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Is there a repository on the Internet which has the old question papers of the tripos? I am specifically interested in the papers during the 1890-1910 era, which was the era before the reforms, although I'm also interested in the other, more recent papers.

Most of the problems which I have come across from the pre-reform era are very interesting, and it would be wonderful if the actual full papers are accessible now.

Thanks in advance!

  • 0
    It looks to me that the Internet Archive has some, e.g. [this](http://www.archive.org/details/mathematicalprob00wolsuoft).2011-09-10
  • 0
    The papers of recent years can be found on the [faculty website](http://www.maths.cam.ac.uk/undergrad/pastpapers/).2011-09-10
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    The papers from 1908-1912 are available [here](http://math.stanford.edu/~lekheng/tripos/math-tripos1908-1912.pdf) and 1913-1917 [here](http://www.archive.org/details/papersetinmathtr00cambrich)2011-09-10
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    May I ask why there are sentences like "Shew that ... " instead of "Show that ..." ?2011-10-26
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    [Old English.](https://secure.wikimedia.org/wiktionary/en/wiki/shew)2011-10-26
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    This doesn't really answer your question, since you asked for online copies; but when I was an undergraduate I occasionally used to play snooker in the Cambridge Union's snooker room, which had an entire wall covered in shelves containing volumes of 19th-century Maths Tripos papers. So if you have a contact who is physically in Cambridge, that would be a place to look.2011-10-26
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    Absolutely astounding how maths from only 100 years is nothing like mathematics today (I imagine these were taken in Lent term of the final year and not hashed into a yearly format as they are at the moment?).2011-12-01
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    @Adam: I have converted your answer to a comment. *Answers should be reserved for posts that answer the question.* Now that you have 50 reputation points, [you are able to comment anywhere on the site](http://meta.stackexchange.com/questions/19756/how-do-comments-work/19757#19757). The "add comment" button is in grey on the lower left of each comment thread.2011-12-01
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    @Adam: What impressed me was the opposite: how similar the old ones and new ones are. They cover different subjects, but other than that they have about the same kind of content. Both seem designed to reward students for committing the proofs of certain well-known results to short-term memory and then regurgitating them on the exam.2012-01-07
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    If you are still interested, I can upload one from $1842$2014-01-06

3 Answers 3

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There are dozens of books which contain papers and solutions. The exam used to be called the senate-house examination a while ago, hence the titles. 'Tripos' is derived from the way the exam was taken, where you had to sit on a 3-legged wooden stool and "wrangle" - argue through problems orally - with the examiners. ('Riders' are just the first few parts of a problem, which are usually simple book-work questions in order to allow the weaker candidates to gain some points on the exam.) To name a few:

  1. Cambridge senate-house problems and riders, with solutions, 1875 - Greenhill
  2. Cambridge senate-house problems and riders, with solutions, 1878 - Glaisher
  3. Mathematical problems for Cambridge Mathematical Tripos - Wolstenholme (I remember seeing a solutions manual to this somewhere, but it might be called something weird like "Key to..." instead of "Solutions to...".)
  4. Cambridge senate-house problems and riders, 1848-1851 - Ferrers
  5. Cambridge senate-house problems and riders, 1843-1851 - Jameson
  6. Cambridge senate-house problems and riders, 1854 - Walton
  7. Cambridge senate-house problems and riders, 1857 - Walton

You can easily discover more by searching "cambridge senate house" on archive.org. Other useful terms include: "cambridge problems and riders", "cambridge senate house solutions", "problems cambridge examinations", "cambridge examples", etc.

  • 1
    An [example search](https://archive.org/search.php?query=Cambridge%20senate-house%20problems) though they are mostly earlier than 18902015-08-15
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They seem to be hard to find! Here is a link to one from 1906 which was published in the Bulletin of the AMS. The article begins with a lengthy description, but includes the actual exam papers. (Navigate to the bottom of the page to find a link to the .pdf.)

An interesting book available from Google e-books for the right price (free) can be found here. It overlaps with your specified period, and has exam papers in various subjects, including mathematics.

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I think if you search through archive.org you will find some there

EDIT: These are outside your era however..