Talk of The Villages Florida - 1912 8th grade exam

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I guess you couldn't answer any of them, you want the fifth grade one? Calculators not allowed on that one

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Originally Posted by DougB (Post 725565)

Makes me wonder how well schooled you were. Amazing how hard it was for many of our senior readers here. Many of our Florida 5th grade students would have little difficulty with this test.

Quote:

Originally Posted by TexaninVA (Post 725888)

Doug ... quite nice of you to do this. Math for me is no problem but I was more focused on the other elements of the test. So tell me ... do you really think todays HS or even most college grads would excel in the 1912 questions related to (updated) history, geography, spelling etc? We both know the answer is no.

Regarding critical thinking skills... obviously important but if there's no data in there to start with, it doesn't work too well.

Why, yes I do Texan. Most middle school students would pass it.

You completely missed my point.

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Originally Posted by Russ_Boston (Post 726097)

That's a statement you can't make. You don't know that from that sample 1912 exam. You only know that they had to know 'different' things. Unless of course you remember 1912 personally.

Just another example of how some people think EVERTHING was better 'back in the day'. You can keep thinking this and I'll take some of the brainiacs we have nowadays who fill the halls of Stanford, Harvard, MIT, Caltech etc. etc. I loved my grandparents with all my heart but to say that they were smarter (educated around 1912) than the majority of us grandchildren (over 20 of us) educated in the 60 - 70's is just not correct. Heck a lot of their generation dropped out while in HS to get a job while most if not all of the grandchildren went to college. They and our parents did a great job to make sure we continued our education.

But if you insist that 1912 was better education based on this test then you entitled to your opinion.

Uh, not really and try not to twist my statements please. I never said everything was better way back when etc. I also never said they were smarter ... the general IQ has likely been constant over the millennia ... along with the bell shaped distribution thereof. My only point (and my apologies if you don't get it) is the implication is there appears to have been a higher standard of what kid had to know to graduate.

I can tell you from first hand experience that most of the junior officers who worked for me in the Navy were, for the most part, all bright and well educated. However, I was always amazed at how poorly most of them wrote, and how little they seem to know about history.