Take this eighth grade education test. Let me know how you did!

Remember when our grandparents, great-grandparents, and such 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, KS, 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


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 50 cents/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 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 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.

Also notice that the exam took five hours to complete.
Gives the saying "she/he only had an 8th grade education" a whole new meaning, doesn't it?

What happened to us???? It is kind of humbling, isn't it ??

definitely not either in 1966 when I was in eighth grade.

I'd love to know how many of our present day college graduates would be able to pass it?

It's no wonder I thought my grandparents and parents, none of whom had college educations, were the most intelligient people I ever knew.

Wow, that exam just blows me away...

:popcorn: :popcorn:

and a little tiny bit of the orthography (er, whatever that is). That's about it. I thunk I was fairly up on things. Oh well...

Everyone can learn something.

Capitalize

* the first word of a sentence or fragment
* the name of a day or a month
* the name of a language
* a word expressing a connection with a place
* the name of a nationality or an ethnic group
* a proper name
* the name of a historical period
* the name of a holiday
* a significant religious term
* the first word, and each significant word, of a title
* the first word of a direct quotation which is a sentence
* a brand name
* a Roman numeral
* the pronoun I

I was so blown away by it, I passed it along to the principal of my son's middle school. She, in turn, emailed me back, saying how much lown away SHE was by it and how she planned to share it with her staff of teachers at her next staff meeting.

Hopefully, not to get any ideas.... :eyes:

:hi:

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

I think the point is pretty well taken

Thanks for posting.

In peace,

Radio_Lady

Which is to say, I wouldn't pass that.
Not even close.

But I am glad that 8th graders should be learning this - scary that I don't know and I am a genius .

It;s my home town :)

except that some of the questions are not math related and they are using archaic measures. I do not know how many bushels are in a cubic foot (although I calculated it once (by switching both bushel and cubic foot into metric)). I used to know more about rods and furlongs and such and how they related to miles, but I have forgotten. I think there are 8 rods in a furlong (okay that is wrong. I just looked it up - a rod is 5.5 yards and a furlong is 220 yards or 1/8th of a mile).
So the farm in question 9 is half a mile on each side which makes it a quarter section, or 160 acres, which then costs $2400.

change at the post office, much less knowing about rods and furlongs and bushels and such.

So, this week -- maybe it's more WHO you know than WHAT you know? At least, it looks as if I know several DUers who could do some of the problems, even if I couldn't.

Plus, that wily site http://www.snopes.com kind of gives it the shaft. There's quite a history on it if you read the previous post.

1 acre into 160 square rods. However, $2400 is correct.

Yeah, I'm in the land title business. I did it in my head. I'm so lame it hurts.