How well do you think you are educated?

[David Morton]

1a


UNBELIEVABLE!!!
From 1895 Age 13
Take this test and pass it on to your more literate friends..
..

. Could any of us have passed this 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, KANSAS - 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 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?!

Also shows you how poor our education system has become and,

ND NO, I don't have the answers!

 

[Tom P]

Few if any seniors in college would get a passing grade.

 

[Mark]

Holy Moley.

 

[Pete McCluskey.]

And how have we let our children down? Maybe some teachers would like to comment.

 

[Mike Drew]

Snopes has an interesting take on this:

snopes.com: 1895 Exam

 

[Jim Craik]

Mike,

Very interesting, thanks for posting. Say Pete, perhaps we have not let our children down after all. I know our daughter received a better education than my generation.

 

[Jim Craik]

Be sure and read the Snopes article that Mike posted about this thread.

Some folks here on our forum seem obsessed with showing how great things in the past were and how bad things are today. They post cute little articles like this one or show someone taking advantage of the system in an outlandish way.

Guys, the past was not as great as you remember and the present is not as bad as you think.

Were students better educated in 1895? Not a chance!

Here are some other things that those childeren of 1895 had........

Average life 47 years
Average work week 60+ hours
They died from typhoid, malaria, whooping cough, polio, tuberculosis, minor infections but little cancer, they did not live long enough to get it.

Some things they did not have electricity, radio, phonographs, movies, air conditioning, refridgerators, antibiotics, dependable food suply, over half the poulation could not vote...........

But they did have the "Panic of 1893", a serious economic depression, with bank failures, massive foreclosures, very high unemployment and ZERO safety net or Government help.

Anyone who tells you things were better in the old days has not been paying attention.

 

[Pete McCluskey.]

I note that Snopes, claimed the email as false and then went into a long discourse defending today's education system in part of which they quoted the authors of the exam?
Are they saying the exam was false or the premise that todays's education is lacking? Please educate me. (Pun intended).

Jim I'm sure your kids got a good education, but I think the standards overall have dropped dramatically, I speak only of Australia of course.
And I base this belief on having read hundreds if not thousands of young people's resume's in the course of running my business .
Frankly the spelling and grammar in I estimate around 80% of them was atrocious. Simple arithmetic tests were failed by a high percentage. And I do mean simple add subtract and multiply only.

 

[Jim Craik]

Pete, you may want to read that Snopes post again. They were speaking to this test showing the education standards have declined. To that they say "false" and go on to explain why.

 

[Pete McCluskey.]

Well in that case I think Snopes are wrong. With the exception of a privileged few who's parents can afford to pay for private schooling our education system sucks. My previous post explains why I feel that way.
Again I speak only of OZ.

 

[Jim Craik]

Pete,

Unless you have also read thousands of resumes from 1895, you are really not in a position to make an informed statement are you?

 

[Jim Craik]

Pete I did some research.

A SHORT HISTORY OF UNITED STATES’ EDUCATION 1900 to 2006 1900 to 1919
In 1900, the notion of kindergarten was already thirty years old, but only 7% of children in the United States were enrolled in it (Tyack & Cuban, 1995, p. 66). The school year consisted of 99 days, but only half of the school-age population was enrolled (p. 21). Maria Montessori produced a new teaching method (“American Cultural 1900 – 1909”, n.d., para. 12.) Eight percent of enrolled students actually graduated from high school, a term that often meant “just another room added to a graded elementary school” (p. 48). Although it was inferior to the education of white students, education for blacks “was more accessible than in years past” (Engs, 1987, p. 15). One example was Mary McLeod Bethune’s Daytona Educational and Industrial Training School for Negro Girls that opened in 1904 (National Park Service, n.d., para. 2).
Between 1900 and 1919, half of the student population [did not] achieve eighth- grade status.

 

[Jim Rosenthal]

Gentlemen, some things were better in 1985, and some things were worse. For example, a house built in 1985 is more than likely sturdier and built of better materials than one built in 1995- but the 1895 house was probably lit by gas, did not have AC, and may have not had electricity at all, depending on where it was built. However, it might have had steam central heating, which isn't very common now, but works very well indeed. Similarly, yachts built in 1895 were larger, fancier, prettier- but they required huge maintenance, caught fire, and lacked most of the modern conveniences. So it goes. We shouldn't scoff at everything from back then, but we shouldn't aim to live then, either.

As far as the exam goes, the eighth grade student of 1985 would be as perplexed by the 1995 analogue exam as the 1995 student would be by the 1895 exam. I'm not sure there's a useful point in any of that.

 

[Pete McCluskey.]

As always J R, a well thought out response. Thank you.

 

[Pete McCluskey.]

Pete,

Unless you have also read thousands of resumes from 1895, you are really not in a position to make an informed statement are you?

Now Jim that is silly of course I cannot comment on 1895, I was commenting on David's post and the Snopes effort saying the email was false. For that matter using your thought process neither can Snopes. In fact using that process no one who was not alive in 1895 can comment.
I do know that the standard of literacy and numeracy has declined greatly since I was in school.

 

[Mark]

All I can say regarding the Scopes' view on this, is that even though I think my education was possibly better than average (despite the fact I failed be in the 'A' Stream and was merely an 'average' student), I can assure you all, that much of the test here was NEVER taught to me. So my lack of ability to answer this test now, has nothing to do with my not having recently swatted up on the material prior to taking the exam.

 

[Keith]

Eh? Wos the 'kin kweschin?

That Wayne Kerr wonts to no mush innit.

 

[Mark]

mijn hovercraft is vol van aal