IT USED TO BE TOUGHER (Victorian era children's school exam challenges modern adult academics)

Sky News ^ | November 25, 2004

[Stoat]

Exams getting easier

	Test Yourself

IT USED TO BE TOUGHER

A Victorian exam paper has come to light which shows how education has changed over the years.        

Many of the questions, set for 11-year-olds in 1898, are startlingly difficult by today's standards, and would tax A-level students.

The tests, set at King Edward's School in Birmingham in 1898, covered Latin, details of British history, English grammar, and maths.        

They were aimed at the brightest 11-year-olds of the time.        

David Thomas, chief executive of education charity Careers Research and Advisory Centre, said: "Most of the questions could not be attempted today even by A-Level students.        

"At the high level at which this paper is aimed we have certainly dumbed down.        

"But significantly more people at least achieve some level of learning today than ever did in 1898."        

Roger Dancey, chief master of King Edward's School, said he would struggle to answer all the questions.        

"It's a very challenging paper. If I'm criticising, it's heavy on factual knowledge and mechanical exercises and low on analysis and understanding and the creative side.        

"But it's a fascinating picture of what they were asking candidates to do just over 100 years ago."

This is the referenced test:

Today's pupils sit GCSEs

HOW MANY WOULD YOU GET?

A Victorian exam paper has shown just how much testing of 11-year-olds has changed.  

Here is a selection of the questions posed in 1898.

GEOGRAPHY  

1. On the outline map provided, mark the position of Carlisle, Canterbury, Plymouth, Hull, Gloucester, Swansea, Southampton, Worcester, Leeds, Leicester and Norwich; Morecambe Bay, The Wash, Solent, Menai Straits and Lyme Bay; St Bees Head, The Naze, Lizard Point; the rivers Trent and Severn; Whernside, the North Downs, and Plinlimmon, and state on a separate paper what the towns named above are noted for.  

2. Where are silver, platinum, tin, wool, wheat, palm oil, furs and cacao got from?  

3. Name the conditions upon which the climate of a country depends, and explain the reason of any one of them.  

4. Name the British possessions in America with the chief town in each. Which is the most important?  

5. Where are Omdurman, Wai-Hei-Wai, Crete, Santiago, and West Key, and what are they noted for? 

ENGLISH GRAMMAR  

1. Write out in your best handwriting:  

O Mary, go and call the cattle home,
And call the cattle home,
And call the cattle home,
Across the sands o' Dee.'
The western wind was wild and dank with foam,
And all alone went she.
The western tide crept up along the sand,
And o'er and o'er the sand,
And round and round the sand,
As far as eye could see.
The rolling mist came down and hid the land -
And never home came she.  

2. Parse fully `And call the cattle home.'  

3. Explain the meaning of o' Dee, dank with foam, western tide, round and round the sand, the rolling mist.  

4. Write out separately the simple sentences in the last two lines of the above passage and analyse them.  

5. Write out what you consider to be the meaning of the above passage.  

LATIN  

1. Write in columns the nominative singular, genitive plural, gender, and meaning of: operibus, principe, imperatori, genere, apro, nivem, vires, frondi, muri.  

2. Give the comparative of noxius, acer, male, diu; the superlative of piger, humilis, fortiter, multum; the English and genitive sing. of solus, uter, quisque.  

3. Write these phrases in a column and put opposite to each its Latin: he will go; he may wish; he had; he had been; he will be heard; and give in a column the English of fore, amatum, regendus, monetor.  

4. Give in columns the perfect Indic. and active supine of ago, pono, dono, cedo, jungo, claudo.  

Mention one example each of verbs followed by the nominative, the accusative, the genitive, the dative, the ablative.  

5. Translate into Latin:  

The general's little son was loved by the soldiers.
Let no bodies be buried within this city.
Ask Tullius who found the lions.
He said that the city had been taken, and, the war being finished, the forces would return.

6. Translate into English:  

Exceptus est imperatoris adventus incredibili honore atque amore: tum primum enim veniebat ab illo Aegypti bello. Nihil relinquebatur quod ad ornatum locorum omnium qua iturus erat excogitari posset.  

ENGLISH HISTORY  

1. What kings of England began to reign in the years 871, 1135, 1216, 1377, 1422, 1509, 1625, 1685, 1727, 1830?  

2. Give some account of Egbert, William II, Richard III, Robert Blake, Lord Nelson.  

3. State what you know of - Henry II's quarrel with Becket, the taking of Calais by Edward III, the attempt to make Lady Jane Grey queen, the trial of the Seven bishops, the Gordon riots.  

4. What important results followed - the raising of the siege of Orleans, the Gunpowder plot, the Scottish rebellion of 1639, the surrender at Yorktown, the battles of Bannockburn, Bosworth, Ethandune, La Hogue, Plassey, and Vittoria?  

5. How are the following persons connected with English History, - Harold Hardrada, Saladin, James IV of Scotland, Philip II of Spain, Frederick the Elector Palatine?

 

[Piranha]

Is that the best you can do? Sheesh! That test is so easy, I'm not even going to dignify your post with an answer!

[RaceBannon]

I can fake 50% of this! :)

[go star go]

Yes and most kids today can answer correctly when asked "what is a mpeg?" yet not one of these people who took this test could answer that question.

[Se7eN]

I'm going to assume that by todays standards, children are given far more in life to chew on than in 1898.

[Publius6961]

I bet we would all fail a much simpler test if it were presented in chinese, and dealt with ancient place names in outer Mongolia.

[ladyjane]

And what percent of our students can't even find India on a map?

[LonghornFreeper]

Wow, this is so stupid I am amazed I am even commenting. First of all, in Victorian times only the richest students got to go to school at all, so comparing them to average modern students is pointless. If we are comparing elite students to elite students, the modern kids would destroy the Victorians in many subjects. Modern biology, modern physics, advanced mathematics, computers, the list goes on and on. Why would you expect students now to have the same knowledge as Victorian students? Why would you even care?

[LonghornFreeper]

Additionally, how in the world is this Front Page News?

[dfwright]

So we give today's kids access to google, and they could probably do ok, huh?

Still, it's amazing to think that they were teaching this level of stuff to 11 year olds. Todays kids do have a wider array of things to learn about when you start considering the science they are taught today would have looped those stellar 11 year olds 100 back then.

[IronJack]

I could probably fake my way through all but the Latin. But I'm not exactly 11 years old either.

It is truly remarkable to see how our educational system has declined, even as we hurl more and more money at it.

[D Rider]

I bet none of those kids, in 1898, could tell me where Zimbabwe is.

[Damifino]

If we are comparing elite students to elite students, the modern kids would destroy the Victorians in many subjects. Modern biology, modern physics, advanced mathematics, computers, the list goes on and on

The only part of this statement that I'd agree with is computers. There are no schools that I am aware of that teach ELEVEN YEAR OLDS anywhere close to this depth of detail.

[fso301]

It's difficult for me because I haven't spent that much time studying British geography, the British empire or British literature.

I don't know latin but based on the type questions, a student who had studied latin should have done ok.

Other than that, none of the questions seem to be particularly difficult. Were I raised British, and taught a year or two of Latin, I'm confident I'd do quite well on that test.

[jimtorr]

Many of the replies to this thread prove one point of the article at least, that ignorance abounds.

[wideawake]

First of all, in Victorian times only the richest students got to go to school at all, so comparing them to average modern students is pointless.

Absolutely untrue. The average English 11 year old attended school in 1898. Literacy in England was about 90% at that time.

If we are comparing elite students to elite students, the modern kids would destroy the Victorians in many subjects.

Only if we engage in anachronism.

Modern biology, modern physics, advanced mathematics, computers, the list goes on and on.

You are embarassing yourself. It's ridiculous to expect that English schoolboys in 1898 would have mastered biological knowledge achieved after 1898. It's equally ridiculous to assume that they could not have grasped it as well as present day students if they had been exposed to it.

As far as advanced mathematics is concerned, most 11 year olds in even the most affluent American school districts are doing basic algebra. In 1898 it was quite common for affluent 16 and 17 year olds to attend university and introductory university texts common in the 1920s, such as the famous "Course in Pure Mathematics" by Hardy, go beyond calculus to real analysis. At the USA's top universities very few freshmen are doing coursework in real analysis.

Again, you anachronize with "modern physics". Newtonian mechanics are not usually studied in any depth among American sixth graders, and certainly with less depth than they were studied in 1898 England.

And you also anachronize with computers. If computers existed in 1898 England they would not have been neglected either - after all, Alan Turing of Enigma fame was a product of the English public school system of the 1910s.

[LonghornFreeper]

Depends on how elite of a school you are talking about. Another thing about this test is that we aren't told how the Victorians actually did, unless I misread the article. Just because it was an "entrance test" doesn't mean that 50% or less correct wasn't good enough for entrance.

Really, I guess the reason tests like this enrage me is because they are so focused on random knowledge regurgitation. I am an Aerospace Engineering student, going to grad school next fall, and I don't know the answers to most of those questions. Nor do I care in the slightest, if I need to know I'll look it up. I trust the history majors to write it down for me, just like they trust people like me with their lives every time they get on a plane, ride in a car, etc. Random facts are useless, what matters is how they are applied. I fail to see the usefullness of a single question on the test.

[monday]

I don't know? It doesn't seem to me that it would be that difficult for a child of that time, living in England. I know many of the answers and I have spent less than an hour there during a layover at Heathrow.

[wideawake]

I bet none of those kids, in 1898, could tell me where Zimbabwe is

Probably not, genius, since the name "Zimbabwe" dates from the 1970s. Before Mugabe took over in 1980 it was known as Rhodesia.

They would have known where Rhodesia was, especially since (a) it was part of the British Empire and (b)it would have been in all the newspapers at the time due to the Boer crisis in neighboring South Africa.

[wideawake]

On the head you have squarely hit the nail.