View a FREE sample

This test consists of 5 short answer questions, 10 short essay questions, and 1 (of 3) essay topics.

Short Answer Questions

1. What does Kanigel say Ramanujan disliked as a child?

2. What was G. H. Hardy's status in Britain?

3. What class was Ramanujan raised in?

4. Who were the Senior Wranglers?

5. Who was G. H. Hardy?

Short Essay Questions

1. What problems in Ramanujan's thinking came from his use of 'A Synopsis of Elementary Results in Pure and Applied Mathematics'?

2. How was it that Ramanujan would solve math problems without seeing the logic that dictated the development and solutions to problems?

3. What practices did Ramanujan follow as a result of his religion?

4. What does 'A Synopsis of Elementary Results in Pure and Applied Mathematics' consist of?

5. Describe Ramanujan's wedding ceremony.

6. How did marriage change Ramanujan's life?

7. What was Hardy's experience at Trinity College, Cambridge?

8. Describe Ramanujan's place of birth.

9. How did Ramanujan go about looking for work?

10. What happened after Ramanujan left Kumbakonam's Government College?

Essay Topics

Write an essay for ONE of the following topics:

Essay Topic 1

What kind of mathematical thinker was Ramanujan? What kinds of problems was he attracted to, and how did he deploy his intelligence to solve them? What kinds of problems did he avoid?

Essay Topic 2

To what extent is Ramanujan's (or Hardy's) life an example to be followed? What lessons do these two lives teach? What lessons did they fail to learn themselves that they teach as negative examples?

Essay Topic 3

Ramanujan was never a teacher, just a theoretical mathematician. Describe the role of researcher and evaluate its benefit to Ramanujan: was it good for him? Would he have been happy or miserable as a teacher?

(see the answer keys)

This section contains 681 words (approx. 3 pages at 300 words per page) View a FREE sample