> then throwing better students at them would result at more As Also, the Flynn effect: "the substantial and long-sustained increase in both fluid and crystall

> then throwing better students at them would result at more As Also, the Flynn effect: "the substantial and long-sustained increase in both fluid and crystallized intelligence test scores that were measured in many parts of the world over the 20th century" - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flynn_effect https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flynn_effect > A researcher who'd give current Harvard graduates some of the older questions could find out if the toughness of the exams went up, down, or stayed. I strongly suspect this wouldn't be informative. The base knowledge of what we expect students to know has shifted. Some might be topical: "How did Harding conduct his campaign?" "Name the primary components of a steam locomotive." 100 years ago I believe there was still an expectation that students knew Latin. The 1869 Harvard entrance exam at https://graphics8.nytimes.com/packages/pdf/education/harvardexam.pdf https://graphics8.nytimes.com/packages/pdf/education/harvard... has two pages of Latin and two of Greek. (Most of the student then would have come from an upper-class prep school, where they would have a training that let them be able to answer "Bound the basin of the Po, of the Mississippi, of the St. Lawrence." and "Supply the two names left blank in the following passage from the Oration for the Manilian Law.") Consider how calculus is now regularly taught in high school, while pre-war high school ended with solid geometry. Or, consider how an English literature course 100 years ago (and its tests) would have focused on the literature of England and the US, while the equivalent modern English literature course would likely have drawn from the much larger Anglo-sphere.