Just for Fun........

[Polly]

OK, this is for all of you "smarty-pants"...................let's see how many can pass an 8th grade test that was given in Kansas more than 110 years ago! Good luck!


--Remember when parents, 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, KS, 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 3942 lbs., what is it worth
at 50cts/bushel, 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 the 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 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.
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 poor our education system has become...
and, NO! I don't have the answers, and I failed the 8th grade test!

Love,

Polly

[kate_ce1995]

Hmm...I think I could do pretty well on the math and science parts, but forget the grammar parts. Although, I think too that I could have written fairly decent essays "showing that I understood all the parts of grammar".
Might have done okay on the geography part too...but without the answers, who knows?

Katy

[Mars]

[tex]

Pretty dang tough exam for eighth grade level. You're right. Our education system has gone to hell in a handbasket.

Love,
Wayne

[hazel]

Well, after reading my reply to Mars' chicken salad request that had 3 sentences, 2 of which had no verb, I guess I'd flunk for sure. I guess those were sentence fragments. Do I get extra credit for knowing I was wrong?

[barbaranoela]

YIKES~~~~

I think I was *sick* that day------

I often said to Kris and Kait----I dont know how U ladies get thru all this!!

NOPE---I would have FAILED!!



Barbara

[Mars]

Actually, sad to say, I "remember learning" most of those things but I can't "remember" the answers now.

I'm almost afraid to answer this in case I have a fragmented or otherwise hideous answer!

[Peggy]

Well, this "smarty-pants" was able to find this:

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

and look here for a completed grade 8 exam:

http://www.barefootsworld.net/1895finalexam.html

[CAMary]

Okay-

Chiming in here as an educator I have seen this before and basically it shows that how students were taught in the past is very different than is is nowadays. If you look at the questions, yes they are hard, because we have not been taught the info to answer them (or we were, but it has long since been forgotten!)

If you look at they types of questions, most of them involve the regurgitation of a rote-memorized answer, or the completion of a basic mathematical calculation. IF you were given this info, and you memorized it, passing this test would not be that difficult.....

There was a psychologist(?) named Bloom who developed a taxonomy for human knowledge. He separated it into 6 levels. Knowledge, Comprehension, Application, Analysis, Synthesis and Evaluation.

Knowledge (the regurgitation/reiteration of memorized info) is the most basic while Evaluation is the most complex. Students nowadays are being taught to develop the "higher-order thinking skills" and we are moving away from memorization as a method for learning. it really is more important for students to know *how to think* rather than be stuffed with inofrmation they cannot explain or rationalize....

Students in the sixth grade are expected to write essays comparing and contrasting characters from literature. Algebra is now middle-school curriculum. These things used to be expectations for people in high school.

The problem with the empahsis on making college accessible for everyone, is that some valuable options have been lost. The fact is college is *not* an option for "everyone" and vocational education in high school has all but disappeared in this country. Couple that with the fact that in the US we educate EVERYONE and students are not *tracked* (like in Britain) and kids with learning disabilities and a low interest in academics are not being given viable options for their future. It is sad. Courses like wood shop and auto shop provided a valuable education for students who did not plan to further their education, as well as help provide a steady workforce for certain industries (I hear we will soon have a dire shortage of auto mechanics!)....it is a shame, as I think it was very short-sighted...

Anyways this is one of my soapbox issues. And no, I can't answer many of those questions either, but I'd gladly go head-to-head with an 1895 student on a logic/critical thinking test....

Mary

[tex]

Ok, in light of the sites that Smarty-Pants Peg came up with, here's my second take on this quiz:

I have to agree with Mary, since rote memory was indeed the educational tool of choice, back in those days, and methodology has changed greatly, over the years.

I disagree with the snopes claim though, that none of us could answer the questions that we answered on quizzes when were were back in school. I'm not claiming that I could score as well as I did then, on specific questions, but if I can't at least pass that same test now, then I should have to go back and take the course over again. Period. (I just hope that I can skip PE and study hall this time, since I always hated wasting time like that. LOL).

Love,
Wayne

P S Peg--that WAS pretty sharp of you to even think about checking out snopes on this topic. Your mama didn't rase no dummy. Step to the head of the class, please.