8th grade graduation test

[mnhermit]

I don't know if we've already covered this at some point, but a friend forwarded this email to me about what it took to graduate from 8th grade 100 years ago. Thought I'd share.








What it took to get an 8th grade education in 1895...

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 7 percent.
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)
[Do we even know what this is??]


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.' (HUH?)
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, sup.
8. Mark diacriticall y 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.
7. 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?

Also shows you how different our education system has become and, NO! I don't have the answers

[John B]

It's the real deal. I figured it would have been a Snopes item.

[mnhermit]

Me too. So John, how DO you account for the extremes of climate in Kansas?

[Tim Alexander (fmrly. Camalex)]

Actually -- my 8th grader brings honme some surprisingly (and equally so) difficult stuff -- we old guys just forget how much curriculum exists at the 8th or other grade levels.... No doubt some of this was building on a 7th grade curriculum that migth surprise us as well.

[loopysanchez]

Hmmm... Do you think that 100 years ago the state of Kansas had their learning curriculum geared just ever-so-slightly towards producing good wheat farmers?

If you quizzed me today on the stuff I learned in the 8th grade back in 1987, I'd probably fail miserably if it had specific, memorization-oriented questions like those were. I got A's and B's in all my subjects back then, but haven't thought about grammar/math rules, obscure conversion charts, or plenty of other things since I took the tests on which they were covered.

And now that I think about it, It's kind of amazing that I can even find my way to work every morning, much less spend all day doing engineer stuff, given that I have no idea how many bushels of wheat will fit into a square wagon of given dimensions.

[theevan]

I love the practical nature of the math section.

We have dumbed down. Amazingly so.

[millring]

There are no extremes of climate in Kansas. There are extremes of weather.

Many of the questions are difficult -- not because of the content of the intended answer, but because the questions are often framed in the (somewhat archaic or culture-specific) manner in which that content was taught. It's like watching "Are You Smarter Than A Fifth-Grader?". So many times after the answer is revealed, I realize I knew the answer, but the question would have been asked differently 40 years ago when I was a fifth-grader.

And yesteryear's Eighth-grader couldn't hope to answer today's Eighth-grade test with any greater accuracy than the other way around (as evidenced by our often bewilderment when helping our kids with their homework).

I think that schools are often "tracking" students (much too) early in their school years because of some mistaken notion that general education is not as valuable in an economy of specialization.

But, then, I'm a firm believer in liberal arts education and teaching of fundamentals. I've had too many business owners tell me that after all of the specific training the typical student has been "tracked" to go through, the business really still has to totally train the new hire anyway. And if there's any complaint about those new hires it is that their "tracked" education left them deficient in the fundamentals (they can't read, write, or....and worse....do much in the way of critical thinking). Some of those criticisms (as much as I believe they contain an element of truth) are just the result of short and selective memories of how stupid are all twenty-year-olds without life experience.

[John B]

It's the distance from the coasts. On every continent (OK, maybe not Antarctica), the innermost part of the continent has the most extremes in its weather patterns. I can't remember why, but I knew 18 years ago when I took "Geography of Human Survival" at KU.

[Greg B]

There are no extremes of climate in Kansas. There are extremes of weather.

I noticed that too. I wonder if it's a difference in the language from a century ago to now.

FOr example, one of the words that catches people off guard is "race". Darwin has been accused of being a racist for, among other reasons, naming his book "On the Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection, or The Preservation of Favoured Races in the Struggle for Life "

It sure sounds like he's promoting a "favored race" until you read the book and notice that the first use of the word "race" is when he's discussing the various "races of cabbages".

Back then the word "race" had a meaning that was closer to "species" or "varieties". So I wonder if 100 years ago "climate" meant "weather" and the meaning of the word has just changed?

[gbacklin]

Prof. Sedletz: If I gave you a dollar, and your father gave you a dollar, what would you have?
Larry (Larry Fine) A dollar!
Prof. Sedletz: You don’t know your arithmetic!
Larry (Larry Fine) You don’t know my father!

[paulschlimm]

Dru,

That's great unless you're one of the disaffected cabbages. Cabbages have a hard life. I mean it's damn hard trying to get ahead if you are a cabbage. It's worse trying to get a head of lettuce these days.....

[epaul]

Water, large bodies of water, have a moderating effect on temperature because large bodies of water maintain a fairly steady temperature. Compare Seattle's temperature variation to Mpls.

What does Seattle range? 40-80 degrees?
What does Mpls range? -30 to 100.

The difference maker between the two cites weather? The big, wet, stable ocean.

[epaul]

Attempting to draw applicable conclusions from that one possibly authentic, if not likely to be typical, test example should require you to repeat eighth grade.

[Tamarack]

When this test first appeared in my email I snoped and googled it. It appears to be authentic, but may have been an exam for prospective teachers rather than eighth graders.

(epaul -- whatever you do, DON'T make me repeat eighth grade)

Selective memory and all, I agree with what Millring said. I work with a lot of people in their 20s and 30s who are intelligent, hard-working, and good natured, but lacking in critical thinking and writing skills. A blank screen without an example report from a similar project terrifies them. If a project is at all different from previous projects they come to me for advice. I of course offer sage counsel, but my internal reaction is "Figure it out yourself, dammit!"

[theevan]

Right on, Tam. That's my applicable conclusion. That handbasket-to-hell is teeming with clueless sould and they're taking us with them.

[Village Idiot]

It wasn't that long ago ('50s) that Iowa had country schools and town schools. The rural kids went to the former, and the town kids went to the latter. The country schools went through the 8th grade, while the town schools went through 12th grade. While all the town kids were offered an education through 12th grade, the farm kids had to take and pass a test very similar to the one being discussed here, and if they didn't pass, their education was ended.

As a result, we have a lot of people from that generation who are very intelligent, who have eigth grade educations. When I worked at the farm store people would come in saying they needed so many feet of cable to go around their grain bin. I'd ask how they knew how much they needed, and their reply would be "Pi r squared". In other words, the folks who didn't pass that ridiculous test the first time were no dummies.