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

Multiple Choice Questions

1. How did Ramanujan spend all his time on returning to India?
(a) With his parents.
(b) At the school where he taught.
(c) On math.
(d) With his wife.

2. What was proved incorrect in Ramanujan's work from this time?
(a) His proofs.
(b) His theorems.
(c) His conclusions.
(d) His assumptions.

3. What was the result of Ramanujan clinging to his cultural practices?
(a) He brought Indian culture to English intellectuals.
(b) He generated fear and hostility in those around him.
(c) He remained an outsider.
(d) He taught English students how to cook Indian dishes.

4. How does Kanigel say Ramanujan saw himself when he was returning to India?
(a) A demi-god.
(b) A complete failure.
(c) Not successful.
(d) A celebrity.

5. Who is NOT included in the list of people who have benefited from Ramanujan's work, in Kanigel's account?
(a) Computer scientists.
(b) Physicists.
(c) Engineers.
(d) Surgeons.

6. How does Kanigel describe John Littlewood?
(a) A consultant.
(b) A bureaucrat.
(c) A math prodigy.
(d) A therapist.

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

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

9. What did the divergent series 1+2+3+4+5... add up to in Ramanujan's notebooks?
(a) 39.
(b) -1/12.
(c) Infinity.
(d) 7.

10. What did Hardy and his friends arrange for Ramanujan?
(a) A teaching position.
(b) A bureaucratic appointment.
(c) A research position.
(d) A sinecure.

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

12. Who was Neville?
(a) Hardy's ambassador to Ramanujan.
(b) Ramanujan's ambassador to Hardy.
(c) The dean at the university where Ramanujan was doing his research.
(d) Ramanujan's Tutor.

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

14. What society was Ramanujan elected to?
(a) The Academy of Sciences.
(b) Phi Beta Kappa.
(c) The Apostles.
(d) The Royal Society.

15. How do people account for Ramanujan's self-assessment?
(a) Overwork.
(b) Hardy's coldness.
(c) Ramanujan's naïveté.
(d) Ramanujan's arrogance.

Short Answer Questions

1. Who was Leonard Euler?

2. With whom did Ramanujan eventually begin to develop a real relationship, according to Kanigel?

3. In his letter to Hardy, what was the importance of the thing Ramanujan claimed to have discovered?

4. How does Kanigel characterize Ramanujan's theorems and formulas?

5. How long did the trip from India to England take?

(see the answer keys)

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