9th grade, according to the article. The question could have read, “Suzy found some papers with lines on them in the trash can. Which two sets of lines are the same?”
On the Civil Service Clerk-Typist exam of 30 years ago, one compared patterns like this, with a very short time allowance. It tested visual acuity and quick pattern recognition, useful skills in filing.
A book I read recently said that students today, compared to students 20 years ago: have lower SAT scores; have smaller vocabularies; have less math computation skill; spend less time doing homework; spend less time in paid work; spend less time on household tasks; have lower grammar skills; are less successful in tests of general knowledge.
And on and on and on. I just read that they’ve redesigned the SAT to make it easier, because just adding points to the results failed to disguise the decline in learning.
Along with being able to sing the alphabet song. :)
Those issues you describe are why I support some kind of national standards for testing, though Common Core was a disastrous attempt. What I see with my children is that unless they are in some kind of honors program (whether they should be or not), students are just written off in the same manner that “slow” children were 30 years ago - no education provided at all, just show up, play for a few hours, get fed, then go home. Grades are meaningless, especially as teachers offer extra credit for participating in canned food drives, for example. With hundreds of school districts, every NJ town (except the urban dumps) claims the best school system, and every parent thinks their children is a genius; grade inflation is rampant as teachers try to justify huge salaries for 180 six-hour workdays. My children describe teachers in the fall (each fall) openly criticizing their teachers from the prior year for failing to teach certain concepts in math, science, etc. - in other words, teachers themselves are calling it all a hoax.
That dishonesty with grades can only be exposed when the parents of these little geniuses learn that in fact they score horribly when compared to their peers in other states.