Send submissions to David E. Rowe, Fachbereich 17--Mathematik, Johannes Gutenberg University, D55099 Mainz, Germany. U nder normal conditions the outcome of a math exam--whether pass or fail--rarely makes a dramatic change in a person's life. However, there have been times, during wars or other political turmoil, when falling an exam might cost one dearly, or when passing might save one's life. The three stories told here involve people who were forced to answer a mathematical question under rather trying circumstances. Fortunately, all three of these high-stakes exams had a happy ending, even though the dangers at the time placed the examinees under the most intense pressure. The first story concerns Jacob David Tamarldn (1888-1945), a well-known specialist in function theory, functional analysis, and partial differential and integral equations. A St. Petersburg University graduate (1910), he got his Ph.D. in Mathematics in 1917 from the Petrograd University (St. Petersburg changed its name to the slavic-sounding Petrograd in 1914 at the beginning of World War ! because of anti-German feelings.) The time following the October Revolution of 1917 was anything but quiet, as the Civil War raged for the next four years (1918-1921). Political uncertainty and the shortage of food were among the main problems confronting Russia during this time. In the 1920s Tamarkin taught simultaneously at several Petrograd institutes, both out of enthusiasm and because this gave him an opportunity to earn more ration cards for his family. As a member of the Menshevik party before it was outlawed by the rifling Bolsheviks, he carried deep within him a fear that he would be arrested by the secret police. In 1922 authorities expelled from the country a group of about 80 prominent "undesirable" intellectuals: economists, philosophers, and scientists. That same year his university classmate, J. A. Shohat (18861944), left Russia for Poland, and in 1924 another friend and coauthor of Tamarkin's, A. S. Besicovitch (18911970), was denied permission by the Soviet authorities to accept a stipend from the Rockefeller Foundation to conduct research in Denmark in collaboration with Harald Bohr. With no hope for leaving the country legally, Tamarldn, together with Besicovitch, began to make plans for flight. They met in secluded places and discussed when, where, and how they should cross the border. Finally, they chose different directions---Tamarkin left for Latvia via Estonia, whereas Besicovitch escaped via Finland. After spending a year with H. Bohr, Besicovitch moved to England, where he worked for thirty years at Trinity College and was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society. He made fundamental contributions to geometric measure theory, real and complex analysis, as well as to the theory of sets of fractional dimension. Tamarldn decided to look for a position in the U.S.A. His problems began when he tried to slip over the border into Estonia. While crossing the Chudskoe Lake, ~'.,ich was frozen over, he was fired on by the border guards on the Russian side of the lake. After this harrowing experience and several days of travel, he arrived in the Latvian capital, Riga. At the U.S. Consulate, Tamarkin encountered his next problem. As E. Hille recounted,