Thursday, March 31, 2011

8th-grade exams

Getting out of the 8th-Grade - in 1910

8th-grade test

This is a follow-up of yesterday's TAKS entry.  Graduating grade school in 1910 was a major big deal.  Before reaching that point many kids were put to work on the farm, or in factories.  For those who did graduate,  high school was no sure thing, and college was pretty much out of the question for all but the swells. Still, those kids comprised a labor force that went on to make the United States the most technologically advanced nation in the world.  I'm speculating, but as this 1910  Olympia WA graduation exam indicates, those kids received an education not far removed from what some of today's college graduates receive.  Here's an example:

  READING

1-5. One selection in prose and one in poetry from eighth grade reading book. (50 credits) (not included)

   6. Name five American poets, and give a quotation from each.

   7. Who wrote the following?
      The Village Blacksmith.
      Rip Van Winkle.
      The First Snowfall.
      The Great Stone Face.
      The Raven.

   8. Quote two stanzas of "America."

   9. Quote a stanza from one of the poems mentioned in question 7.    
(There once was a man from Nantucket ... FAIL)

  10. Give in your own words the meaning of the following:
      "To him who, in the love of Nature, holds
      Communion with her visible forms, she speaks
      A various language: for his gayer hours
      She has a voice of gladness, and a smile
      Into his darker musings with a mild
      And healing sympathy, that steals away
      Their sharpness ere he is aware."

Try is yourself (HERE)  or print it out (.PDF
PS - raise your hand if you think you could use a slide rule today.  Use it or lose it, and I cannot.


21 comments:

El Jefe said...

I used to work at Lincoln Labs when I was stationed at Hansom AFB, MA, back in the mid-eighties. Got used to the Uber-Myrons walking around the halls with slide rules and muttering to themselves.

And no, I have NO idea how to use the damn things (computer mainframes were my forte at the time).

I did love the scenes in Apollo 13 where they were using them, though.

Anonymous said...

We spent the first quarter of physics class, 11th grade, fall of 1970, learning how to use the slide rule. We, or almost all of us, had no idea who Hewlett-Packard or Texas Instruments were and what was coming in 3 years.
Yes I still know how to use the slide rule.

Rodger the Real King of France said...

I have, and always have had, a real appreciation and affection for nerds. I have just a 3 inch left brain (but a Johnny Wadd right brain).

pdwalker said...

Late 80's. I had a friend in university who'd impress the hell out of everyone by coming to exams with a set of log tables and a slide rule.

Wish I had learned. Lovely tool that. A lever for the brain.

Anonymous said...

MBA Class 1969 Miami University (Oxford OH) - Engineering Math for Non-Engineers. Professor drops his treasured slide rule on floor. Thing shatters into 5 or 6 pieces. Professor starts to bawl (honest),picks up remnants and walks out of class, not returning that day. Guess he was attached to that instrument. We all gave him a wide berth after that incident. In retrospect, that was my introduction to GEEKS.
Angus
Barn Army Sous Chef

pdwalker said...

(Oh, and I think I'd fail that grade 8 test now)

Ronbert said...

You made me go look for my Dietzgen
Vector type Microglide 51 year old
sliderule Found it in my desk. Can still use it.

ron

Anonymous said...

Repeat after me, a-nac-ron-ism.

Casca

Anonymous said...

Stand back! I still have my log-log desi-trig, and I'm not afraid to use it.
BTW, I missed just one question on the TAKS, finished less than 1-1/2 hrs.

Rodger the Real King of France said...

then say
"e-bomb."

Anonymous said...

I still own and can remember how to operate a copy of Smoley's Four Combined Tables.

H the Luddite Comet

toadold said...

In ye olde days I remember having to use the sine trig tables and interpolating to set up sine bars and sine tables. You used gage blocks and needed 4 to 5 significant figures. How we all danced and got drunk win the hand held calculators got cheap. I couldn't set up a compound angle these days to save my life.

Anonymous said...

You're king Rog, but I don't see us doing a lot of trig after that happens.

Casca

Anonymous said...

Somehow I think this is just another version of this one:

http://www.snopes.com/language/document/1895exam.asp

and it's false.
.

Rodger the Real King of France said...

3 things anon at 1:54 PM

1. You go to Snopes for truth?? FAIL

2.I've had this link from EDUCATION REPORTER (a legitimate concern) for about ten years. I suspect any hoax would have come to their attention.

3. SNOPES?

TimO said...

Learned to use a slide-rule in Junior High in the late 60s. Loved it and could whip through numbers faster than using a calculator today.

When you look at a Saturn5 or an SR-71 and realize that they were built WITHOUT computers and mostly by slide-rules....

Anonymous said...

TimO - what's more, those people learned arithmetic tables by rote and memorized physical constants and conversion factors. That way, when they got a number from a calculation, they had some idea whether or not the result was a reasonable number. Kids, now adults, of the graphing calculator plug and play generation dump numbers into their little machines very quickly, but without the feel for the numbers and formulae behind the keys often have no idea if their result is a reasonable one or not.
I saw it with my own eyes when our very smart exchange students took math and physics during their year here with us. Punchety punchety clickety clickety and no idea they were off by two or three orders of magnitude.
Lt. Col. Gen. Tailgunner dick

JMcD said...

Aw heck!...All this time I've been going to Snoopes ... Info is questionable, but hilarious!

JMcD said...

Examples of SNOOPES urban legends:

Social Security

Email claims there is an elaborate system set up by the government to help retirees.

Optimistic Unicorn

Essay attributed to a unicorn tells Americans that economic indicators are positive.

Anonymous said...

I just e-mailed that to my grand daughters 8th grade math teacher.
Her Great great Grandfather graduated from the 8th grade in Wenatchee, WA in 1910.
Her home room teacher is going to ask them if they as as smart or knowledgable as 8th graders were in 1910 and then hand out the test.

Chuck from Tacoma

Elisabeth said...

But suppose we wrote a test for the kids in the 1900s - could they:

1. Design a web page

2. Calculate the square root to the hundredth of, say 5678, using a calculator

3. Discuss the arguments for states' rights vs. federal rights in relation to border control

4. Give the scientific arguments for and against global warming

5. Discuss the most important nutrients and what foods to get them from -

No, they could not.

My 8th graders can.

I am impressed with the 8th graders of yesteryear, but, it was a different world and I'd rather my kids know how to do a google search than use a slide rule.

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