Goodness me, this brings back memories having taken the entrance exam back in 2009. I am glad that they have removed the "We do not guarantee the accuracy of the English translation of the original Japanese version of the exam" clause. It should be noted that this is only one "session" of a series of exams that you take in a single day. If I remember correctly there were two computer science sessions as well, followed by a presentation of your thesis in front of the faculty once your exams had been graded. After this you had to wait for a few weeks for the final result.
It should be noted that I don't find these exams to be particularly difficult, the main difficult lies in the fact that the number of potential topics are drawn from the whole University of Tokyo undergraduate curriculum, so if you studied as an undergraduate at a different school or country -- like me -- you are at a significant disadvantage. What I did was to look at ten years or so of exams to get some statistics on what was likely to be on the exam, then locked myself in my room for the whole of January to cover portions that I had not studied before -- like network protocol specifics. In the end, it worked out for me, but I got somewhat lucky in that there were two statistics questions that I could breeze through to cover for my weaker calculus skills given my old school's focus on discrete mathematics.
Problem 1.1 seems to be within the realm of casual curiosity for somebody who hasn't even entered undergraduate school. It's basically "I know what a matrix is, and how a matrix multiplies with a vector".
The general structure of the problems is that they start out with easy questions and get progressively more difficult. If you don't get a single "last question" right, the committee will most likely tear you to pieces. At least this was the common understanding back when I was at Todai.
Fun random fact, back in 2009 Todai had their own "brand" of toilet paper made from recycled paper -- old archived exams that is. I think that I still have a roll stashed away in a box somewhere. Using it did give you a bit of a weird feeling knowing the anguish old students must have gone through.
> Fun random fact, back in 2009 Todai had their own "brand" of toilet paper made from recycled paper -- old archived exams that is. I think that I still have a roll stashed away in a box somewhere. Using it did give you a bit of a weird feeling knowing the anguish old students must have gone through.
And this is admission to Graduate School, so the equivalent of a M.Sc. or Phd in the US, right? (i.e. Is the term graduate school the same or is this entrance to college?)
It seems reasonable to me. Certainly, even if you don't get all of the questions correctly, this exam tells you more about the proficiency of a candidate than a standard graduate school exam like the GRE (in the US) does. Especially if a student can explain some reasoning for incomplete problems.
I am not sure when this would even be desirable. If a student fails a question regarding a definition (simple, memorisation) and succeeds in proving the complexity of a novel algorithm (complex, innovation). Why would I emphasise the former? Besides, there are your grades and the presentation/interview as well -- at least for the PhD.
> And this is admission to Graduate School, so the equivalent of a M.Sc. or Phd in the US, right? (i.e. Is the term graduate school the same or is this entrance to college?)
Yes, that is correct. If I remember correctly, they use the same exam for the MSc and PhD.
Only vaguely related, but I've made it all the way through high school (doing the 2 hardest of three maths subjects) and a software development degree without ever having a lesson on Matrices.
There really seems to be a hole in the system somewhere.
Yeah, matrices are also very useful. Instead of needing the "Tribonacci" equation definition, you can approximate or exactly match a large number of equations and operations with matrices.
Anyway, there are many things missing. I feel that An Introduction to Law and Legal Reasoning should be standard middle-school reading; but alas, civics has not been part of the curriculum in my life time.
I mean, yeah and I never use an array ints since school, but I still work as a developer. However, I'm sure some folks in other areas certainly do.
I'm not sure anymore as I get older that it is really a hole in a negative way. Like yes, it is a hole, but you know, you can't learn everything in your finite time.
> I am glad that they have removed the "We do not guarantee the accuracy of the English translation of the original Japanese version of the exam" clause.
What languages do they run the exam in? Do they accept a lot of foreign students / students for which Japanese proficiency is a barrier for writing the test?
Japanese and English are the only languages for the exams. Unless the curriculum has changed radically I would not recommend doing a MSc without already being proficient in Japanese. It would be far better to enter as an undergraduate on the MEXT fellowship that includes a year of full-time studies learning Japanese before you proceed to enter a university. Only a handful out of hundreds of classes are held in English at a graduate level and I suspect that the situation is even worse as an undergraduate. PhD studies should be fine, most schools have Japanese classes and as long as your supervisor is fluent you will most likely have a good time.
But hey, I am looking for a tenure track position at a decent university back in Japan over the next few years. There is a will to become more international and hopefully I can find a way to contribute towards that goal. Still, we should not fool ourselves and say that things are fine as they currently are -- know what you are getting yourself into.
It should be noted that I don't find these exams to be particularly difficult, the main difficult lies in the fact that the number of potential topics are drawn from the whole University of Tokyo undergraduate curriculum, so if you studied as an undergraduate at a different school or country -- like me -- you are at a significant disadvantage. What I did was to look at ten years or so of exams to get some statistics on what was likely to be on the exam, then locked myself in my room for the whole of January to cover portions that I had not studied before -- like network protocol specifics. In the end, it worked out for me, but I got somewhat lucky in that there were two statistics questions that I could breeze through to cover for my weaker calculus skills given my old school's focus on discrete mathematics.