How smart are you? Take a look at an 1895 8th grade exam.

[TRUTHSEEKER_01]

Grammar (Time, one hour)
1. Give nine rules for the use of Capital Letters.
2. Name the Parts of Speech and define those that have no modifications.
3. Define Verse, Stanza and Paragraph.
4. What are the Principal Parts of a verb? Give Principal Parts of do, lie, lay and run.
5. Define Case, Illustrate each Case.
6. What is Punctuation? Give rules for principal marks of Punctuation.
7-10. Write a composition of about 150 words and show therein that you understand the practical use of the rules of grammar.

Arithmetic (Time, 1.25 hours)
1. Name and define the Fundamental Rules of Arithmetic.
2. A wagon box is 2 ft. deep, 10 feet long, and 3 ft. wide. How many bushels of wheat will it hold?
3. If a load of wheat weighs 3942 lbs., what is it worth at 50cts. per bu, deducting 1050 lbs. for tare?
4. District No. 33 has a valuation of $35,000. What is the necessary levy to carry on a school seven months at $50 per month, and have $104 for incidentals?
5. Find cost of 6720 lbs. coal at $6.00 per ton.
6. Find the interest of $512.60 for 8 months and 18 days at 7 percent.
7. What is the cost of 40 boards 12 inches wide and 16 ft. long at $.20 per inch?
8. Find bank discount on $300 for 90 days (no grace) at 10 percent.
9. What is the cost of a square farm at $15 per acre, the distance around which is 640 rods?
10.Write a Bank Check, a Promissory Note, and a Receipt.

U.S. History (Time, 45 minutes)
1. Give the epochs into which U.S. History is divided.
2. Give an account of the discovery of America by Columbus.
3. Relate the causes and results of the Revolutionary War.
4. Show the territorial growth of the United States.
5. Tell what you can of the history of Kansas.
6. Describe three of the most prominent battles of the Rebellion.
7. Who were the following: Morse, Whitney, Fulton, Bell, Lincoln, Penn, and Howe?
8. Name events connected with the following dates: 1607, 1620, 1800, 1849, and 1865?

Orthography (Time, one hour)
1. What is meant by the following: Alphabet, phonetic orthography, etymology, syllabication?
2. What are elementary sounds? How classified?
3. What are the following, and give examples of each: Trigraph, subvocals, diphthong, cognate letters, linguals?
4. Give four substitutes for caret 'u'.
5. Give two rules for spelling words with final 'e'. Name two exceptions under each rule.
6. Give two uses of silent letters in spelling. Illustrate each.
7. Define the following prefixes and use in connection with a word: Bi, dis, mis, pre, semi, post, non, inter, mono, super.
8. Mark diacritically and divide into syllables the following, and name the sign that indicates the sound: Card, ball, mercy, sir, odd, cell, rise, blood, fare, last.
9. Use the following correctly in sentences, Cite, site, sight, fane, fain, feign, vane, vain, vein, raze, raise, rays.
10.Write 10 words frequently mispronounced and indicate pronunciation by use of diacritical marks and by syllabication.

Geography (Time, one hour)
1. What is climate? Upon what does climate depend?
2. How do you account for the extremes of climate in Kansas?
3. Of what use are rivers? Of what use is the ocean?
4. Describe the mountains of N.A.
5. Name and describe the following: Monrovia, Odessa, Denver, Manitoba, Hecla, Yukon, St. Helena, Juan Fermandez, Aspinwall and Orinoco.
6. Name and locate the principal trade centers of the U.S.
7. Name all the republics of Europe and give capital of each.
8. Why is the Atlantic Coast colder than the Pacific in the same latitude?
9. Describe the process by which the water of the ocean returns to the sources of rivers.
10.Describe the movements of the earth. Give inclination of the earth.

http://mwhodges.home.att.net/1895-test.htm

How does it compare to todays 8th grade exams..?

[Skidmore]

1. But we have technology and the whole word method of

teaching reading.

[0007]

2. This toon sez it all

[TRUTHSEEKER_01]

4. Funny Toon!

[Buck Turgidson]

3. Snopes says, "Urban legend"!

http://www.snopes.com/language/document/1895exam.htm

[EstimatedProphet]

32. I knew it!

This is crap from the right wing to make people think that students these days are uneducated because of the evil liberal agenda.

[clu]

37. minor nitpick

snopes doesn't claim that the questions aren't from a real test - only that we can't blame our inability to answer the questions on declining standards in education.

[clu]

39. hmm just read the link in the OP

which of course compares 1890 educational standards with ours...

[izzie]

5. Does not seem hard if I was in the 8th grade

So nice to be old and know that the first thing that goes is that you can not recall hardly anything. First what I had to learn in the 8th grade.

[DainBramaged]

6. More Rethuglican propaganda

What's next, how home school kids of the 1800's became geniuses at a faster rate than public school kids?

Balderdash and poppycock. I call bullshit.

[Frank Cannon]

15. I don't buy it either.

I found a 1920s college trigonometry book amongst my father-in-law's possessions. The problems and concepts presented were far EASIER than in a college trigonometry book of today, because they had only tables and paper to work with and the problems took a long time to work out by hand.

There's an old German saying that goes something like, "Nothing is more responsible for 'the good old days' than our poor powers of recollection."

[Arkansas Granny]

25. That's a great saying. I'm going to have to find an occasion to

use that. Thanks! :hi:

[fishwax]

40. that's a great saying

i'll have to remember that one :thumbsup:

[FloridaPat]

7. Besides the geography stuff, and some arithmetic

when in your life have you ever hada need to know any of that stuff?

[Name removed]

8. Deleted message

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[Name removed]

10. Deleted message

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[LostinVA]

13. What a nice early morning giggle

[mortlefaucheur]

9. Bookmark later to humiliate ill-informed 'MurKKKans...

>:) ...

[obreaslan]

11. I don't remember any of this stuff....When I was in 8th grade, in 1895...

I skipped school and got snookered at a box-social. My parents were fit to be tied as I was bandied about the house.

:)

[LostinVA]

14. Was this before or after the cake walk?

[wake.up.america]

12. Compare that with today's test.

1)Name the members of the Backstreet Boys.
2)How many gold hits does B. Spears have?
3)Who is the present American Idol?
4)Who is Kobe Bryant?
5)What is difference between a CB and a FS?
6)With whom is J. Lo married?
7)What does "kewl" mean?
8)What is a 540?
9)Who's John Cena?
10)What is Ric Flair's first name?
11)When was the War of 1812?
13)How long was the Thirty Years War?
14)What does carving mean?
15)What does "punked" mean?

[fasttense]

16. There are no questions about Government,

literature, music, art or foreign nations. (That was for the rich ruling class).

You had five hours to take this test. With questions such as: "Relate the causes and results of the Revolutionary War. What is climate? Upon what does climate depend? Of what use are rivers? Of what use is the ocean?" You would need all five hours.

I don't see how they could grade them. I could write a book on "What is climate? Upon what does climate depend? Of what use is the ocean?" I suspect they were looking for specific three or four word answers that kids memorized. I don't believe they were looking for the actual interaction of climate patterns, trade winds and the affects of the ice caps.

The limit of knowledge was more defined back then. While you and I could expound endlessly on climate, they had only a basic understanding that was simpler and easily described.

There is a great emphasis on proper grammar. Typical, class divided society with heavy emphasis on appearances. Appearing educated was more important than actually being educated.

But I wouldn't be taking this test. Woman and girls were not educated back then, unless of course they were born into wealthy families.

[hayu_lol]

17. And, in 1895, a young 8th grader could...

run away to play in a circus band; aspire to drive great bellowing steam locomotives; and generally drift across the landscape when he fouled up thereby escaping his past and making a new start.

[Deja Q]

21. These days you can have a Masters or even Doctorates...

and still jobless, rotting in the streets.

Cool, huh? Our Great Society that cherishes life, freedom, and allowing people to use their talents and not be drones for corporate greed. :sarcasm:

[Random_Australian]

18. Not too difficult.

It seems a lot more memory than comprehension though.

Edit: Do I need an asbestos suit to say that? These questions don't exactly need complex answers.... and for those who would like to point out the complexity of climate, that was unknown back then.

[northzax]

29. right now, on a neutral field

give me 8 hours to review, and I can answer every one of these questions. it's all simple stuff, just in words that are archaic.

but the big question: can any of them describe the cell? photosynthesis? know what DNA is? describe the prniciple of flight? name the 9 planets? atomic theory? binary code? no? crappy memorization then, ain't it?

this isn't thought, it's rote.

[spinbaby]

19. Snopes says...

FALSE!

http://www.snopes.com/language/document/1895exam.htm

[Shipwack]

24. Actually, Snopes doesn't say that it's false, at least not completely.

Most of the Snopes article is about how the skill set is lacking in several areas (world history, for instance), or requires specialised knowledge not readily available to today's youth (who may not know how large a bushel is, but might know how many bytes are in a megabyte).

Plus, this test would be taken by students who had been going over the material all year, with a last minute "review" to hammer back in key names and dates. Cramming for CAT (achievement tests taken in Florida and other states) tests apparently has a long history...

Then it seems to imply that the test is really a teacher's exam from 1890... but even back then many teachers would fall short in the answers.

::edited to correct grammer and punctuation errors (at least some, if not all):: :blush:

[Zynx]

20. Holy crap. I'd fail that thing.

I could do well at the Geography and History and could do pretty well at the arithmetic, but that's about it.

[mainegreen]

22. But how would they do on todays science tests?

Most people have a ton of basic science knowledge in their heads today, from loose understanding of atomic structure, to modern knowledge of astronomy and stellar physics, basic chemistry, geology. Not to mention world religions, world history. The increase in the amount of subjects and total sum of human knowledge in general over the last hundred years has unfortuanatly rendered deeper knowledge of other areas of study difficult to attain. Now I'm not saying which is better, but todays society is not like yesterdays, and what people need to learn has changed. Of course I would rock that test, except for the grammer. I can barely spell my name! :7

[AngryAmish]

23. This is such garbage

It is an uncontroverted fact that folks in the US are smarter than every before. IQ tests have to be renormed every 20 years or so because for the last 100 years there has been a great advance in mean intelligence. If a person with a 100 IQ today took a 1920 with 1920 testing scale they would score much higher than 100 nowadays.

[Chiyo-chichi]

26. Give the epochs into which U.S. History is divided.

Pre 9/11 and Post 9/11?

[Squeech]

27. Moreover

what does this say about the curriculum?

We have a lot of memorization, e.g. the Rules of Arithmetic and the Epochs of US History, none of which actually helps you solve real problems. We have classes of problems for which they used to drill students on formulas, like the bank interest stuff, or for knowledge that we would now consider specialized, i.e. size and weight of a bushel of grain or definition of a board foot of lumber. We have a lot of obsolete language arts stuff.

The history part is really problematic. What is the significance of 1865? Lee surrendered to Grant, and Lincoln was shot. But the *important* story isn't how the Civil War ended, it's why it started.

I like what I remember of my 20th century education better. We didn't learn so many rules and laws and categories and exceptions, we learned (at best) general principles and heuristics for deciding which of them were applicable in which situations. (That was the point of New Math, although I don't remember ever hearing it stated as such, I had to figure it out in retrospect.)

Although it'd be helpful if more voters could answer the first geography question: Upon what does climate depend?

[AllieB]

28. It looks as if the OP is taking the eternal nap

so he won't be able to answer us.

[NorthernSpy]

38. 1. how many bushels of Earthe shalle be remov'd to provide a Grayve...

... of standard dimension for the Trolles final repose?

2. Give the meaning of the word tomb-stone and breake said word into syllables.

[warrens]

30. This is just like their SAT arguments

You know, that SAT scores have gone down since the 50s because our public schools suck. Only, back then only college-bound students took the SAT; today, everyone does. They always leave that little fact out.

For that matter, how would you like to take the test at a Muslim religious school in Pakistan. The test is simple: recite the entire Koran, start to finish, from memory. I doubt many American adults could pass that test, either.

[DainBramaged]

31. Well, we know douche bag was a plant, I tried to be subtle

in my first reply, but if you're reading this Truthtell..., uh lying fuck, blow me, back to Hannity or Freeper land.

[proud2BlibKansan]

33. Bullshit alert

[jmowreader]

34. Remember that this is a test from Kansas

The test is geared toward someone studying to be a wheat farmer--the main industry in pre-1900s Kansas. (However, they forgot to ask any questions about setting up horse-drawn plows. You'd think that would be in there.)

Now imagine the same test given in Gloucester, Mass. All the science stuff would be related to the ocean...because if you lived in Gloucester at the time, you either pulled fish out of the ocean or dealt with it when it got back to town. The test you'd get in coastal Carolina would revolve around oyster harvesting. In Idaho it would be logging, root farming or silver mining depending on where you lived. You get the idea.

I've got a complaint about the lumber question. Back then, softwood (which this probably was) was sold by the "thousand"--1000 board feet. Most hardwood was sold by the board foot, and the really exotic hardwoods like ebony and lignum vitae were sold by the pound. So what's this inch shit? The proper way to write this question would have been, "What is the cost of forty 16-foot 2x12s at $145 per thousand?"

[NorthernSpy]

35. no literature? no science? no algebra?

Just some basic figuring and grammar, with a few spew-from-memory geography and history questions -- that was considered an entire year's worth of book larnin' back then?

I hate to admit it, but maybe education really HAS improved!

[Nutmegger]

36. Um, WELCOME TO DU!!!

:toast:

[Moderator]

41. locking

Author is no longer with us.