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

Short Answer Questions

1. What did Ramanujan do while he waited for his wife?

2. What is the British term for what Americans call private high schools?

3. What class was Ramanujan raised in?

4. Who was Komalatammal?

5. Who gave Ramanujan money to study in Madras?

Short Essay Questions

1. What is Shiva the god of?

2. What led to Ramanujan getting married?

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

4. What was the subject of the challenge Ramanujan set and then resolved in his first paper?

5. What was Hardy's experience at Winchester?

6. How did Ramanujan's temperament reveal itself when he was a child?

7. How did Ramanujan go about looking for work?

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

9. What was the Bloomsbury Group?

10. Who were the Apostles?

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

In what ways is Ramanujan a product of India? What is it about India that is evident in Ramanujan's character? In what ways is Ramanujan British? In what ways is he not? Is he an international citizen in the universe of math?

Essay Topic 3

To what extent was math a social enterprise for Ramanujan? How much did his career depend on other people? What made other people believe in him? What values did those people have that made it important to help Ramanujan?

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This section contains 641 words (approx. 3 pages at 300 words per page) View a FREE sample