1912 eighth grade exam: Could you make it to high school in 1912?

68% (25 right, 12 wrong). A lot were down to 2 choices and I took the wrong one, alas.

Geography was easily my strong point in this test.

Urgggh, 78%, 8 wrong including one exceptionally stupid guess.

This type of story is silly. In truth, the typical 13 year old today would run intellectual circles around the typical 13 year old from 1912.

We have a much better, more inclusive, education system. And we have a much richer curriculum with more depth and a greater focus on developing creativity. In addition, kids today have advantages from access to information with technology and even books.

These supposed tests alleging to show how far we have fallen are always the same.... rote arithmetic, memorization and drill exercises. It would be pretty easy to drill kids to pass this test, but drilling kids to pass tests isn't good education.

I don't want to go back to the education system of 1912.

It's not an opinion piece that sentimentally or irrationally looks back to the 1912 education system fondly. Apparently you didn't read the story... as it's NOT an actual news article or an opinion piece. It's merely an online quiz. Good grief!

I've done the first five questions, and i've gotten them all correct. Now i'm getting nervous.

Ten done, all correct. (Number ten was a no-brainer, Alaska didn't become a state until 1959, an it appears in three of the four answers.)

The tension mounts for me--fifteen done, and only one wrong answer so far.

Whew . . . 20 done, still only one wrong answer (history is my friend)>

Geography is my friend, too.

Here's my last three posts, which they wouldn't let me post, because they said i was flooding the thread:

Woo-hoo, 30 questions, and still only one wrong answer (stupid liver).'

On question 35, they said Massachusetts was settled by Pilgrims, not Puritans. They're idiots, the Pilgrims were Puritans.

So i got 35 of 37 questions (stupid Pilgrims). It should have been 36 of 37. They're giving me a 95.

As someone who posts under a Bulgarian screen name, I'm relieved to announce I got all the Balkan geography questions right.

86% (5 wrong), partly because I read "Andes" as "Alps".

I always though Massachusetts was settled by both, with the Pilgrims arriving earlier. The "Pilgrims" and "Puritans" were distinct groups in England and later in the New World. The "Pilgrims" or "Separatists", led by people such as John Robinson, William Brewster, and William Bradford, arrived at Plymouth, Massachusetts, in 1620. The "Puritans" established a colony in 1628 at Massachusetts Bay, where the present day Boston and Salem are located. The Plymouth and Boston colonies were distinct political and religious entities (at least until the English government combined them in the late 1680's) and, while relations between them were generally friendly, members of both groups were crystal clear on the differences between them. "Pilgrims" wanted to achieve "reformation without tarrying," even if it meant separating from their church and their nation. "Puritans" wanted to remain as part of the English establishment, working for biblical reform from within.

Got an 88 mostly cause of the "anatomy of speech questions" I was absent with rheumatic fever for most of the 4th grde.
WHAT THE HELL WAS THE "BATTLE" OF COLUMBUS?? At was just a teensy prt of Wilsons campaign here he took a bunch of cities (and Macon came after Columbus, and it was there, (I think) that Wilson caught up with Jeffy)
There were a whole slew of battles in the Western Theater that came after Wilsons campaign.
BULLSHIT QUESTIONS.

And The Wasatches are In fuckin IDAHO. Jeezus, anybody who got summa those wrong should get points added for knowing the real poop.

Not all historians agree that the separatists can reasonably be distinguished from the low church Puritans. The question is interesting for another reason, though, as it emphasizes the "New England-centric" view of American history. Jamestown was settled in 1607, more than a dozen years before Plymouth, Massachusetts. In the United States, the independent or separatist Puritans became the Congregationalists, and most of the descendants of the Puritans of Massachusetts Bay became congregationalists, along with their separatist brethren, as well as the independent congregationalist dissenters--those who were not necessarily Puritans, but who were the backbone of the Eastern Association in the civil wars, and the principle source of Cromwell's troopers.

In addition to the Jamestown settlement, there were small settlements of fishermen on the Massachusetts bay, and along the coast to the north. Those fishermen were English, Basque, Portuguese and French. They are totally ignored by New England historians, as they were ignored by their Puritan neighbors in the 1630s. They were a "necessary evil" for John Winthrop (the so-called Pilgrims had just ignored them entirely), as they were the only source of foreign exchange and specie to circulate in the colony. That became even more important after 1640 when they were cut off (commercially) from England, and needed to trade for the specie to by arms, powder and shot to fight the indigenous population. In Virginia, the settlers were attacked by the aboriginals. In 1619, the Virginia Company of London, before it went bankrupt, sent out settlers to what became known as the Martin's Hundred Plantation (that's a year before the holy rollers showed up in Massachusetts Bay). They were attacked and nearly wiped out aboriginals in 1622.

In Massachusetts, the Puritans decided, conveniently, that the aboriginals were in league with Satan, and so justified attacking them to get good land for pasturage and crops. In 1637 and -38, they went to war with the Pequot (or Pequod) tribe, and the Narragansett tribe, who had originally threatened the English settlers, allied themselves to Winthrop's colonists. There was a terrible slaughter of Pequot on the Mystick River, and horrified, the Narragansett withdrew from the alliance. That was a good excuse to declare them to also be in league with Satan, and to attack them. The Narragansett were the larges Algonquian-speaking tribe in New England, and the extermination of some, and the driving off of the rest gave the Puritans the "hammer hand" in dealing with aboriginal tribes after that.

To pay for their wars, the Puritans relied on the foreign exchange from the despised fishermen who were already established on the Massachusetts bay, or who arrived after 1620. In Virginia, they relied on tobacco, which John Rolfe had introduced as a cash crop in 1611, nearly a decade before the holy rollers showed up in Massachusetts. In both cases, it was expedient to sail to the Dutch or French settlements in the West Indies, where arms, powder and shot could be obtained. Even though the price was high, it was basically smuggling by everyone's definition, so there were no import duties, and the Virginia tobacco proved to be particularly locrative. The good Christians of Massachusetts soon learned the wisdom of distilling demon rum from the un-dutied sugar they bought from the French and the Dutch. They were still doing that almost 150 years later when the Sugar Act of the 1760s became a major grievance for the Americans in the years leading up to the revolution.

Basically, though, that test peddles the Protestant, English point of view of New England, and fails to take notice of anyone or anywhere else.

I take your very well made point.

The first English colony in North America was at Roanoke Island, how a part of the state of North Carolina, in 1585. The English had claimed the entire North American continent, and they called in Virginia, in honor of Elizabeth. (Ain't imperialism a wonderful thing?) Greveille, who had set up the colony, was delayed in his return, and when Francis Drake stopped there after attacking the Spanish in St. Augustine in what is now Florida, he took the entire colonist population off with him when he sailed back to England.

They tried again in 1587. William Dare, who had lead that effort, sailed back ot England, and his ship was seized by the government, who were anticipating the arrival of the Armada. When Dare finally returned, the colonists were gone, and the single word "Croatoan" was carved into the bark of a tree. Croatoan was the name of the island to the south, or of the Indians there, or of their chief, depending upon whose account one relies--it's entirely possible that all three things were true, as Indian "kings" often took the name of the tribe, or the tribe's name was changed to that of their chieftain. Dare was unable to beat back to the south to look for the colonists, so he gave up, sailed back to England and never returned. His granddaughter, Virginia Dare, was the first English child born on the North American continent.

Since that time, English sailors and settlers had encountered Indians who claimed to be descended from Englishmen, and some diarists and correspondents have claimed to have met Indians with brownish-red or brownish-blond hair, and blue and green eyes. The Lumber Indians (named for the Lumber River) in North Caroline had members with red or blond hair and green or blue eyes in historical times. It is likely that the colonists were threatened with some natural disaster, or by mainland tribes, or were simply on the verge of starvation, and sought the aid of the friendly aboriginals to the south. I suspect, though, that when those blue-eyed Indians were sitting on some land new settlers wanted, having an English great grandfather did them no good.

However, we are adults that went further than eighth grade..