[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?