Monday, April 11, 2011

Could You Pass Harvard's Entrance Exam From 1869?

The New York Times recently covered an interesting piece of the history of old distinguished universities. It was a pretty interesting article that you can find here: Remembering When College Was a Buyer’s Bazaar

The real reason I was interested is that they dug up an old entrance exam from Harvard in 1869.

The curriculum is wildly different of course with requirements in knowing Latin and Greek, but could you pass the same stuff that we need to know today? 


Anyway, check out the PDF here.



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32 comments:

  1. FangApril 11, 2011 at 8:11 AM

    I'm kind of nervous for my future school-career. Hope it all goes smoothly, don't want to psned two years trying to get accepted or anything...

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  2. JayApril 11, 2011 at 8:12 AM

    before: challenge accepted.
    after: poker face.

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  3. The Angry LurkerApril 11, 2011 at 8:31 AM

    I click on the link and get an adobe document but it's blank but it may be the shitty work computer.

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  4. HavenApril 11, 2011 at 9:27 AM

    Ahaha, oh my. Well I can do all the math, and I little of the history, literature, geography, but not even close to what they're asking.

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  5. NopeApril 11, 2011 at 9:44 AM

    no. That's all I have to say. I can't do any of that. Well at least not without giving it a huge amount of effort, and probably google.

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  6. AnonymousApril 11, 2011 at 9:59 AM

    I failed at first question lol

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  7. Ante BabajaApril 11, 2011 at 10:47 AM

    damn, thats difficult

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  8. edApril 11, 2011 at 10:54 AM

    ill be honest, i dont know how to do a single one of these

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  9. BTN Hip HopApril 11, 2011 at 12:11 PM

    saving this for later, very interesting. it cant be as hard as it is now surely

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  10. 123April 11, 2011 at 1:35 PM

    I didn't know a single one

    feels bad, man

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  11. UnknownApril 11, 2011 at 1:41 PM

    Sure :P

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  12. Mike LitorisApril 11, 2011 at 1:58 PM

    oh shit

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  13. R.CApril 11, 2011 at 2:01 PM

    Haha! There's no way I can do it! Literally know nothing about latin right now!

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  14. SOMSApril 11, 2011 at 2:39 PM

    wow, i wont pass it for sure right now. i like to believe if i studied hard i would )

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  15. Matt NeumannApril 11, 2011 at 3:57 PM

    i probably couldnt!

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  16. Biff TannerApril 11, 2011 at 4:02 PM

    LOL Not a chance.

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  17. Meghan MoranApril 11, 2011 at 4:48 PM

    Very cool, I wonder why they placed such importance on all things Latin and Greek back then.

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  18. RedHeadRobApril 11, 2011 at 4:53 PM

    That was pretty neat!

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  19. ResCogitansApril 11, 2011 at 5:18 PM

    latin stuff was tricky and i studied latin quite a lot!
    math stuff was ok.
    history fail.
    geography fail.

    i remember when i was doing further maths A-level (for americans - that's extra hard maths for 18 year-olds) we did practice papers that were old o-level papers from the 70s (ordinary maths for 16 year-olds).

    no doubt exams are dumbing down. however, there is good argument that knowledge is literally at our fingertips now, and so there should be a swing in emphasis towards less rote learning of knowledge and towards understanding and communication. i think that's a bit oversimplified, but you catch the drift i'm sure.

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  20. GraftedApril 11, 2011 at 5:21 PM

    Took a course in Latin once. Apparently it didn't stick at all.

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  21. Fishy CorporationApril 11, 2011 at 6:02 PM

    Damn thats hard, i would never get into harvard haha

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  22. RabidmooseApril 11, 2011 at 6:13 PM

    I'll give it a try.

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  23. GApril 11, 2011 at 6:46 PM

    oh man that's crazy difficult!

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  24. UnknownApril 11, 2011 at 6:49 PM

    cool, i gonna try this later

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  25. ExoticBloggerApril 11, 2011 at 6:51 PM

    couldn't answer a damn one oh lawd.

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  26. TunerollApril 11, 2011 at 8:06 PM

    Wow that was hard!

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  27. ericsApril 11, 2011 at 9:22 PM

    back in the days, exams used to mean something.

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  28. sporktarApril 12, 2011 at 12:11 AM

    uhh. no.

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  29. pezasiedApril 12, 2011 at 12:33 AM

    No, just no, read the first page and gave up

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  30. MoobeatApril 12, 2011 at 12:34 AM

    not sure

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  31. Patti D.April 12, 2011 at 3:50 AM

    with my eyes closed!

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  32. Fred RickersonApril 12, 2011 at 11:04 AM

    Saw this on redderp, I know I couldn't pass that test for my life haha. Very cool read though.

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