How dumb are we ? 1895 final exam

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Grand Master

Hum

Posted
Posted

Saw this on another site. Are you smart enough ? :shifty:

8th GRADE FINAL EXAM

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, lay and run

5. Define Case, Illustrate each Case.

6. What is Punctuation? Give rules for principal marks of Punctuation.

7. 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/bushel, deducting 1050lbs. 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. Fi nd 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 meter?

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, 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, sub vocals, 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, 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 &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.

http://www.abovetopsecret.com/forum/thread927335/pg1

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Grand Master

LaP

Posted
Posted

"7. What is the cost of 40 boards 12 inches wide and 16 ft. long at $20 per meter?"

Didn't know meters as a measure were used in 1895 Kansas.

Good find

The only thing i can say is back in the days they did not put too much effort writing the questions.

A 5 hours tests whose questions fit in one page ...

Mentor

argonite

Posted
Posted

If I had just studied this in 8th grade I would know these answers.

All this test says is "how much of incredibly specific 8th grade knowledge do you still use as an adult?" and the answer is "none"

Grand Master

Phouchg

Posted
Posted

Looks like a pretty standard exam to me. Of course, I couldn't answer most of them now because a) I'm lazy as f*, b) I wouldn't know anymore - that's what the 8-graders are for (*cough*). Especially grammar and spelling - I don't even know most of the rules of my native language, much less English. I don't even know how it comes that I can form half-coherent sentences at all.

As for history - as it's being taught in schools, a 100% bullsh*t subject. Facts, names, places, dates, but no lesson of what whatsoever - nothing to learn from except brute-force memory training. Same for philosophy and ethics - I had these subjects and there wasn't anything worth learning. Or even remembering - I just wrote things down "pass-through".

Grand Master

Crisp

Posted
Posted

Are you actually serious?

Yeah, I failed History at school...

I have very little interest in the history of the Human race. Europe as a continent has been there since... well, start of Earth I guess, apart from the shifting of land mass before we knew it.

Grand Master

Astra.Xtreme

Posted
Posted

This thing has been around for ages. Sadly it's not an 8th grade exam, so no need to feel down on yourselves:

http://www.truthorfi...tm#.USUr1qWkpes

Regardless, if you were freshly taught these things, the test would be pretty simple if your memory was decent.

Grand Master

Quillz

Posted
Posted

http://www.snopes.co...nt/1895exam.asp

As the article points out, notice this exam has almost nothing to do with globalization or interaction with those outside of the local school, something that would simply be unheard of today. It's important to remember this test's significance relatively, and that I don't think it's fair to conclude that kids back then were smarter than kids today. There are simply things you had to know back then (such as complicated mathematics) that you simply don't need to know today, since we have calculators and computers.

Grand Master

threetonesun

Posted
Posted

" A wagon box is 2 ft deep, 10 feet long, and 3 ft. wide. How many bushels of wheat will it hold?"

seriously? who outside of a wheat farmer would even care about this industry specific knowladge?

A bushel (like a cord of wood) is a standard dimension:

1 U.S. bushel = 8 corn/dry gallons = 2150.42 cu in ? 35.2391 litre ? 9.30918 wine/liquid gallons. The original definition was the volume of a cylinder 18.5 in (46.99 cm) in diameter and 8 in (20.32 cm) high, which gives an irrational number of cubic inches, but later this bushel was redefined as 2150.42 cubic inches, about 1 part per million less.

It's just a math problem.

Grand Master

neufuse Veteran

Posted
  • Veteran
Posted

A bushel (like a cord of wood) is a standard dimension:

It's just a math problem.

that's not the point, the point is, this is industry specific measurements, the average person doesn't know measurements for stuff like viscosity for example... so should I go around saying you are dumb because you don't know how to calculate it or know how to use a viscometer or rheometer?

Grand Master

vcfan

Posted
Posted

who gives a crap. if someone wanted any of this info they can get it in a few seconds. we never needed to memorize all this useless junk. schools should focus on teaching real life **** and skills than making students read some ancient old English literature from the days of the dinosaur.

Grand Master

Rohdekill

Posted
Posted

who gives a crap. if someone wanted any of this info they can get it in a few seconds. we never needed to memorize all this useless junk. schools should focus on teaching real life **** and skills than making students read some ancient old English literature from the days of the dinosaur.

I partially agree with what you said. Except, many times in life, one cannot simply access the www to obtain an answer. E.G., a construction site. You'd have to know how and do the equation in your head or with the only tool available, a pencil. You wouldn't last long on the job if you had to get off your ladder every minute to punch an equation in or lookup something on a smart phone.

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Grand Master

threetonesun

Posted
Posted

that's not the point, the point is, this is industry specific measurements, the average person doesn't know measurements for stuff like viscosity for example... so should I go around saying you are dumb because you don't know how to calculate it or know how to use a viscometer or rheometer?

A cord or a bushel was not "industry specific" in 1895. :laugh:

I imagine they also used furlongs, which is equally as industry specific.

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