Posted on 11/28/2004 5:50:10 AM PST by snarks_when_bored
Dumbing down: the proof
As a service to Spectator readers who still have any doubts about the decline in educational standards, we are printing these exam papers taken by 11-year-olds applying for places to King Edward’s School in Birmingham in 1898.
ENGLISH GRAMMAR
1. Write out in your best handwriting:—
‘O Mary, go and call the cattle home,
And call the cattle home,
And call the cattle home,
Across the sands o’ Dee.’
The western wind was wild and dank with foam,
And all alone went she.The western tide crept up along the sand,
And o’er and o’er the sand,
And round and round the sand,
As far as eye could see.
The rolling mist came down and hid the land —
And never home came she.2. Parse fully ‘And call the cattle home.’
3. Explain the meaning of o’ Dee, dank with foam, western tide, round and round the sand, the rolling mist.
4. Write out separately the simple sentences in the last two lines of the above passage and analyse them.
5. Write out what you consider to be the meaning of the above passage.
GEOGRAPHY
1. On the outline map provided, mark the position of Carlisle, Canterbury, Plymouth, Hull, Gloucester, Swansea, Southampton, Worcester, Leeds, Leicester and Norwich; Morecambe Bay, The Wash, Solent, Menai Straits and Lyme Bay; St Bees Head, The Naze, Lizard Point; the rivers Trent and Severn; Whernside, the North Downs, and Plinlimmon; and state on a separate paper what the towns named above are noted for.
2. Where are silver, platinum, tin, wool, wheat, palm oil, furs and cacao got from?
3. Name the conditions upon which the climate of a country depends, and explain the reason of any one of them.
4. Name the British possessions in America with the chief town in each. Which is the most important?
5. Where are Omdurman, Wai-Hei-Wai, Crete, Santiago, and West Key, and what are they noted for?
LATIN
1. Write in columns the nominative singular, genitive plural, gender, and meaning of:— operibus, principe, imperatori, genere, apro, nivem, vires, frondi, muri.
2. Give the comparative of noxius, acer, male, diu; the superlative of piger, humilis, fortiter, multum; the English and genitive sing. of solus, uter, quisque.
3. Write these phrases in a column and put opposite to each its Latin: he will go; he may wish; he had; he had been; he will be heard; and give in a column the English of fore, amatum, regendus, monetor.
4. Give in columns the perfect Indic. and active supine of ago, pono, dono, cedo, jungo, claudo.
Mention one example each of verbs followed by the nominative, the accusative, the genitive, the dative, the ablative.
5. Translate into Latin:—
1. The general’s little son was loved by the soldiers.6. Translate into English:—
2. Let no bodies be buried within this city.
3. Ask Tullius who found the lions.
4. He said that the city had been taken, and, the war being finished, the forces would return.Exceptus est imperatoris adventus incredibili honore atque amore: tum primum enim veniebat ab illo Aegypti bello. Nihil relinquebatur quod ad ornatum locorum omnium qua iturus erat excogitari posset.
ENGLISH HISTORY
1. What kings of England began to reign in the years 871, 1135, 1216, 1377, 1422, 1509, 1625, 1685, 1727, 1830?
2. Give some account of Egbert, William II, Richard III, Robert Blake, Lord Nelson.
3. State what you know of — Henry II’s quarrel with Becket, the taking of Calais by Edward III, the attempt to make Lady Jane Grey queen, the trial of the Seven bishops, the Gordon riots.
4. What important results followed — the raising of the siege of Orleans, the Gunpowder plot, the Scottish rebellion of 1639, the surrender at Yorktown, the battles of Bannockburn, Bosworth, Ethandune, La Hogue, Plassey, and Vittoria?
5. How are the following persons connected with English History,— Harold Hardrada, Saladin, James IV of Scotland, Philip II of Spain, Frederick the Elector Palatine?
ARITHMETIC
1. Multiply 642035 by 24506.
2. Add together £132 4s. 1d., £243 7s. 2d., £303 16s 2d., and £1.030 5s. 3d.; and divide the sum by 17. (Two answers to be given.)
3. Write out Length Measure, and reduce 217204 inches to miles, &c.
4. Find the G.C.M. of 13621 and 159848.
5. Find, by Practice, the cost of 537 things at £5 3s. 71/2d. each.
6. Subtract 37/16 from 51/4; multiply 63/4 by 5/36; divide 43/8 by 11/6; and find the value of 21/4 of 12/3 of 13/5.
7. Five horses and 28 sheep cost £126 14s., and 16 sheep cost £22 8s.; find the total cost of 2 horses and 10 sheep.
8. Subtract 3.25741 from 3.3; multiply 28.436 by 8.245; and divide .86655 by 26.5.
9. Simplify 183/4 – 22/3 ÷ 11/5 – 31/2 x 4/7.
10. Find the square root of 5.185,440,100.
11. Find the cost of papering the walls of a room 16ft long, 13ft 6in. wide, and 9ft high, with paper 11/2ft wide at 2s. 3d. a piece of 12yds in length.
12. A and B rent a number of fields between them for a year, the rent and other expenses amounting to £108 17s. 6d. A puts in 2 horses, 5 oxen and 10 sheep; and B puts in 4 horses, 1 ox, and 27 sheep. If a horse eats as much as 3 sheep and an ox as much as 2 sheep, how much should A and B each pay?
These papers were kindly sent in by Humphrey Stanbury, whose father took the exam, and passed.
And then the whole generation which passed that test got killed off in WW-I.....
using tactics no American commander ever would have used after Picket's charge...
The test is from England, but American tests were almost as challenging. Have a look some time at American Algebra texts from the early 1900s. The notion of teaching even a tiny fraction of that material (at that level) to current American students is ludicrous.
And as for using the best and the brightest as cannon fodder, that's nothing new in history. In the opening lines of his "Theaetetus", Plato allows Socrates to assail (in a subtle way) the stupidity of Athen's political leaders as shown by their willingness to send a young genius, Theaetetus, into a vicious battle which ended up costing him his life.
I would fail that test ignominiously, except maybe for some of the arithmetic... I've had tests at university that were less challenging than that!
I feel dumb now... bigwinkysmiley
Amen.
At the old Georgia Military Academy (in Marietta), which is now a conference center/hotel, they have on display the curriculum for high schoolers from the 1860's.
If anyone thinks it's easy, or desgined to make sure none of the students suffer from "low self-esteem," they are sorely mistaken.
"I'm not feeling so good myself!"
Who builds a room 13' 6" wide?
Test writers?
Who builds a room 13' 6" wide?
using 14 foot framing material ... a very common, sometimes the cheapest per ft.
walls would be 14 ft on center ... leaving the width of the wall and wall finishes to be deducted from the clear width.
you probably have a room like that in your home.
Well, don't be too hard on American schoolchildren. They learn all about putting condoms on bananas and cucumbers, the various types of STD's, positions for homosexual sex, Muslim holidays and beliefs, why communism and socialism are good, studying art such as crucifxes in urine, and so on.
We know A LOT in America!
Too true.
And people who know something about carpentry?
would love to see a test from some public "school" today for contrast.
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