Are you smarter than an 8th grader in 1895?

Live Leak ^ | 05/05/1985 | Smoky Valley Genealogical Society and Library

[bert]

Answers
1. April
2. Aquamarine; Taupe
3. Swiss Embassy
4. Netflix

[bert]

.....What is the cost of 40 boards 12 inches wide and 16 ft.. Long at $20 per metre?.....

It is even more bogus. A meter is a measurement of length. Lumber is sold by the board foot. Since no thickness for the board was given, there is inadequate data to calculate a value.

[Swiss]

I have in my hand an old pamphlet titled “Eighth Grade Examinations, for review: a complete set of questions used in Eighth Grade examinations of the past seven years. 1922-1928”

I am guessing it was for Iowa schools since the publisher was in Mason City. The questions is pretty like the 1898 test questions but it looks to me like it was written for students not for potential teachers.

In a year or so I plan to take a grad school test like the GRE or GMAT. This old eighth grade test question booklet is one of the things I think will be useful to study for it.

[MayflowerMadam]

We’ve thought about the Roadshow, too, and when/if it goes to rural Western NY State, it might be an option. So much stuff! Mom is working her way to the back of some of the closets and is finding old crazy quilts from mid-1800s (sadly disintegrating) and other things we haven’t identified. Civil War pics and letters. There’s a blanket chest built by the ancestor who built the house, and legend has it that he brought it there from the “old” place. Pretty cool.

[Pikachu_Dad]

That is a stupid question. Certainly not a real world question. What moron would price his boards in meters and measure them in feet? A meter is close to a yard, so 16 feet would be close to 5 meters. At $20/meter, each board would be close to $100. That is some very expensive lumber !!! So the answer would be close to $4,000.

[lacrew]

Yes, I know its been around for a long time (metric system)...but strange that it would be used on a question dealing with lumber (I assume late 19th century lumber was a domestic product, and wouldn’t be quantified in meters). I just question these ‘old tests’ that pop up in e-mail chains, etc. every once in a while.

[SampleMan]

Because produce presents problems of both weight and volume, keeping bushels by weight is a good system.

If you go to an orchard and pay to pick your own, you will likely pay by volume. However, when that same orchard sells to a wholesaler by the truckload it makes far more sense to sell by weight.

Also, grain and produce can vary a great deal on size. Thus the amount of empty space in a bushel basket would vary greatly. A bushel basket of large kernels would make less wheat than a bushel basket of small kernels.

[edzo4]

looks like atlantic city is the closest it will get this year

http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/roadshow/ontheroad.html

[IYAS9YAS]

I understand it fully. You need to have both measurements there.

I forgot my upbringing. Dang it.

[SampleMan]

...but strange that it would be used on a question dealing with lumber (I assume late 19th century lumber was a domestic product, and wouldn’t be quantified in meters).

Perhaps, but then again when is the last time that you had a real world problem with the space time relationship of two trains leaving Chicago? I suppose that even in the olden days test questions were designed more to test knowledge than imitate life.

[SampleMan]

...but strange that it would be used on a question dealing with lumber (I assume late 19th century lumber was a domestic product, and wouldn’t be quantified in meters).

Perhaps, but then again when is the last time that you had a real world problem with the space time relationship of two trains leaving Chicago? I suppose that even in the olden days test questions were designed more to test knowledge than imitate life.

[Sloth]

The test as originally transcribed did not say ‘$20 per meter’ but “$20 per m’:

http://skyways.lib.ks.us/genweb/saline/society/exam.html

I suspect that ‘m’ did not mean meters but a thousand board feet (as used on this page: http://ezinearticles.com/?id=1886359 )

In which case (assuming 1-inch boards) the answer would be 40 * 16 * $20 / 1000 = $12.80. Comments?

[Sloth]

Oops, meant to ping everyone that was discussing meters...

[SampleMan]

$20 would have been fantastically expensive per meter in 1895, so there is definately good reason to think that it is perhaps not referencing meters.

[Wil H]

My point is that the numbers are unrealistic for the time period of the purported test yet they are curiously close to current Home Depot prices.

[Nea Wood]

My wife and I have been reading the “Little House” books to our 7yr old, and he really likes them. There are some incredible examples of elementary school children diagramming sentences and correctly labeling all parts of speech, reciting speeches, poetry, and dramatic soliloquy from memory, and reciting the history of the United States beginning with the landings in Jamestown. This was in the 1880’s and children as young as 16 were teaching school without the benefit of a college degree. It is a real eye opener.

What struck me, too, was that Laura got a teaching certificate at age 15-1/2, (an exception was made for her...normally one had to wait till the ripe old age of 16 to be a teacher.) Some of the questions she had to answer to get her certificate are included in the book. It's amazing how much more kids learned back in those days...in one-room schoolhouses, with no computers or audio-visual aids, often with no schoolbooks other than a Bible or almanack brought from home, taught by teachers who were teenagers themselves.

[P8riot]

My 7yr old asked me the other night how old he had to be before he could get a teaching certificate, and I told him that he had to go to college first and pass all kinds of test and boards. The he asked me if there was really that much more that he had to learn now that they did back then, and I had to confess, other than another 120yrs of history I can't see that much more.

We are homeschooling him, and he is progressing quite quickly, mostly at his own pace. He is a good three to four grade levels above his peers in public schools in almost every subject.

[pepperdog]

You are right, and the 8 key is right next to the 9 key!

[PapaBear3625]

That is a stupid question. Certainly not a real world question. What moron would price his boards in meters and measure them in feet?

If you were receiving a shipment of teak wood from Brazil that was cut and shipped by a French firm, would you necessarily expect English measurements?

[PapaBear3625]

As an example of how far we've gone down, consider the reading level that modern teachers would assign to the book containing the following passage:

He lay at his ease in a rough chariot drawn and propelled by his men, and instead of a right hand he had the iron hook with which ever and anon he encouraged them to increase their pace. As dogs this terrible man treated and addressed them, and as dogs they obeyed him. In person he was cadaverous and blackavized, and his hair was dressed in long curls, which at a little distance looked like black candles, and gave a singularly threatening expression to his handsome countenance. His eyes were of the blue of the forget-me-not, and of a profound melancholy, save when he was plunging his hook into you, at which time two red spots appeared in them and lit them up horribly. In manner, something of the grand seigneur still clung to him, so that he even ripped you up with an air, and I have been told that he was a raconteur of repute. He was never more sinister than when he was most polite, which is probably the truest test of breeding; and the elegance of his diction, even when he was swearing, no less than the distinction of his demeanour, showed him one of a different cast from his crew. A man of indomitable courage, it was said that the only thing he shied at was the sight of his own blood, which was thick and of an unusual colour. In dress he somewhat aped the attire associated with the name of Charles II, having heard it said in some earlier period of his career that he bore a strange resemblance to the ill-fated Stuarts; and in his mouth he had a holder of his own contrivance which enabled him to smoke two cigars at once. But undoubtedly the grimmest part of him was his iron claw.

What college-level literary work is this challenging passage from? It is from the original edition of Peter Pan