While this example has been debunked, the gist of its message is true. I happened to be in the Winchester, MA town hall some years ago. They had posted in one of their display cases an example of a test given to high school seniors, circa 1900. It was not significantly different from the fictional example here.
Well, having been lightly flamed over this, I researched this myself, despite the fact that the Snopes site says “false” in large red letters. Lots of back and forth.
I found this article in the Salina Journal from this year, claiming the test to be authentic. Live and learn.
http://www.barefootsworld.net/salina1895testarticle.pdf