship back to India.
(c) At Cambridge.
(d) Before he left for England.

3. What does Kanigel say was Ramanujan's greatest talent?
(a) His intuition.
(b) His associative abilities.
(c) His calculations.
(d) His perception.

4. How does Kanigel describe the trip to England?
(a) Petrifying.
(b) Perilous.
(c) Sublimely beautiful.
(d) Arduous.

5. What conflict did Ramanujan return to?
(a) His wife and his mother.
(b) His father and the authorities.
(c) His parents with his in-laws.
(d) His mother and father.

6. How does Kanigel describe Ramanujan as a mathematical thinker?
(a) Classicist.
(b) Formalist.
(c) Radical.
(d) Constructivist.

7. What practice does Kanigel say Ramanujan had difficulty adjusting to in England?
(a) English cooking.
(b) Afternoon tea.
(c) Wearing shoes.
(d) Speaking English.

8. What did Hardy decide after conferring with John Littlewood?
(a) That Ramanujan was dangerous.
(b) That Ramanujan was a genius.
(c) That Ramanujan was unstable.
(d) That Ramanujan was a small thinker.

9. How does Kanigel describe Ramanujan's relationship with his wife?
(a) Hostile.
(b) Friendly.
(c) Intimate.
(d) Almost non-existent.

10. In his letter to Hardy, what did Ramanujan say he had discovered?
(a) A mistake in Hardy's theorems.
(b) A theory of relativity.
(c) A function for using irrational numbers in multi-variable calculus.
(d) A solution to a problem Hardy proposed.

11. How much of Ramanujan's work did Hardy believe was sound and original?
(a) Half to three quarters.
(b) Almost all of it.
(c) One to two thirds.
(d) Five to ten percent.

12. What does Kanigel say Ramanujan distrusted in English society?
(a) High tea.
(b) School cafeterias.
(c) Secret societies.
(d) Public transportation.

13. Where did Ramanujan move to?
(a) Cambridge.
(b) London.
(c) Bristol.
(d) Oxford.

14. What did Ramanujan work out in his research on constants?
(a) A foundation for Euler's constant.
(b) An approximation of pi.
(c) A solution to pi.
(d) A new use for Euler's constant.

15. How did Ramanujan respond to Hardy's request for proofs?
(a) He would send them if Hardy would help him financially.
(b) He said he could not produce them.
(c) He dragged his feet about sending them.
(d) He sent them immediately.

Short Answer Questions

1. What did Littlewood and Hardy see as mathematically important?

2. What did Ramanujan say he was willing to do in order to come to England?

3. What was the result of Ramanujan clinging to his cultural practices?

4. What society was Ramanujan elected to?

5. What was it that offended Ramanujan when he invited some friends to dinner?

(see the answer keys)

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