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

Multiple Choice Questions

1. What obstacle stood in the way of Hardy's plan?
(a) Ramanujan's inability to get a passport.
(b) Ramanujan's poverty.
(c) Ramanujan's intractability.
(d) Ramanujan's resistance to sea travel.

2. How was Ramanujan treated on his return?
(a) As an untouchable.
(b) As an exile.
(c) As a celebrity.
(d) As an outcast.

3. What did Ramanujan petition Cambridge for?
(a) An assistant.
(b) The right to return.
(c) A stipend.
(d) Publication.

4. What other Indian thinker does Kanigel compare Ramanujan's experience with?
(a) Ghandi.
(b) Anant Raje.
(c) Muhammad Ali Jinnah.
(d) Subrahmanyan Chandrasekhar.

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

6. What was Euler's contribution to understanding partitions?
(a) A theorem about series.
(b) A functional approximation.
(c) Notes on the performance of nested square roots.
(d) An algorithm, but without values.

7. What did Littlewood and Hardy see as mathematically important?
(a) Ramanujan's nested square roots.
(b) Ramanujan's detailed proofs.
(c) Ramanujan's use of irrational numbers.
(d) Ramanujan's infinite series.

8. What does Kanigel say prevented Ramanujan from getting the care he needed?
(a) His family's poverty.
(b) His distance from the cultural centers.
(c) The fight between his wife and mother.
(d) The Great War.

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

10. To what extent does Kanigel say Ramanujan blended in with Cambridge society?
(a) He remained hostile to it.
(b) He was always in between cultures.
(c) Thoroughly.
(d) Not very much.

11. What cultural practice did Ramanujan insist on, in Kanigel's account?
(a) Vegetarianism.
(b) Daily prayers.
(c) Animal sacrifice.
(d) Visiting Hindu shrines.

12. Who developed an exact solution to the question of partitions?
(a) Euler.
(b) Hardy.
(c) Later mathematicians.
(d) Ramanujan.

13. What did NOT contribute to Ramanujan's discomfort during the sea voyage to England?
(a) Seasickness.
(b) The temperatures.
(c) The strangers.
(d) Homesickness.

14. How does Kanigel describe English society from Ramanujan's point-of-view?
(a) Rarefied.
(b) Malicious.
(c) Homogenous.
(d) Effete.

15. Who was absent from the dock when Ramanujan's ship came in?
(a) His father.
(b) His friends.
(c) His wife.
(d) His mother.

Short Answer Questions

1. How did Ramanujan see himself socially, according to Kanigel?

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

3. Who was Neville?

4. What was the doctor's prescription for Ramanujan's condition?

5. How does Kanigel describe John Littlewood?

(see the answer keys)

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