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Geek Culture / 8th Grade Education

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Zaibatsu
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Posted: 17th Jun 2008 00:55
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I got this in an email a while ago and I've decided to share this now. I'm only able to get about 5 answers in total...

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 a 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. Hi story 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.'
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. Helen a, 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 answer!


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puppyofkosh
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Posted: 17th Jun 2008 01:06
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Wow. I haven't tried that, but yea the American education system has become worse and worse... I don't even wanna compare it to China's or India's.

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NeX the Fairly Fast Ferret
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Posted: 17th Jun 2008 01:48
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That's insane. Truly.


I fail at life. No, really.
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tha_rami
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Posted: 17th Jun 2008 01:59 Edited at: 17th Jun 2008 02:00
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Well, probably, if I had lived in 1985 and had gotten the education from back then, yes, I would've passed this. Current-day education is more focussed on finding and adapting to the information flow, leaving our knowledge relatively limited, but our ability to find new information relatively high. We're equipped with basic information we need to survive, and many of the usually unusable information is excluded from our education. I mean, seriously, how many of these answers do we need in daily life and how many of us could nót complete these exams by using the internet?

Nowadays, education is about learning to learn, not about learning itself. Honestly, I don't care about diacritical markings nor the the epochs of American History. However, I found myself able to answer about 20% of these questions without learning what-so-ever, being a 19 year old Dutch guy that has completed high school and is about to start university.

So, honestly, I'm not that impressed. If you'd be able to show someone who had this education this: f(x) = 4x - 2 and ask them to 'solve' that, you'd get puzzled looks. Or, even better, what the Pythagoras theorem is and what "WWW" stands for.

That we know different stuff, doesn't necessarily mean we're dumber.


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Aaron Miller
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Posted: 17th Jun 2008 01:59
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It's all simple, put "42" next to every question, and "Chuck Norris" for question 10 in geography, every one will be correct.


Cheers,

-naota

"I used to do a lot of time travelling when I was younger. I called it 'ta-kwee-la' You would drink this potion and wake up 3 days in the future!" - Craig Ferguson
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tha_rami
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Posted: 17th Jun 2008 02:01
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You nearly killed me there, Aaron.


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puppyofkosh
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Posted: 17th Jun 2008 03:04
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@ Aaron Miller: That was hilarious.

But, you must also think that today math is much important...

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revenant chaos
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Posted: 17th Jun 2008 16:24
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my great-grandmother (still alive today) only graduated the eighth grade, but that was back in 1935. I wonder what her test would have been like.
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Michael S
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Posted: 17th Jun 2008 23:45
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Why dont you ask her?



Hmm this test is rather difficult.

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Darth Kiwi
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Posted: 19th Jun 2008 23:21
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While I now have a new-found respect for all those poor 1895 students, I have to question the purpose of some of those questions.

Quote: "1. Name and define the Fundamental Rules of Arithmetic."

I can't answer this because I don't know what the local schoolmaster believed the fundamentals of arithmetic were. However, I suspect that I utilise them all in my maths class, making my ignorance irrelevant.

The History Questions are all "tell me this". But what if you have a different interpretation of this history? What if you believe that a country went to war because of a variety of interconnected factors, whereas your teacher firmly believes it's because of the personality of one historical individual instead? Here, you could potentially answer the questions "correctly" but still lose marks simply because you don't hold the same view as the examiner.

Quote: "3. Of what use are rivers? Of what use is the ocean?"

This made me laugh... it's as if somebody built a river and their boss asked, "well, it's pretty, but what USE is it?"

Quote: "Also shows you how poor our education system has become"

I'm with Rami on this: we may not know how much a bushel of wheat is worth, or know ten things about capital letters, but we're capable of turning our brains to most things if we need to (in theory). Rather than spout facts, we ought to be able to take on board new facts and reach conclusions from that. For example, if we're discussing a book set in an alternate reality ruled by communists where the love interest is killed by the secret police, and then it is revealed to us that the author's wife became a communist and left him, this might shed a whole new light on the book as a whole. I suspect that many (though not all) 1895 students would find it difficult to absorb this new information, apply it to the text (which they will have learned about in a rigid manner due to the teaching of the time) and then reach a new conclusion. Modern students would probably find this easier. (Of course, an 1895 John Steinbeck is going to do better in that test than a modern student with no interest in Literature - but I'm generalising.)

I'm not actually a Kiwi, I just randomly thought it up one day.
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Gil Galvanti
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Posted: 20th Jun 2008 01:07
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I agree with Rami (*gasps*), and a lot of those questions are irrelevant or outdated today. They aren't of any use now, and a lot of them not then either. Now I think topics taught are more general, and like Rami said, we are better able to add more details to those ideas/topics.


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soapyfish
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Posted: 20th Jun 2008 02:45 Edited at: 20th Jun 2008 02:46
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I'd think the majority of stuff I've been taught is irrelevant but if there's one thing I've learnt it's that I should be thankful I live in a society that allows me to have the education I can.

I can't imagine there were that many children in education in 1895, not compared to the number that spent their days working anyway.


Your post count
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Venge
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Posted: 20th Jun 2008 18:40 Edited at: 20th Jun 2008 18:41
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Quote: "
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?"


I think that would classify as cruel and unusual punishment, considering the calculators looked like this:



MISoft 3D Artist.
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CattleRustler
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Posted: 21st Jun 2008 06:10 Edited at: 21st Jun 2008 06:12
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Quote: "Also shows you how poor our education system has become "

by design
they need a dumbed down populace to sell us the crap they try to sell us, so we'll swallow any garbage they put out, and not resist, nor be smart enough to, when the time comes.

sad

[href]mod2software[/href]
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Erios
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Posted: 21st Jun 2008 06:42 Edited at: 21st Jun 2008 06:44
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Quote: "by design
they need a dumbed down populace to sell us the crap they try to sell us, so we'll swallow any garbage they put out, and not resist, nor be smart enough to, when the time comes.

sad
"


I can't personally believe that the education system "dumbing down" is something plotted out. Honestly, that test was not that hard. It's not that it requires a genius to do it, it's that a lot of the wording sounds foreign in this day and age. And just like Darth Kiwi said, some of these ask you to "explain" broad-reaching subjects, like math. The teacher would have to have given some kind of answer, or at least an idea on how to answer this, or the child would have to have written a 50-page paper explaining all the math they understand.

--A possible education system solution:

As far as the level of our education system, there is a very real reason why it is failing compared to the world: No benefit in doing better. There is no competition in the public school system, and no system of discipline to schools that are failing.

What is my solution to the public school system? It's pretty simple: Privatize all school systems. Take the government money that would have been spent to educate each child (this includes teacher wages, building costs, food costs and everything else down to the landscaping costs) and instead of throwing it into the failing public schools, give the parents of each child one "education credit" per child. This credit will be given to a private school of the parent's choice as payment, and the school will cash this in for money from the government. If the parents want to send the child to a better school, they will more than likely have to put in some more money, find a way to get their child to a school across town, etc.

With this kind of system, I feel that all school's performance will drastically increase. Each and every school will be run like a business, and will have to cater to their "customers" by offering the best possible education. If the school begins to fail, enrollment will drop, and a CEO will have to make changes to keep the school's shareholders happy. If a school drops so far below national average, enrollment will surely drop so low that the school will close, and another company can move into it's place and hopefully offer a better service.

The summary of this model is to put the decisions in the hand's of the parents on who should educate their child, instead of the current system of either going to the public school of your district, or throwing away your alloted education tax money and paying 100% for private school (almost always better schools because they are a business with competition).
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Izzy545
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Posted: 21st Jun 2008 07:56
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Quote: "by design
they need a dumbed down populace to sell us the crap they try to sell us, so we'll swallow any garbage they put out, and not resist, nor be smart enough to, when the time comes.

sad"


I love how everything is a conspiracy theory with you, it makes me chuckle. I just wonder why you think it's the government conspiring to make us their little pawns instead of simply the American populace going down to pot?

Looking for someone to blame for our problems are we? I'm curious what you've done to make the country better other than spouting conspiracy theories on this forum?

I'm also curious why whenever anyone else makes remarks of this nature they get reprimanded, but when CattleRustler starts telling us the government is dumbing us down on purpose so we won't resist when the time is right, it seems as if it's perfectly fine.

Check out my books
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Gil Galvanti
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Posted: 21st Jun 2008 08:42
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Quote: "I love how everything is a conspiracy theory with you, it makes me chuckle. I just wonder why you think it's the government conspiring to make us their little pawns instead of simply the American populace going down to pot?

Looking for someone to blame for our problems are we? I'm curious what you've done to make the country better other than spouting conspiracy theories on this forum?

I'm also curious why whenever anyone else makes remarks of this nature they get reprimanded, but when CattleRustler starts telling us the government is dumbing us down on purpose so we won't resist when the time is right, it seems as if it's perfectly fine."

Didn't you know though? It IS a conspiracy. 9/11 was planned and executed by the US, Kennedy/MLK/Lincoln were assassinated by the government, there really WERE aliens at Roswell, The Apollo Moon Landing was faked, we all have chips implanted in us at birth by the government, and AIDS was created in a US government lab to kill African Americans. LIES I TELL YOU, ALL LIES!


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Jeku
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Posted: 21st Jun 2008 09:24 Edited at: 21st Jun 2008 09:30
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@Gil - You'd better watch out. The NSA are storing and combing all the data sent on HTML forms for keywords.


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Sunflash
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Posted: 21st Jun 2008 11:18
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Quote: "
Didn't you know though? It IS a conspiracy. 9/11 was planned and executed by the US, Kennedy/MLK/Lincoln were assassinated by the government, there really WERE aliens at Roswell, The Apollo Moon Landing was faked, we all have chips implanted in us at birth by the government, and AIDS was created in a US government lab to kill African Americans. LIES I TELL YOU, ALL LIES!"

Haha, I almost fell off my chair laughing

Mountain Dew, happyness in a bottle.
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NeX the Fairly Fast Ferret
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Posted: 21st Jun 2008 14:16
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The latest conspiracy, of course, is that the UK government is introducing TB into cattle stocks to kill the main producers of greenhouse gases and thus attain their emissions targets. It'd also explain the 66% funding drop that Defra experienced despite them being quite busy.

Of course, that information is classified.


I fail at life. No, really.
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Diggsey
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Posted: 21st Jun 2008 15:26
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The reason the government is dumbing down education (at least in England anyway) is so that they can show off better results each year. This is a stupid idea anyway, because people don't get smarter every year! There's still stupid people, intelligent people, and a whole lot in between.

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CattleRustler
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Posted: 21st Jun 2008 17:28
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you people are funny, so funny in fact, that its sad.

enjoy

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Luciferia
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Posted: 21st Jun 2008 20:24
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Does eighth grade history still carry on the tradition of only doing American history or has the education system expanded in to the history of other countries? (Battles between other countries and America do not count)
In England, GCSE (15-16 year olds) history requires extensive knowledge of Russia from the last days of the tsar to the second world war, international relations from 1918 to 1939 (ie League of Nations) and international relations from 1945 to the 1990s ie cold war. We could have done US history from 1918 to 1945 but we chose not to as it is too boring.
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Darth Kiwi
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Posted: 21st Jun 2008 20:31
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Quote: "there is a very real reason why it is failing compared to the world: No benefit in doing better. There is no competition in the public school system, and no system of discipline to schools that are failing."

Well, I for one am driven by an inescapable fear that if I fail to get straight As I will be unemployed, considered a failure and end up homeless and worthless. There's this feeling of walking a very thin line which is easy to fall off. Plus my tutors didn't help by putting the idea into my head that super-qualified Chinese people are going to start migrating to other countries and making us all look stupid. A lot of this is crazy but at least I end up with good marks.

*Ahem!*

Quote: "The reason the government is dumbing down education (at least in England anyway) is so that they can show off better results each year. This is a stupid idea anyway, because people don't get smarter every year! There's still stupid people, intelligent people, and a whole lot in between."

And now there's a dilemna, because an A means "quite clever" rather than "genius" now, because so many people get As. So to "solve" the problem they're going to introduce an A* grade at A-level. That is NOT a solution: that is a papering-over-the-cracks exercise. What they need to do is push up the grade boundaries so less people get As, and so that a B is no longer a shameful terrible thing and a C no longer screams "slacker".

I'm not actually a Kiwi, I just randomly thought it up one day.
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Gil Galvanti
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Posted: 22nd Jun 2008 21:50
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Quote: "@Gil - You'd better watch out. The NSA are storing and combing all the data sent on HTML forms for keywords. "

Crap I forgot about that! Well, it seems this is probably my last day as a free man in society...farewell everyone .


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tha_rami
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Posted: 23rd Jun 2008 04:57
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Was nice to know you, Gil.



The government can't h4x0rz teh uberpwn codetagzzzzzzz!


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Gil Galvanti
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Posted: 23rd Jun 2008 06:13
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Quote: "The government can't h4x0rz teh uberpwn codetagzzzzzzz!"

Has anyone managed to h4x0rz codeztagz? THE ARE SUPREME.


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Erios
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Posted: 23rd Jun 2008 07:55
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Quote: "Well, I for one am driven by an inescapable fear that if I fail to get straight As I will be unemployed, considered a failure and end up homeless and worthless. There's this feeling of walking a very thin line which is easy to fall off. Plus my tutors didn't help by putting the idea into my head that super-qualified Chinese people are going to start migrating to other countries and making us all look stupid. A lot of this is crazy but at least I end up with good marks."


I actually did not mean the students have no reason to work hard and do better. I actually meant the school systems themselves. In the current system, all school districts get is a slap on the wrist if they fall well below the national average. In a perfect world, they would eventually "go out of business" for doing a crappy job, and let another school come in to hopefully do it better. See my theoretical solution above.
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Darth Kiwi
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Posted: 24th Jun 2008 20:01
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Quote: "I actually did not mean the students have no reason to work hard and do better. I actually meant the school systems themselves."

Oh, I see. I think Britain (where I live) is thinking of doing this: "failing" schools are to be replaced with private schools which, presumably, will be motivated to do well. Unfortunately, the government doesn't seem to know what constitutes a "failing" school and is thinking of closing schools which, according to OFSTED (the school review board thing) are in fact improving.

There is something fundamentally wrong with my country... *sigh*

I'm not actually a Kiwi, I just randomly thought it up one day.
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bitJericho
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Posted: 27th Jun 2008 18:17 Edited at: 27th Jun 2008 18:18
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Quite frankly, if you don't like your public school, then send your kids to a private one. My mother was single and raised us kids, we all went to a private school and we were all poor as dirt. So I'd have to say if you can't find a way to place your kids in a private school you're either lazy (unwilling to get scholarships or whatever you call them for lower schools) or a liar


Hurray for teh logd!
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Phaelax
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Posted: 28th Jun 2008 05:49
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poor single mother raised us three, my sister and I went to private school. I only went for two years and I don't care what people say, private school is far from a better education.


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