Here’s a little test to make you feel both dumber and more pessimistic about today’s educational system. It’s an eighth-grade final exam from Kansas, in 1895.
There are a total of five parts, and it’s expected to take the student five hours. Go here to take it all, but here’s one part:
Orthography (Time, one hour)
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’.
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, super.
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.
Now, could I do some of that? Yes. Could I pass it? Doubtful.
Partly, that’s just because the use of diacritical marks to indicate pronunciation isn’t taught at all anymore — unless it’s in a specialist course, or unless you really read those first three pages in your dictionary.
And, partly, I think the process of test-taking has changed in the past 115 years. You could probably pass this test with a good dollop of memorization, and not completely understand all of the concepts. Any question that asks for a definition risks that.
But partly, I think it’s because some of the stuff I was taught in Grade 8 is stuff I just don’t remember anymore. In another section of the test, they ask for the inclination of the Earth. I could look it up, but I don’t know it offhand.
Sigh. Eighth-grader from the past = smarter than me.
But let’s see him or her blog about it.
(via Coudal)
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1 comment
MPot says:
5 December 2010 at 3:43 pm (UTC -5)
Writing a good definition is very difficult and not at all a matter of memorization; philosophers struggle to define key terms even now.
The test is interesting, to me, because of what it emphasizes compares to the tests of today. It’s also interesting in that it shows that the cognitive complexity demanded by teachers then was no better than what is demanded now. It’s grunt work, low-level, with a different focus.
I kind of wish some of this material was still taught, but then, I’m a fetishist.