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 were the Tripos?

2. Who was G. H. Hardy?

3. What does Kanigel say about Ramanujan's marriage?

4. How does Kanigel characterize Ramanujan's developing approach to math?

5. Why was Ramanujan late for his wedding?

Short Essay Questions

1. Describe Ramanujan's wedding ceremony.

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

3. Describe Ramanujan's place of birth.

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

5. What is Shiva the god of?

6. Describe Ramanujan's experience at Pachaiyappas College in Madras.

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

8. What work did Ramanujan eventually find?

9. Describe the difference between English mathematics and Continental mathematics.

10. How did Hardy explain the value of math to his family?

Essay Topics

Write an essay for ONE of the following topics:

Essay Topic 1

Compare and contrast Ramanujan's life and Hardy's. How are they similar? How are they different? What did they offer each other? Was Ramanujan truly Hardy's greatest accomplishment? Does that make Ramanujan's depression, suicide attempt and death Hardy's greatest failure?

Essay Topic 2

Was Ramanujan different 'as a person' than he was 'as a mathematician'? Did his work in math redeem the discomforts or failures he suffered elsewhere in his life? How does his life balance out--was he a mathematician, or a fully-developed human being, who could adjust to any number of human experiences?

Essay Topic 3

What did Ramanujan use math for? What problems did he solve with it? Were they abstract mathematical problems, or life problems? How did math solve Ramanujan's life problems? Where did it fail to?

(see the answer keys)

This section contains 652 words (approx. 3 pages at 300 words per page) View a FREE sample