Can You Pass This 8th Grade Exam From 1912?

[marble falls]

http://abcnews.go.com/blogs/headlines/2013/08/8th-grade-exam-puts-adults-to-the-test/

A museum in Kentucky has unearthed a rare find: an 8th grade exam given to students 100 years ago.

"For us, this is just fascinating," David Lee Strange, a volunteer at the Bullitt County History Museum, told ABC News. "It puts us in the mindset of 1912."

The exam spans eight subjects: spelling, reading, arithmetic, grammar, geography, physiology, civil government and history.

"Some people say that the questions are trivial, but the questions relate to what the children at the time would have been familiar with," Strange said.

For example, there's a geography query: "Locate the following countries which border each other: Turkey, Greece, Serbia, Montenegro, Romania."

An 8th grader today may have trouble with that one but "the students back then would have to be familiar with that part of the world," according to Strange.

Strange explained, "1912 was right around the corner from what would become World War I. Eighteen students in Bullitt County would go on to die in that war."

The exam also asks students to define the cerebrum and cerebellum, differentiate between copyright and patent rights, and define each part of speech in the English language.

Think you have what it takes to pass the 8th grade? Take a shot at these final exam questions:

How long of a rope is required to reach from the top of a building 40 feet high to the ground 30 feet from the base of a building?

What is a personal pronoun?

Through which waters would a vessel pass in going from England through the Suez Canal to Manila?

Compare arteries and veins as to function. Where is the blood carried to be purified?

During which wars were the following battles fought: Brandywine, Great Meadows, Lundy's Lane, Antietam, Buena Vista?

Sketch briefly Sir Walter Raleigh, Peter Stuyvesant.

Answers to the exam can be found on the Bullitt County History Museum's website.

http://www.bullittcountyhistory.com/bchistory/schoolexam1912ans.html

[MADem]

1. An eighth grade education was probably valued at close to a "junior college" education, today.

Sixth grade was like high school.

I went to a school where we had tests that weren't terribly dissimilar to this one. The teacher would also dictate to us, and we would be required to write down what the teacher wrote. We'd write a paragraph, the teacher would give us a little lecture on what we had written, and then we'd go on to the next paragraph. We'd do three to five of these.

The paragraphs would enable the teacher to grade us on (the quaint concept of) penmanship, punctuation, spelling and understanding words in the context of a sentence. We'd also get a little lesson on the topic of the essay between paragraphs.

[DetlefK]

3. Apart from imperial units, the Arithmetics section is a doozy.

[MADem]

6. Yeah, I think we'd all have to "go back to school" to ace that thing!

The bright spot is that relearning is usually quicker the second time around!

[pnwmom]

15. I think many of us would have to go back to school to pass the tests our OWN kids have to take.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/?com=view_post&forum=1016&pid=70838

[Old Codger]

2. Hmmmm

This comes up about every 6 months or so.

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

[sharp_stick]

4. those are completely different questions

this one is from Kentucky and in 1912.

http://abcnews.go.com/blogs/headlines/2013/08/8th-grade-exam-puts-adults-to-the-test/

[MADem]

5. Not the same test, and it's posted by the Bullitt County Geneological Society....

http://www.bullittcountyhistory.com/

I'd hardly think that they'd go to such lengths to pull off a "goof" on the public.

It's a great website for anyone from there, interested in local history.

[JayhawkSD]

7. That is actually pretty similar to tests I took in school

Of course, I'm pretty old; it would have been in the 40's and 50's.

None of those simple true/false ot multiple choice things. The mere law of averages alone will give you a passing grade on those damned things. No wonder we graduate kids who can't read.

[sharp_stick]

8. All in all that test needs some editing.

I wonder if the kids got extra credit for finding typos?

dodr instead of door

how many electoral votes in each State allowed.

secrate instead of secrete

Sir Walter Rawleigh instead of Raleigh

Lots of subjective questions as well.

"Describe the battle of Quebec". Man you could write a book, how much detail would you have to provide to get full points?

"Name and give the boundaries of the five zones?" What zones and what kind of boundaries (top/bottom?, corners?)

"Diagram the lord love a cheerful giver?" What the hell does that even mean.

It's an interesting document but it sure shows that a hundred years is a long time.

[marble falls]

13. The "test" was from a newspaper that looks contemporay to the 1912 test. The reporter, typesetter,..

editor let those typos go thru. It wasn't uncommon to have under schooled reporters and newspaper men in those days. Mark Twain never finished school.

[LiberalElite]

9. There's a typo -

in the Physiology section, Question #1 - "...What does it secrate?" Should be secrete. NYAH NYAH

[Rozlee]

10. How come teabaggers are such bad spellers if

schools held such strict standards back then? Is it because so many of them are from the South and parts of Appalachia and the government gave them less federal funds for education? Or because many of them lived in rural areas and dropped out of school to work in their family farms? Maybe I'm just stereotyping Southern teabaggers, which is rather uncharitable, but statistics show that even now, public schools in the South are worse than in any other part of the nation.

[Loudly]

11. I had to look up what "kalsomining" was. n/t

[pnwmom]

12. I think those 8th graders would also find it difficult passing the tests required of our 8th graders

The old tests as well as the new required years of preparation.

Here's a typical 8th grade math question from a draft NY state test based on the Common Core, a set of standards used across the country.

Note: you can't get through this test with good guessing on multiple choice questions.

http://www.p12.nysed.gov/assessment/common-core-sample-questions/math-grade-8.pdf

A trainer for a professional football team keeps track of the amount of water players consume throughout practice. The trainer observes that the amount of water consumed is a linear function of the temperature on a given day. The trainer finds that when it is 90°F the players consume about 220 gallons of water, and when it is 76°F the players consume about 178 gallons of water.

Part A. Write a linear function to model the relationship between the gallons of water consumed and the temperature.

Part B. Explain the meaning of the slope in the context of the problem.

_________________________________

Or this, from an 8th grade reading test based on the Common Core.

http://blogs.egusd.net/ccss/educators/ela/8th-grade/

• How does reading the text compare to viewing the power point or video version? Cite specific textual evidence from both mediums.
• How is a topic similar and different when presented in the various mediums? Cite specific textual evidence from each mediums.
• Which medium is most effective in presenting the topic of _____________? Why? Cite specific textual evidence from both mediums.
• What limitations are evident when using _________ (medium) to present the topic? Cite specific textual evidence.

After reviewing print, digital, video, and/or multimedia presentations on the same topic, what are the advantages and disadvantages of each? Which is the most effective in conveying an understanding of the topic? Why? Use examples from the different mediums to support your evaluation.

[pauliedangerously]

14. Touché

Thanks for posting that. I made a comment with the same thinking as your comment on a different website a few weeks ago. I get a little tired of the modern-day kid bashing. It's tough out there today and I'm glad to not be in my youth anymore.

cheerio!!