Really, I think this is another internet fake. A high school entrance exam?
I REALLY liked the capital of Brazil though since Brasilia is younger than I am.
Why would you think it was a fake?
I first saw it in the WSJ in ‘93, I think. I was in graduate school then and the Journal printed it as an entrance exam to junior high. Look at any text book from that period. Have any jr. high student today read from the McGuffy Reader.
Remember, years ago you were expected to know something. Farragut took charge of his first ship when he was 14; he had to have a command presence and a working knowledge of trig. John Adams son was secretary to the ambassador for Russia at 14; he was fluent in Greek, Latin and French and soon Russian. Those who were educated were very well educated.
Look at the academic works of people who were educated before the ‘50s; they are radically different and more scholarly than anything we have now. Education today is a joke. In all the interviews I have had to teach at universities the one thing I have NEVER been asked is what I know. It is no longer about knowledge and teaching but your diversity statement and how you deal with or patronize certain groups and what tripe you have published.