I received the following via email. Figured I’d share!
Remember when our grandparents, great-grandparents, and such stated that they only had an 8th grade education?
Well, check this out. – – –
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
50cts/bushel, deducting 1050lbs. 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 $1.20 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, and 1865.
Orthography (Time, one hour)
1. What is meant by the following: Alphabet, phonetic, orthography, etymology, and syllabication?
2. What are elementary sounds? How classified?
3. What are the following, and give examples of each: Trigraph, sub vocals, diphthong, cognate letters, and 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?
How many of these questions can you answer? Leave your responses in the comments 😉
UPDATE: The originial test information can be found here. The link to the answers is at the bottom of that page.
VIVIAN J. PAIGE | All Politics is Local 
I’m a history major at GMU, which I’d like to think is a well respected university, and I’ve had essay exams and term papers in upper level courses that were VERY similar to numbers 2, 3, and 6 in the US history portion of this 8th grade exam.
And how did you do? 😉
“What happened to us?” We decided that “everyone deserves an education,” so we made it easy for even the lazy and stupid to get an High School diploma.
I did good on my exams for school, but some of there are some questions on this that I couldn’t answer. For instance, I’m pretty sure I can name all of the European Countries (England, Scotland, Ireland, France, Germany, Spain, Portugal, Italy, Sweden, Norway) , but I don’t know the capital for Norway or Sweden and I wondered whether or not they would have included the Baltic States as European on this exam.
For the capitalization rules I could only come up with. (first word of sentence; person’s title when used while addressing them; person’s name; a title of a book, article, etc; and departments of an organization such as Department of Justice)
And does anyone know the answer for number two in the arithmetic section?
Hm – let me take a shot at #2 under the arithmetic.
I come up with 48.
According to this, the volume of one bushel is 1.25 cubic feet. Cubic feet =LxWxH. So 10x3x2=60 cubic feet divided by 1.25 = 48 bushels.
Now – I have no idea if this is correct 😉
Actually, I went hunting for the test on line. I found the test and the answers, although the math answers are not explained. My answer of 48 is correct 🙂
At least one of us knew the size of a bushel.
According to the truth or fiction website, this is most likely an exam for adults. They have located the source, and nowhere does it say 8th grade, but it does mention that this is an exam for applicants. The snopes website also says that this is not for 8th grade, and does a comparison of an exam for teachers in 1870. I believe it’s one of those urban legends. I know I’ve gotten this emailed to me by most of my conservative friends as proof that our education system has completely failed.
http://www.snopes.com/language/document/1895exam.htm
http://www.truthorfiction.com/rumors/a/1895exam.htm
Did you check the link I have above? The website there says they used the Smokey Valley Geneology Society info.
Anyway, it’s fun 🙂
I found an interesting article that calls in to question some of the conclusions reached by the websites I linked. But this extensive article does go on to document that greater than 70% of the students who took this exam failed it.
An interesting read:
Click to access 1895exam.pdf
(It seems odd to me that an 8th grader would even need to know how to write a bank check and a promissory note – geez, and we think kids “grow up” too fast today!)
That is a very good article, probably the closest thing we have to getting to the truth: that this test is authentic but certainly not representative of those tests given to 8th grade graduates across the country in 1895.
For the record, Mr. Scrafford, your second post (#4) should be corrected from, “I did GOOD on my exams for school,” to, “I did WELL on my exams for school.”
Not to be annoying, but since we are literally talking academics here . . . . . .