8 ms·

1912 Eighth Grade Examination for Bullitt County Schools

41 points by xvirk 12y ago

ghshephard 12y ago
http://www.snopes.com/language/document/1895exam.asp http://www.snopes.com/language/document/1895exam.asp is relevant. Anything that is memorization based (which a lot of that test is), that you haven't studied recently will be difficult. I can recall, in the 7th grade, struggling for a couple nights to be able to identify all of the european and Mediterranean countries for an exam. It took a couple hard nights of cramming, but by the time the exam came along, it was a walk in the park. But ask me today to place Slovenia, Bulgaria, and Albania on a map - and I'd be at a loss.
- rayiner 12y ago
  For comparison, this is the 8th grade common core standards for math: http://www.corestandards.org/Math/Content/8/introduction http://www.corestandards.org/Math/Content/8/introduction. Whereas the 1912 version only required basic arithmetic and trigonometry, the 2015 version requires, additionally: rational numbers, exponents and radicals, systems of linear equations, and basic statistics.
- talmand 12y ago
  Same here. In the fourth grade I had a test to identify all 50 states and their capitols on the US map. Studied hard for it and I was one of two students that got all 100 correct. Today I could probably identify almost all the states but no way on the capitols.
  - function_seven 12y ago
    > Today I could probably identify almost all the states ... I just tried this myself and (barely) got them all right. Had to guess between NH and VT, and was somewhat shaky around AK, MS, and AL.
    - jameshart 12y ago
      You should probably redo the abbreviations test, though. Arkansas is AR - unless you're really getting confused between Alaska, Mississippi and Alabama....
      - function_seven 12y ago
        Ha, I noticed that on my map after I posted. My other mess ups: CN -> CT, PE -> PA, IW -> IA, MO -> MT (and I even had "MO" on Missouri)
    - Turing_Machine 12y ago
      An easy way to remember which is which between New Hampshire and Vermont is to note that Vermont is shaped more like the letter V. Mississippi has the Mississippi River, and thus borders Louisiana.
engi_nerd 12y ago
For reference -- this is Bullitt County, Kentucky. It is just south of Louisville, and is now a part of the greater Louisville metropolitan area. At this point in the county's history, it had a population of approximately 10,000 people. The Louisville & Nashville railroad passed through the county and had several stops, plus some fairly good quality roads linked the county with Louisville and other towns in the region, so the area was rural, but not particularly isolated. Its school district was well established but generally stopped at the 8th grade. The school system was a collection of various small schoolhouses located around the county. In short, it was probably representative of most of rural America in the early 20th century. As a graduate of the public schools in that county, I can't say that I received the same rigorous education that the test here indicates was once the standard. It's very strange to me to see this pop up now and then on the internet as an example of "look at the standards we once held our children to".
- talmand 12y ago
  I would say it's possible that they did not receive a more rigorous education since we may not know what they were educated on beyond these questions. What if the students of the era were specifically prepared to answer these questions for this test much like how US children are educated today? A good portion of my children's education is tied solely to passing standardized tests. Sometimes to the detriment of a more balanced education.
  - jff 12y ago
    On the website it says seventh grade students were encouraged to start studying for it, so focus on the test was high even then.
  - engi_nerd 12y ago
    It's clear from this test that the curriculum was defined and a body of knowledge was expected to be mastered. That's what I mean by rigor. My experiences in that same school system starting some 77 years later did not reflect a similar rigor (and was not complete in your sense, either).
bcg1 12y ago
This has been a problem for a long time... for many decades education has focused only on rote memorization, to the detriment of all. "We believe that in the passage of time the neglect of these books in the twentieth century will be regarded as an aberration, and not, as it is sometimes called today, a sign of progress. We think that progress, and progress in education in particular, depends on the incorporation of the ideas and images included in this set in the daily lives of all of us, from childhood through old age. In this view the disappearance of great books from education and from the reading of adults constitutes a calamity. In this view education in the West has been steadily deteriorating; the rising generation has been deprived of its birthright; the mess of pottage it has received in exchange has not been nutritious; adults have come to lead lives comparatively rich in material comforts and very poor in moral, intellectual, and spiritual tone." -- Preface to "Great Books of the Western World", "The Great Conversation Vol. 1" (1951) http://archive.org/stream/greatconversatio030336mbp/greatconversatio030336mbp_djvu.txt http://archive.org/stream/greatconversatio030336mbp/greatcon...
- pzxc 12y ago
  On the other hand, the argument can be made that if we all rely on the supercomputers in our pockets to give us the historical facts we never bothered to memorize, then all the critical thinking in the world might not save us from being doomed to repeat the history we never bothered to learn. -- Me (I take this stance because just the other day I watched an old Simpsons episode where Martin was made fun of by the substitute teacher for "bothering" to learn the historical significance of the Monroe Doctrine, and I was ashamed that any teacher, fictional or not, would behave in such a way) Say all you want about the overuse of memorization in public education: I bet those 8th graders that could pass this test without looking half the answers up on Wikipedia had a more well-rounded education than most of us today. And the attitude that, "Well why bother to learn history when I have wikipedia?" is the same attitude that causes people to become totally useless when their computer goes down and is no longer telling them what to do. I've had cashiers that literally could not make change when they didn't have a computer in front of them to do the subtraction.
  - bcg1 12y ago
Avshalom 12y ago
Um, other than the grammar portion this seems pretty much what 8th graders were expected to know in 1999 when I was in Washington?
talmand 12y ago
So, do I get extra points for pointing out typos?
smackfu 12y ago
Funny that the Truant Officer's name is on the bottom along with the board of education.
madengr 12y ago
For 7th grade British History we had to know all the rulers, in order, from Charlemagne (or was it Charles Martel aka Charles the Hammer) to present day (1980s). Obviously I didn't learn it. Funny now, I learned more after watching The Tudors, Wolf Hall, and The White Queen, than I did it that awful class. Wasn't all bad though. We got to make our own Medieval weapons (I made a Morning Star) and had a tour book of the London Dungeon (pretty gruesome) hanging on the classroom wall; won't find that these days.
- jameshart 12y ago
  Weird. Charlemagne was ruler of a lot of places, but Britain wasn't one of them...
  - madengr 12y ago
    Yeah, he was Normandy IIRC, but I assume many descended from him, but as I said, I hated that class.
- schoen 12y ago
  This makes me think of "I know the kings of England, and I quote the fights historical / From Marathon to Waterloo, in order categorical".
IgorPartola 12y ago
I don't know if I have a disadvantage or an advantage when it comes to learning. I can never memorize a mass of stuff. Instead, I have to find a pattern in it and use the pattern to reconstruct it. For example, I could never remember random formulas for e.g. solving the quadratic equation or taking a derivative, but once I figured out how they worked, I could use them right away. This is why I decided to study physics in college: physics has very few pieces of info you have to just memorize. The downside, besides having a horrible time remembering some chemical formula, or the year of the French revolution, is that I also cannot use a formula correctly unless I know how it is derived. I must walk every step of the proof before I can use any part of the formula, otherwise my brain simply refuses to see it correctly. Interestingly enough, I am blessed with very good memory for situations and associations. I can tell you exactly how many olives were in the martini I ordered in July 2008 (3), or quote lines from my favorite shows at every occasion. I just can't remember what my brain seems classify as "generally useless facts".

41 points by xvirk 12y ago

http://www.snopes.com/language/document/1895exam.asp http://www.snopes.com/language/document/1895exam.asp is relevant. Anything that is memorization based (which a lot of that test is), that you haven't studied recently will be difficult. I can recall, in the 7th grade, struggling for a couple nights to be able to identify all of the european and Mediterranean countries for an exam. It took a couple hard nights of cramming, but by the time the exam came along, it was a walk in the park. But ask me today to place Slovenia, Bulgaria, and Albania on a map - and I'd be at a loss.

rayiner 12y ago
For comparison, this is the 8th grade common core standards for math: http://www.corestandards.org/Math/Content/8/introduction http://www.corestandards.org/Math/Content/8/introduction. Whereas the 1912 version only required basic arithmetic and trigonometry, the 2015 version requires, additionally: rational numbers, exponents and radicals, systems of linear equations, and basic statistics.
talmand 12y ago
Same here. In the fourth grade I had a test to identify all 50 states and their capitols on the US map. Studied hard for it and I was one of two students that got all 100 correct. Today I could probably identify almost all the states but no way on the capitols.
- function_seven 12y ago
  > Today I could probably identify almost all the states ... I just tried this myself and (barely) got them all right. Had to guess between NH and VT, and was somewhat shaky around AK, MS, and AL.
  - jameshart 12y ago
    You should probably redo the abbreviations test, though. Arkansas is AR - unless you're really getting confused between Alaska, Mississippi and Alabama....
    - function_seven 12y ago
      Ha, I noticed that on my map after I posted. My other mess ups: CN -> CT, PE -> PA, IW -> IA, MO -> MT (and I even had "MO" on Missouri)
  - Turing_Machine 12y ago
    An easy way to remember which is which between New Hampshire and Vermont is to note that Vermont is shaped more like the letter V. Mississippi has the Mississippi River, and thus borders Louisiana.

engi_nerd 12y ago

For reference -- this is Bullitt County, Kentucky. It is just south of Louisville, and is now a part of the greater Louisville metropolitan area. At this point in the county's history, it had a population of approximately 10,000 people. The Louisville & Nashville railroad passed through the county and had several stops, plus some fairly good quality roads linked the county with Louisville and other towns in the region, so the area was rural, but not particularly isolated. Its school district was well established but generally stopped at the 8th grade. The school system was a collection of various small schoolhouses located around the county. In short, it was probably representative of most of rural America in the early 20th century. As a graduate of the public schools in that county, I can't say that I received the same rigorous education that the test here indicates was once the standard. It's very strange to me to see this pop up now and then on the internet as an example of "look at the standards we once held our children to".

talmand 12y ago
I would say it's possible that they did not receive a more rigorous education since we may not know what they were educated on beyond these questions. What if the students of the era were specifically prepared to answer these questions for this test much like how US children are educated today? A good portion of my children's education is tied solely to passing standardized tests. Sometimes to the detriment of a more balanced education.
- jff 12y ago
  On the website it says seventh grade students were encouraged to start studying for it, so focus on the test was high even then.
- engi_nerd 12y ago
  It's clear from this test that the curriculum was defined and a body of knowledge was expected to be mastered. That's what I mean by rigor. My experiences in that same school system starting some 77 years later did not reflect a similar rigor (and was not complete in your sense, either).

bcg1 12y ago

This has been a problem for a long time... for many decades education has focused only on rote memorization, to the detriment of all. "We believe that in the passage of time the neglect of these books in the twentieth century will be regarded as an aberration, and not, as it is sometimes called today, a sign of progress. We think that progress, and progress in education in particular, depends on the incorporation of the ideas and images included in this set in the daily lives of all of us, from childhood through old age. In this view the disappearance of great books from education and from the reading of adults constitutes a calamity. In this view education in the West has been steadily deteriorating; the rising generation has been deprived of its birthright; the mess of pottage it has received in exchange has not been nutritious; adults have come to lead lives comparatively rich in material comforts and very poor in moral, intellectual, and spiritual tone." -- Preface to "Great Books of the Western World", "The Great Conversation Vol. 1" (1951) http://archive.org/stream/greatconversatio030336mbp/greatconversatio030336mbp_djvu.txt http://archive.org/stream/greatconversatio030336mbp/greatcon...

pzxc 12y ago
On the other hand, the argument can be made that if we all rely on the supercomputers in our pockets to give us the historical facts we never bothered to memorize, then all the critical thinking in the world might not save us from being doomed to repeat the history we never bothered to learn. -- Me (I take this stance because just the other day I watched an old Simpsons episode where Martin was made fun of by the substitute teacher for "bothering" to learn the historical significance of the Monroe Doctrine, and I was ashamed that any teacher, fictional or not, would behave in such a way) Say all you want about the overuse of memorization in public education: I bet those 8th graders that could pass this test without looking half the answers up on Wikipedia had a more well-rounded education than most of us today. And the attitude that, "Well why bother to learn history when I have wikipedia?" is the same attitude that causes people to become totally useless when their computer goes down and is no longer telling them what to do. I've had cashiers that literally could not make change when they didn't have a computer in front of them to do the subtraction.
- bcg1 12y ago

Avshalom 12y ago

Um, other than the grammar portion this seems pretty much what 8th graders were expected to know in 1999 when I was in Washington?

talmand 12y ago

So, do I get extra points for pointing out typos?

smackfu 12y ago

Funny that the Truant Officer's name is on the bottom along with the board of education.

madengr 12y ago

For 7th grade British History we had to know all the rulers, in order, from Charlemagne (or was it Charles Martel aka Charles the Hammer) to present day (1980s). Obviously I didn't learn it. Funny now, I learned more after watching The Tudors, Wolf Hall, and The White Queen, than I did it that awful class. Wasn't all bad though. We got to make our own Medieval weapons (I made a Morning Star) and had a tour book of the London Dungeon (pretty gruesome) hanging on the classroom wall; won't find that these days.

jameshart 12y ago
Weird. Charlemagne was ruler of a lot of places, but Britain wasn't one of them...
- madengr 12y ago
  Yeah, he was Normandy IIRC, but I assume many descended from him, but as I said, I hated that class.
schoen 12y ago
This makes me think of "I know the kings of England, and I quote the fights historical / From Marathon to Waterloo, in order categorical".

IgorPartola 12y ago

I don't know if I have a disadvantage or an advantage when it comes to learning. I can never memorize a mass of stuff. Instead, I have to find a pattern in it and use the pattern to reconstruct it. For example, I could never remember random formulas for e.g. solving the quadratic equation or taking a derivative, but once I figured out how they worked, I could use them right away. This is why I decided to study physics in college: physics has very few pieces of info you have to just memorize. The downside, besides having a horrible time remembering some chemical formula, or the year of the French revolution, is that I also cannot use a formula correctly unless I know how it is derived. I must walk every step of the proof before I can use any part of the formula, otherwise my brain simply refuses to see it correctly. Interestingly enough, I am blessed with very good memory for situations and associations. I can tell you exactly how many olives were in the martini I ordered in July 2008 (3), or quote lines from my favorite shows at every occasion. I just can't remember what my brain seems classify as "generally useless facts".