[replicant]

Only to the undesirables students. Quoting the paper, "The Mathematics Department of Moscow State University, the most prestigious mathematics school in Russia, was at that time actively trying to keep Jewish students (and other 'undesirables') from enrolling in the department. One of the methods they used for doing this was to give the unwanted students a different set of problems on their oral exam."

[alkonaut]

Ah. Then it makes sense. I thought first it was a set of carefully selected problems, created for the purpose of letting one group fail and another pass. Which would have been very interesting (i.e. are there problems which one group solves better than another, or problems that one group must refuse to solve for religious reasons etc).

Giving a set of hard problems to an unwanted group and a separate set of problems (or no problems at all) to another is just simple discrimination. They could just as well have had a sign that told the unwanted group not to apply and it would have been no less discriminating.

[kelukelugames]

Which groups are the 'undesirables'?

[pja]

The Jewish students were regarded as the undesirables and given the 'coffin' problems in order to eliminate them - read the links up-thread.

[kelukelugames]

Yes, thank you. I am curious if there were other groups or it's only limited to Jewish students.