(no subject)
I got a link to a final exam to graduate the 8th grade in 1895. The point of it seems to regard declining test standards, but I don't see it.
I tried taking the test, and from memory I certainly would fail it. I'm pretty sure any of us would. However, I dug up an answer key, and here's my assessment of the test:
Grammar
I did OK on this section even without looking at the answer key. If my graduation had been hanging on what I can remember 17 years after I finished the requisite classes, Grammar wouldn't be the part that would have killed me. However, on a more appropriate application of this test (given to me when I was at the end of my 8th grade year), I'd have scored very, very well.
I didn't do very well here because of two specific problems: the amount of time between right now and the last time I studied this subject and obsolete terminology. There are a lot of words that one doesn't hear much of after they leave their primary education, like "Principal Rules" and "case" -- when I looked at the answer key, there was nothing there I didn't know, and most of it I obey reflexively.
Obviously, I didn't write a composition, but I don't think I have to convince anyone reading this that I so totally could without even thinking about it.
Arithmetic
Some obsolete terminology aside, I did very well here. I don't consider it a weakness on my part that I don't know how to figure a levy or conversion tables for bushels and acres -- this isn't really something my generation needed to know, and with the conversion charts handy, the math is a snap. I didn't even bomb the last question, because I know how to write a bank check (though it looks a bit different from an 1895 bank check) and a receipt (though I didn't know how to do either in 8th grade). Does anyone even accept promissory notes anymore?
US History
I bombed this section, but by and large, it's a studying issue. I would have known all this back then (except the history of Kansas -- I did know the history of Illinois approximately well enough, though). The only one I'm pretty sure I would have done badly on is the last question with the dates, because years without context are just numbers to me.
Orthography
I don't believe this was covered in my classes in grade and middle school. My second grade teacher once ended a class by asking if any of us knew what the "schwa" sound was, and then she explained it the next day. Other than that, I can generally read a pronunciation key, but only because they're mostly made up of long and short vowel sounds, which I know for some reason.
Geography
I knew about half of these, though curiously, it was the half that aren't so much geographical as they are geological.
There are things they don't teach so much anymore, or didn't in the late '80s, but I don't really think these are weaknesses in the education system or a dip in test standards. It's not like the things I didn't know aren't made up for by things I did know back then that weren't on the test. There's a much higher focus on literature in modern education, history is now part of Social Studies, which actually includes the geography-related geography questions. Of course, I went to school in a town with lots of upper middle class people that got tons and tons of money from the nuclear power plant in taxes. Still, the educational standards of the district sruck me as being good and solid. My understanding is that the average school's standards were less, but I haven't done enough research on that.
Of course, I don't think the solution is one that can be solved so easy as just changing education standards. It seems to me that if you push through a legislative minimum, you wind up with shortages and then nobody gets a decent education. I have some guesses as to what the solution is, but that is for another time.
I tried taking the test, and from memory I certainly would fail it. I'm pretty sure any of us would. However, I dug up an answer key, and here's my assessment of the test:
Grammar
I did OK on this section even without looking at the answer key. If my graduation had been hanging on what I can remember 17 years after I finished the requisite classes, Grammar wouldn't be the part that would have killed me. However, on a more appropriate application of this test (given to me when I was at the end of my 8th grade year), I'd have scored very, very well.
I didn't do very well here because of two specific problems: the amount of time between right now and the last time I studied this subject and obsolete terminology. There are a lot of words that one doesn't hear much of after they leave their primary education, like "Principal Rules" and "case" -- when I looked at the answer key, there was nothing there I didn't know, and most of it I obey reflexively.
Obviously, I didn't write a composition, but I don't think I have to convince anyone reading this that I so totally could without even thinking about it.
Arithmetic
Some obsolete terminology aside, I did very well here. I don't consider it a weakness on my part that I don't know how to figure a levy or conversion tables for bushels and acres -- this isn't really something my generation needed to know, and with the conversion charts handy, the math is a snap. I didn't even bomb the last question, because I know how to write a bank check (though it looks a bit different from an 1895 bank check) and a receipt (though I didn't know how to do either in 8th grade). Does anyone even accept promissory notes anymore?
US History
I bombed this section, but by and large, it's a studying issue. I would have known all this back then (except the history of Kansas -- I did know the history of Illinois approximately well enough, though). The only one I'm pretty sure I would have done badly on is the last question with the dates, because years without context are just numbers to me.
Orthography
I don't believe this was covered in my classes in grade and middle school. My second grade teacher once ended a class by asking if any of us knew what the "schwa" sound was, and then she explained it the next day. Other than that, I can generally read a pronunciation key, but only because they're mostly made up of long and short vowel sounds, which I know for some reason.
Geography
I knew about half of these, though curiously, it was the half that aren't so much geographical as they are geological.
There are things they don't teach so much anymore, or didn't in the late '80s, but I don't really think these are weaknesses in the education system or a dip in test standards. It's not like the things I didn't know aren't made up for by things I did know back then that weren't on the test. There's a much higher focus on literature in modern education, history is now part of Social Studies, which actually includes the geography-related geography questions. Of course, I went to school in a town with lots of upper middle class people that got tons and tons of money from the nuclear power plant in taxes. Still, the educational standards of the district sruck me as being good and solid. My understanding is that the average school's standards were less, but I haven't done enough research on that.
Of course, I don't think the solution is one that can be solved so easy as just changing education standards. It seems to me that if you push through a legislative minimum, you wind up with shortages and then nobody gets a decent education. I have some guesses as to what the solution is, but that is for another time.