Could You Pass the 1869 Harvard Entrance Exam?

[gravenewworld]

http://spectrum.columbiaspectator.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/04/harvardexam.pdf


Ok, so the Latin and Greek sections may be outdated, but everything else is still fair game for today. Brutal test.

 

[gravenewworld]

MIT's is a beast too:

http://libraries.mit.edu/archives/exhibits/exam/

 

[GregJ]

MIT's is a beast too:

http://libraries.mit.edu/archives/exhibits/exam/

The beards in that photo rocks.

 

[ArcanaNoir]

at least there's no latin required for MIT. I would have been in no problem. The harvard geography got the best of me.

 

[gravenewworld]

The MIT English section would have dominated me. I hate to admit it, but I don't recognize some of those authors.

 

[Astronuc]

The MIT English section would have dominated me. I hate to admit it, but I don't recognize some of those authors.

The English section is really more of a humanities/geography section, and the references are a reflection of the times. I would expect that a classic education of the time would have exposed one to the authors, works and geography of the time and region. I'm sure students at a university were expected to be familiar with Massachusetts geography. I also imagine that it was expected that MIT would take the top students from various communities.

 

[Chi Meson]

Ho MAN, I am so IN to MIT now!

Except for that "What part of the month of August is 7/18 minutes?"

I bet that's the secret code question, where the kids of the lumber barons are told to write:

"the part that falls in the corner," or something.

 

[Physics_UG]

was latin and greek common knowledge at the time or soemthing?

 

[CheckMate]

So if that MIT test was still around I could get in MIT ? That's pretty awesome.

 

[AlephZero]

was latin and greek common knowledge at the time or soemthing?

Assuming the American model of education was similar to the UK, then yes, anybody who attended school past the age of about 10 and was planning to go to university would take courses in Latin, and probably Greek as well, as part of the standard curriiculum.

Even in the 1970s, passing an exam in Latin was a still compulsory requirement to read any subject at Oxford or Cambridge universities in the UK. But that was no big deal, since in state schools (= US public schools) that were likely to send students to Oxbridge, everybody took courses in a couple of foreign languages, usually French and Latin for the top streams, and French and German for the rest, with national exams (the GCE - General Certificate of Education) at age 16.