8th Grade Exam from 1895 (ouch!) at HELIOLITH

Published by michael July 1st, 2004 in education

Hijole!
Check out this
8th Grade Exam from Kansas in 1895. Could you pass it right now assuming that 70% accuracy is passing? Be honest! eep!

care of kottke.org via boing boing

1 Anonymous Sep 24th, 2005 at 2:05 pm

visit snopes.com. this is not an 8th grade exam.
2 michael- Sep 24th, 2005 at 3:56 pm

Thanks anonymous,
I did check Snopes.com, as I frequently do when looking at dubious info received via the internet. They don’t really say that the test was not an 8th grade exam, but rather specifically counter the claim that, “An 1895 graduation examination for public school students demonstrates a shocking decline in educational standards.”

What nearly all these pundits fail to grasp is “I can’t answer these questions” is not the same thing as “These questions demonstrate that students in earlier days were better educated than today’s students.” Just about any test looks difficult to those who haven’t recently been steeped in the material it covers.

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

Having re-read the snopes opinion piece I would have to agree with them, and would not have posted this trivia, whether it be true or false, for the risk of supporting the meme of “curriculum is less today”. I reject that idea, and didn’t intend to promote it.

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