Can you pass the Eighth Grade FInal Examination from Salina Kansas 1895?

[malaise]

Remember when Grandparents and great-grandparents stated that they only had an 8th grade education? Well, check this out. Could any of us have passed the 8th grade in 1895?

This is the eighth-grade final exam from 1895 in Salina , Kansas , USA . It was taken from the original document on file at the Smokey Valley Genealogical Society and Library in Salina, and reprinted by the Salina Journal..

8th Grade Final Exam:



Salina , KS - 1895

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 'lie,' 'play,' 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 hour 15 minutes)
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 3,942 lbs, what is it worth at 50cts/bushel, deducting 1,050 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 the cost of 6,720 lbs. Coal at $6.00 per ton.
6. Find the interest of $512.60 for 8 months and 18 days at 7percent per annum.
7. What is the cost of 40 boards 12 inches wide and 16 ft long at $20 per metre?
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 of 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, 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, pre, semi, post, non, inter, mono, sup.
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 North America .
5. Name and describe the following: Monrovia , Odessa , Denver , Manitoba , Hecla , Yukon , St. Helena, Juan Fernandez, Aspinwall and Orinoco.
6. Name and locate the principal trade centers of the U.S. Name all the republics of Europe and give the 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 the inclination of the earth.


Notice that the exam took FIVE HOURS to complete.
Gives the saying 'he only had an 8th grade education' a whole new meaning, doesn't it?!

[MineralMan]

1. Snopes is your friend.

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

[malaise]

5. Snopes is my friend on this one

:D

[proud2BlibKansan]

11. Not really

Unrec for teacher bashing. Surprised coming from you my friend.

[begin_within]

12. As an aside, who the hell believes Snopes or Wikipedia?

Only fools believe web sites.

[GreenPartyVoter]

2. I can't do it, but reading the Snopes entry about it makes me feel a little bit better. LOL

[NYC_SKP]

3. Most of these things have nothing to do with being a successful greedy stockbroker, for example.

And since Americans equate money with success, nobody cares how many of these things are understood.

[Pab Sungenis]

4. A few of them are easy.

The entire History portion is simple (except for the history of Kansas, which I have only a cursory knowledge of but Kansas residents at the time would know a lot of).

"Arithmetic" is cheating a little since some of the measurements used (for example, "rods" and to a lesser degree "bushel") are no longer in common use.

"Orthography" has changed in the past century. We no longer use as many diacritical marks , relying more on phonetic alphabets to define sounds.

And, of course, "Geography" has changed considerably. The map of Europe is completely different. The centers of population and trade in the U.S. have mostly moved. And we know a lot more about climate today that makes the climate related questions on this test seem absurdly vague.

[Lochloosa]

6. Of what use are rivers? Of what use is the ocean?

Drainage and disposal system for our crap?

[jmowreader]

7. Question 7 on the Arithmetic portion gives it away

Who in Kansas cared about the metric system in 1895?

I am certain a Kansas 8th grader in 1895 wouldn't be able to answer this:

In this question assume the trucks in use are capable of an average speed of 50 miles per hour. Also assume they get the same fuel mileage on flat ground as they do in mountainous terrain.

The American Oil Company can produce 10.31 gallons of diesel from one barrel of crude oil. General Electric makes wind turbines in Greenville, SC, and their most popular turbine produces 1.5 megawatts of power. It requires nine trucks to move two of them, and these trucks get 5.5 miles per gallon. Three trucks carry turbine blades, two blades per truck. One of the turbine blade trucks has to return to Greenville carrying all three blade trailers stacked atop each other.

1. If Northwestern Power orders 18 megawatts of generating capacity to be delivered to Box Elder, Montana, how many barrels of crude oil will it take to deliver the turbines by the most economical route? In calculating this, remember that of every nine trucks, one truck has to travel twice as far because its driver must bring the blade trailers back to Greenville.

2. Truckers are allowed to drive for 11 hours before they must stop for 10. Many truck stops cannot handle trucks carrying turbine blades because they're much longer than most trucks, so the drivers have learned they can drive for nine hours before stopping at a truck stop large enough to handle their trucks. If the trucks leave Greenville on Monday, June 1st, at what day and time will the trucks arrive in Box Elder?

3. The drivers who haul blades receive 65 cents for every mile they drive carrying blades and 62 cents for every mile they drive carrying trailers. The drivers who haul other parts of the turbines receive 54 cents per mile. What will the total payroll for the entire load be?

4. Name ten landmarks the drivers will pass as they drive this route.

5. List all the states the drivers will pass through on their trip.

6. All the drivers must return to Greenville after delivering their loads because they work for GE. The trucks not carrying blade trailers carry what is called "general freight." Name five items made in Montana the drivers might be told to bring back to South Carolina.

7. How many years was South Carolina a state before Montana became one?

8. Name a kind of weather South Carolina might get that Montana does not.

9. Name a kind of weather Montana gets that South Carolina usually does not.

10. Write a 300-word essay about one of the states the drivers will have to pass through on their trip.

[proud2BlibKansan]

10. +1

[jmowreader]

14. I looked at that again...

Most of US couldn't answer that.

[PVnRT]

8. *yawn*

Kids today are stupid....teachers are lazy....blah blah blah....people today can't do shit....ahhh, the good ol' days.....et cetera, et cetera.

[Gaedel]

9. Yes, things have changed

What is the velocity in furlongs per fortnight?

What was the disposition of the Banat of Temesvar after World War I?

[MattBaggins]

13. That test is clearly a fake

Everyone knows that in the good old days every other questions would have been about gawd or guns.

They didn't have gays back then as we all know or they would have had questions about them as well. Gays magically appeared in the 60s.

[slampoet]

15. This test is SO FAKE there is even an error in question #8 Orthography

it asks you to divide into syllables and then gives you a list that consists almost entirely of one-syllable words.