This Generation vs Previous Generations

[trottigy]

What it took to get an 8th grade education in 1895...

Remember when grandparents and great-grandparents 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 , Kansas , USA . It was taken from the original document on file at the Smokey Valley Genealogical Society and Library in Salina , and reprinted by the Salina Journal.

8th Grade Final Exam: Salina , KS - 1895

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,''play,' and 'run.'

5. Define case; illustrate each case.

6 What is punctuation? Give rules for principal marks of punctuation.

7 - 10. Write a composition of about 150 words and show therein that you understand the practical use of the rules of grammar.

Arithmetic (Time,1 hour 15 minutes)

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 3,942 lbs., what is it worth at 50cts/bushel, deducting 1,050 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 the cost of 6,720 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 metre?

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 of 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)

[Do we even know what this is?]

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, subvocals, diphthong, cognate letters, linguals.

4. Give four substitutes for caret 'u.' (HUH?)

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 and Orinoco .

6. Name and locate the principal trade centers of the U.S. 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.

Notice that the exam took FIVE HOURS to complete.

Gives the saying 'he only had an 8th grade education' a whole new meaning, doesn't it?

No wonder they dropped out after 8th grade. They already knew more than they needed to know!

[trottigy]

Current tests:

Question 1: A central purpose of the United Nations is to

A. establish democratic governments worldwide

B. maintain international peace and security

C. decide where national boundaries lie

D. bring international criminals to justice

Question 2: The following question refers to the summons below (you don't need to see it to know the answer)

Which of the following is the best reason why people should serve on juries when they are called?

A. People who are on juries earn a lot of money for the services they give the court.

B. People can protect their right to a trial by jury only if citizens are willing to be on juries.

C. People on juries have a lot of opportunities to express their political opinions.

D. Our system of justice only works if people with a lot of legal experience are on juries.

Question 3: What do all constitutional governments have?

A. Legal limits on political power

B. A President as the head of government

C. A bill of rights

D. Separation of church and state

Question 4: The following question refers to the passage below from the Declaration of Independence.

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, that whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness.

According to the passage, which is more important, the individual or the government?

Fill in the oval next to your choice. Then give two reasons, based on the words from the Declaration of Independence, to support your answer.

A. The individual is more important.

B. The government is more important.

Math:

Question 1 of 10:

1. Marty has 6 red pencils, 4 green pencils, and 5 blue pencils. If he picks out one pencil without looking, what is the probability that the pencil he picks will be green?

2. 1 out of 3

3. 1 out of 4

4. 1 out of 15

5. 4 out of 15

2. The school carnival committee sold a total of 200 tickets for the grand prize drawing. Sue bought enough tickets so that she had a 20 percent chance of winning the grand prize. How many tickets did Sue buy?

1. 20

2. 40

3. 160

4. 400

5. 1,000

3.

Which point is the solution to both equations shown on the graph above?

1. (0, 0)

2. (0, 4)

3. (1, 1)

4. (2, 2)

5. (4, 0)

And the kids are failing this – OUCH!!!!

[trottigy]

OK one more -

Ann e-mail from a workmate of mine (cleaned-up)

"If you are 30, or older, you might think this is hilarious!

When I was a kid, adults used to bore me to tears with their tedious diatribes about how hard things were. When they were growing up; what with walking twenty-five miles to school every morning.... Uphill... Barefoot.... BOTH ways... yadda, yadda, yadda.

And I remember promising myself that when I grew up, there was no way I was going to lay stories like that on my kids about how hard I had it and how easy they've got it!

But now that I'm over the ripe old age of thirty, I can't help but look around and notice the youth of today. You've got it so easy! I mean, compared to my childhood, you live in a Utopia!

And I hate to say it, but you kids today, you don't know how good you've got it! I mean, when I was a kid we didn't have the Internet. If we wanted to know something, we had to go to the library and look it up ourselves, in the card catalog!! - with much of the information out of date.

There was no email!! We had to actually write somebody a letter - with a pen! Then you had to walk all the way across the street and put it in the mailbox, and it would take like a week to get there! Stamps were 10 cents! Then it would take over a week to get a reply - if the return letter made it to your house!

Child Protective Services didn't care if our parents beat us. As a matter of fact, the parents of all my friends also had permission to discipline me (spanking included)! Nowhere was safe!

There were no MP3's or Napsters or iTunes! If you wanted to steal music, you had to hitchhike to the record store and shoplift it yourself! Or you had to wait around all day to tape it off the radio, and the DJ would usually talk over the beginning and mess it all up! There were no CD players! We had tape decks in our car. We'd play our favorite tape and "eject" it when finished, and then the tape would come undone rendering it useless. Cause, hey, that's how we rolled, Baby! Dig?

We didn't have fancy things like Call Waiting! If you were on the phone and somebody else called, they got a busy signal, that's it! There weren't any cell phones either. If you left the house, you just didn't make a call or receive one. You actually had to be out of touch with your "friends." OH MY GOD !!! Think of the horror... not being in touch with someone 24/7!!! And then there's TEXTING. Yeah, right. Please! You kids have no idea how annoying you are.

And we didn't have fancy Caller ID either! When the phone rang, you had no idea who it was! It could be your school, your parents, your boss, the collection agent... you just didn't know!!! You had to pick it up and take your chances, mister!

We didn't have any fancy PlayStation or Xbox video games with high-resolution 3-D graphics! We had the Atari 2600! With games like 'Space Invaders' and 'Asteroids'. Your screen guy was a little square! You actually had to use your imagination!!! And there were no multiple levels or screens, it was just one screen... Forever! And you could never win. The game just kept getting harder and harder and faster and faster until you died! Just like LIFE!

You had to use a little book called a TV Guide to find out what was on! And when it came to channel surfing! You had to get off your butt and walk over to the TV to change the channel!!! NO REMOTES!!! Oh, no, what's the world coming to?!?!

There was no Cartoon Network either! You could only get cartoons on Saturday Morning. Do you hear what I'm saying? We had to wait ALL WEEK

for cartoons, you spoiled little brats! And most of them weren't even that good - definitely no "special effects".

And not many of us had microwaves. If we wanted to heat something up, we had to use the stove! Imagine that!

And our parents told us to stay outside and play... all day long. Oh, no electronics to soothe and comfort. And if you came back inside...you were doing chores! If you wanted a drink - no special water filters - you used the hose, because you didn't want to go back in.

And car seats and seat belts - oh, please! Mom threw you in the back seat and you hung on. If you were lucky, you got the "safety arm" across the chest at the last moment if she had to stop suddenly, and if your head hit the dashboard, well that was your fault for calling "shot gun" in the first place!

See! That's exactly what I'm talking about! You kids today have got it too easy. You're spoiled rotten! You guys wouldn't have lasted five minutes back in 1980 or any time before!

Regards,

The Over 30 Crowd "

note: we love our young ones in the truth you have things we never had - sex crazed 8 year olds, pregnant 12 year olds, drugs in elementary school, etc. we pray for you everyday!

>

[Musky]

Wow, that took a lot of work! Thanks for posting it.

It's amazing what our parents and grandparents (and even most of us) had to learn in school or not graduate. Today they can't "fail" a student because it might hurt their self esteem, so they pass them along according to their age. very sad!

[GrumpysWife]

Good Job and So true.............

[cheesychat]

My friend came into the truth at 15 years old because her mother sent her to the door to get rid of the Brothers. The elderly bro that spoke to her was pure fire and brimstone (back in the 60's). He scared her alot. He placed a Let God Be True book with her for 5/- and she couldnt understand a word of it, but she had to study it. Jehovah sure draws people by their heart condition. But she made it through and eventually her mum and brother came in as well.

Imagine a 15year old today trying to get their head round this book?

They are so used to 5 minute concentration spans of watching the tv between blocks of ads. My hubby used to be a teacher and he said that when the Simpsons began to go to air years ago, there was a marked difference in the attitudes of the kids to authority and behaviour. And things never got better, only worse.

Also, I study with 2 individuals who have learning difficuties that run in the family. This was suspectedly (is there such a word?) caused by a polio vaccination in youth. But without putting things really simply, they could not grasp much.

Jehovah is spot on as usual in providing these simple aids to help people whose brains are blown in one way or another by this system and its hectic pace and all the other things that cause brain lag....

Hey - I did a rant! hehehehe

[sweetwillow58]

Thanks Trottigy, now I feel both OLD and STUPID lol. That one if your over 30 (or in my case 50) was funny!