dumbing us down.... the feds.

when the federal govt illegally took over education in this country, their curriclums have intentionally been used to dumb us down... Cany you pass this 8th grade test for 1895... even with a college "education"? (reserach!)

1895 TEST


This is the eighth-grade final exam from 1895 from Salina, Kansas. It was taken from the original
document on file at the Smoky Valley Genealogical Society and Library in Salina, Kansas and
reprinted by the Salina Journal.



8th Grade Final Exam: Salina, Kansas - 1895

Grammar (Time, one hour)

1. Give nine rules for the use of Capital Letters.

2. Name the Parts of Speech and define those that have no modifications.

3. Define Verse, Stanza and Paragraph.

4. What are the Principal Parts of a verb? Give Principal Parts of do, lie, lay and run.

5. Define Case, Illustrate each Case.

6. What is Punctuation? Give rules for principal marks of Punctuation.

7-10. Write a composition of about 150 words and show therein that you understand the practical
use of the rules of grammar.

Arithmetic (Time, 1.25 hours)

1. Name and define the Fundamental Rules of Arithmetic.

2. A wagon box is 2 ft. deep, 10 feet long, and 3 ft. wide. How many bushels of wheat will it hold?

3. If a load of wheat weighs 3942 lbs., what is it worth at 50 cts. per bu, deducting 1050 lbs. for
tare?

4. District No. 33 has a valuation of $35,000. What is the necessary levy to carry on a school seven
months at $50 per month, and have $104 for incidentals?

5. Find cost of 6720 lbs. coal at $6.00 per ton.

6. Find the interest of $512.60 for 8 months and 18 days at 7 percent.

7. What is the cost of 40 boards 12 inches wide and 16 ft. long at $.20 per inch?

8. Find bank discount on $300 for 90 days (no grace) at 10 percent.

9. What is the cost of a square farm at $15 per acre, the distance around which is 640 rods?

10. Write a Bank Check, a Promissory Note, and a Receipt.



U.S. History (Time, 45 minutes)

1. Give the epochs into which U.S. History is divided.

2. Give an account of the discovery of America by Columbus.

3. Relate the causes and results of the Revolutionary War.

4. Show the territorial growth of the United States.

5. Tell what you can of the history of Kansas.

6. Describe three of the most prominent battles of the Rebellion.

7. Who were the following: Morse, Whitney, Fulton, Bell, Lincoln, Penn, and Howe?

8. Name events connected with the following dates: 1607, 1620, 1800, 1849, and 1865?



Orthography (Time, one hour)

1. What is meant by the following: Alphabet, phonetic orthography, etymology, syllabication?

2. What are elementary sounds? How classified?

3. What are the following, and give examples of each: Trigraph, subvocals, diphthong, cognate
letters, linguals?

4. Give four substitutes for caret 'u'.

5. Give two rules for spelling words with final 'e'. Name two exceptions under each rule.

6. Give two uses of silent letters in spelling. Illustrate each.

7. Define the following prefixes and use in connection with a word: Bi, dis, mis, pre, semi, post, non,
inter, mono, super.

8. Mark diacritically and divide into syllables the following, and name the sign that indicates the
sound: Card, ball, mercy, sir, odd, cell, rise, blood, fare, last.

9. Use the following correctly in sentences, Cite, site, sight, fane, fain, feign, vane, vain, vein, raze,
raise, rays.

10. Write 10 words frequently mispronounced and indicate pronunciation by use of diacritical marks
and by syllabication.



Geography (Time, one hour)

1. What is climate? Upon what does climate depend?

2. How do you account for the extremes of climate in Kansas?

3. Of what use are rivers? Of what use is the ocean?

4. Describe the mountains of N.A.

5. Name and describe the following: Monrovia, Odessa, Denver, Manitoba, Hecla, Yukon, St.
Helena, Juan Fermandez, Aspinwall and Orinoco.

6. Name and locate the principal trade centers of the U.S.

7. Name all the republics of Europe and give capital of each.

8. Why is the Atlantic Coast colder than the Pacific in the same latitude?

9. Describe the process by which the water of the ocean returns to the sources of rivers.

10. Describe the movements of the earth. Give inclination of the earth.

Imagine a college student who went to public school trying to pass this test, even if the few outdated
questions were modernized. Imagine their professors even being able to pass the 8th Grade. Can
Americans, student and professor alike, get back up to the 8th Grade level of 1895? I seriously doubt there is anyone in America who could pass this simple test. Some
professors could pass the subjects they have a doctorate in, but they would fail the rest.
This is absolute proof that the New World Odor Gang has succeeded in dumbing down the
American people. Is it no wonder few Americans realize they are being led to the
slaughter?

Click Here!! for the answers

 

I don't know that this test is particularly difficult...it's just a matter of not studying the same things that kids studied in 1895. For example, no one cares what a bushel is anymore, and most historians no longer believe that American history can be neatly divided into epochs.

I do agree with you that government regulation has hurt the education system in this country though.

 

I think I could do alright if I got to study for it. But if a had to take it right now I would do really bad.

 

and look at the television. Station news is read at a 5th to 6th grade grading level!! i dont think they are doing this for the children =P. No stimulation after a crappy schooling nowwadays, =\. Not in any highschool cirriculum do they teach students how to SEE, just how to digest and regergitate. i want to be a teacher solely for this reason, maybe even introduce it to a many state legislation. You know... organizations fund the books, and their own bias and opinion on what we should learn influences what they fund the schools for... we learned in intro to education (a class that is nonbias against education, they just stated this and made my own connection =P) that a leading organization that funds books are church organizations. but again, so does state tax money, so eh =\

the southern states have implimented Statewide Adoption of books for cirriculum (lead by taxes, california, and florida), to save money truly, however, the books and programs they're buying are inhibiting the TEACHERS will and path, and force feeding even more the books that are chosen by company's that are able to pay to fund them... =\ 20 states have adopted this program, and only growing =\.

 

You're right. The same is true of print media. USA Today is written at a 3rd grade reading level, TIME Magazine is written at a 6th grade reading level, and even "highbrow" magazines like the New Yorker and the Atlantic Monthly are only written at a 10th grade reading level.

I absolutely agree. I'm against government regulation of education, but I do think that as long as we have public schools, they need to teach students the basics of critical thinking in addition to just math and english. I think that the biggest reason that half of this country doesn't vote (and that most of the ones who DO vote do so for stupid reasons) is that very few people are even able to spot the logical fallacies in political arguments.

It's not just politics either; the same can apply to economics. If more people were taught the ability to think critically (at least at the high school level, but preferably even earlier), I think the country would be more productive because people would understand financial management better.

I had the good fortune of having several good high school teachers who encouraged students to do more than just memorize facts for the test...but even at my school they were in the minority.

Personally I think that students should have at least one class every year in high school devoted entirely to critical thinking, logical fallacies, and skepticism.

 

This is a great thread! The fact is, there is a deliberate dumbing down of America taking place. The case for this assertion is nicely laid out in the aptly titled The Deliberate Dumbing Down of America, written by Charlotte Iserbyt.

 

America No. 1?

America by the numbers

by Michael Ventura

02/03/05 "ICH" - - No concept lies more firmly embedded in our national character than the notion that the USA is "No. 1," "the greatest." Our broadcast media are, in essence, continuous advertisements for the brand name "America Is No. 1." Any office seeker saying otherwise would be committing political suicide. In fact, anyone saying otherwise will be labeled "un-American." We're an "empire," ain't we? Sure we are. An empire without a manufacturing base. An empire that must borrow $2 billion a day from its competitors in order to function. Yet the delusion is ineradicable. We're No. 1. Well...this is the country you really live in:

The United States is 49th in the world in literacy (the New York Times, Dec. 12, 2004).

The United States ranked 28th out of 40 countries in mathematical literacy (NYT, Dec. 12, 2004).

Twenty percent of Americans think the sun orbits the earth. Seventeen percent believe the earth revolves around the sun once a day (The Week, Jan. 7, 2005).

"The International Adult Literacy Survey...found that Americans with less than nine years of education 'score worse than virtually all of the other countries'" (Jeremy Rifkin's superbly documented book The European Dream: How Europe's Vision of the Future Is Quietly Eclipsing the American Dream, p.7.
Our workers are so ignorant and lack so many basic skills that American businesses spend $30 billion a year on remedial training (NYT, Dec. 12, 2004). No wonder they relocate elsewhere!
"The European Union leads the U.S. in...the number of science and engineering graduates; public research and development (R&D) expenditures; and new capital raised" (The European Dream, p.70).

"Europe surpassed the United States in the mid-1990s as the largest producer of scientific literature" (The European Dream, p.70).
Nevertheless, Congress cut funds to the National Science Foundation. The agency will issue 1,000 fewer research grants this year (NYT, Dec. 21, 2004).

Foreign applications to U.S. grad schools declined 28 percent last year. Foreign student enrollment on all levels fell for the first time in three decades, but increased greatly in Europe and China. Last year Chinese grad-school graduates in the U.S. dropped 56 percent, Indians 51 percent, South Koreans 28 percent (NYT, Dec. 21, 2004). We're not the place to be anymore.
The World Health Organization "ranked the countries of the world in terms of overall health performance, and the U.S. [was]...37th." In the fairness of health care, we're 54th. "The irony is that the United States spends more per capita for health care than any other nation in the world" (The European Dream, pp.79-80). Pay more, get lots, lots less.

"The U.S. and South Africa are the only two developed countries in the world that do not provide health care for all their citizens" (The European Dream, p.80). Excuse me, but since when is South Africa a "developed" country? Anyway, that's the company we're keeping.

Lack of health insurance coverage causes 18,000 unnecessary American deaths a year. (That's six times the number of people killed on 9/11.) (NYT, Jan. 12, 2005.)

"U.S. childhood poverty now ranks 22nd, or second to last, among the developed nations. Only Mexico scores lower" (The European Dream, p.81). Been to Mexico lately? Does it look "developed" to you? Yet it's the only "developed" country to score lower in childhood poverty.

Twelve million American families--more than 10 percent of all U.S. households--"continue to struggle, and not always successfully, to feed themselves." Families that "had members who actually went hungry at some point last year" numbered 3.9 million (NYT, Nov. 22, 2004).

The United States is 41st in the world in infant mortality. Cuba scores higher (NYT, Jan. 12, 2005).

Women are 70 percent more likely to die in childbirth in America than in Europe (NYT, Jan. 12, 2005).

The leading cause of death of pregnant women in this country is murder (CNN, Dec. 14, 2004).

"Of the 20 most developed countries in the world, the U.S. was dead last in the growth rate of total compensation to its workforce in the 1980s.... In the 1990s, the U.S. average compensation growth rate grew only slightly, at an annual rate of about 0.1 percent" (The European Dream, p.39). Yet Americans work longer hours per year than any other industrialized country, and get less vacation time.

"Sixty-one of the 140 biggest companies on the Global Fortune 500 rankings are European, while only 50 are U.S. companies" (The European Dream, p.66). "In a recent survey of the world's 50 best companies, conducted by Global Finance, all but one were European" (The European Dream, p.69).
"Fourteen of the 20 largest commercial banks in the world today are European.... In the chemical industry, the European company BASF is the world's leader, and three of the top six players are European. In engineering and construction, three of the top five companies are European.... The two others are Japanese. Not a single American engineering and construction company is included among the world's top nine competitors. In food and consumer products, Nestlé and Unilever, two European giants, rank first and second, respectively, in the world. In the food and drugstore retail trade, two European companies...are first and second, and European companies make up five of the top ten. Only four U.S. companies are on the list" (The European Dream, p.6.

The United States has lost 1.3 million jobs to China in the last decade (CNN, Jan. 12, 2005).
U.S. employers eliminated 1 million jobs in 2004 (The Week, Jan. 14, 2005).

Three million six hundred thousand Americans ran out of unemployment insurance last year; 1.8 million--one in five--unemployed workers are jobless for more than six months (NYT, Jan. 9, 2005).

Japan, China, Taiwan, and South Korea hold 40 percent of our government debt. (That's why we talk nice to them.) "By helping keep mortgage rates from rising, China has come to play an enormous and little-noticed role in sustaining the American housing boom" (NYT, Dec. 4, 2004). Read that twice. We owe our housing boom to China, because they want us to keep buying all that stuff they manufacture.

Sometime in the next 10 years Brazil will probably pass the U.S. as the world's largest agricultural producer. Brazil is now the world's largest exporter of chickens, orange juice, sugar, coffee, and tobacco. Last year, Brazil passed the U.S. as the world's largest beef producer. (Hear that, you poor deluded cowboys?) As a result, while we bear record trade deficits, Brazil boasts a $30 billion trade surplus (NYT, Dec. 12, 2004).

As of last June, the U.S. imported more food than it exported (NYT, Dec. 12, 2004).

Bush: 62,027,582 votes. Kerry: 59,026,003 votes. Number of eligible voters who didn't show up: 79,279,000 (NYT, Dec. 26, 2004). That's more than a third. Way more. If more than a third of Iraqis don't show for their election, no country in the world will think that election legitimate.
One-third of all U.S. children are born out of wedlock. One-half of all U.S. children will live in a one-parent house (CNN, Dec. 10, 2004).

"Americans are now spending more money on gambling than on movies, videos, DVDs, music, and books combined" (The European Dream, p.2.
"Nearly one out of four Americans [believe] that using violence to get what they want is acceptable" (The European Dream, p.32).

Forty-three percent of Americans think torture is sometimes justified, according to a PEW Poll (Associated Press, Aug. 19, 2004).

"Nearly 900,000 children were abused or neglected in 2002, the last year for which such data are available" (USA Today, Dec. 21, 2004).

"The International Association of Chiefs of Police said that cuts by the [Bush] administration in federal aid to local police agencies have left the nation more vulnerable than ever" (USA Today, Nov. 17, 2004).

No. 1? In most important categories we're not even in the Top 10 anymore. Not even close.

The USA is "No. 1" in nothing but weaponry, consumer spending, debt, and delusion.

Reprinted from the Austin Chronicle. www.citypages.com/databank/26/1264/article12985.asp

(In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, this material is distributed without profit to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving the included information for research and educational purposes. Information Clearing House has no affiliation whatsoever with the originator of this article nor is Information Clearing House endorsed or sponsored by the originator.)

 

Wow!!! I think teachers need to start teaching what kids need instead of what the government puts on the tests.

 

But unfortunately, the teachers are fairly dumbed down themselves. Certainly too much to challenge or even question the status quo. In fact, if a student dares do so, they will probably get promptly sent out of the room and into detention.

Let's not forget the motivating force behind all this...coercion.

 

Question 2 doesn't give the dimensions of a bushel of wheat.

But I agree wholeheartedly, and I'm not sure if it's just the US. It seems the whole world is being dumbed down. I went to a high school in the States and was absolutely appalled by how easy it was to pass. Graduates were sometimes (practically) illiterate! In the California High School Exit Exam one year--this is the exam to ensure that students can PASS HIGH SCHOOL--a question on the math section asked for the square root of 121. AND calculators were allowed. Another thing I've noticed is (and this is somewhat trivial), they've stopped teaching children how to read. Not for themselves, but to other people. Now, when a high school student is asked to read something aloud for the class, it is usually in an incompetent monotone.

The ever-dropping standard of education is apparent everywhere, especially in terms of grammar. On a lot of threads, it's difficult to understand what people are trying to say because their grammar/spelling is so bad, but it's not just here. On signs everywhere, one sees spelling and grammatical mistakes.

We're losing everything so many educators/philosophes/travellers worked so hard for, one bit at a time.

 

Hey,just for the record, I can write properly....with the help of microsoft word

 

Kudos, haha!

 

I must say, from my experience with public school.. It's downright pathetic. I wish I had gotten a proper education.. And the illiteracy stuff, it's true, and quite sickening.. In highschool, there seriously were people when trying to read aloud stumbling over even the smallest words.. I mean like three letter words.. Even the teachers are idiots, most didn't understand when asked the simple question of why is this the answer, rather than simply what is the answer. Whoever mentioned critical thinking was right, several teachers I had even told people that it didn't matter, just to remember the right answers.. That's fucked.

 

Same here. I barely put any effort in during high school and I still got A's and B's. The shitty thing is when you have to dumb down your papers in english class before turning it in, otherwise the teachers think you copied it. I had to do that in college english too. I've also seen many people in college who can't read for shit.

 

You had to dumb down your papers? *awestruck*

 

fucking deal with it, people are stupid, but then realize, when that test was written, c really did mean average.......

 

yeah if i have kids im doing my best to not send them to a public school

 

http://www.snopes.com/language/document/1895exam.htm

 

dun dun dun...and the plot thickens...figured this was bullshit...

 

isnt it better if exams are easier nowadays?

so more ppl can get jobs and a life etc and not end up on the streets

i greatly fear the way ppl thikn they are superior if more ACADEMICALLY clever
i believe in other clevernesses that sayyyy a poor guy on the street would be higher in than a higher class uni diploma guy