[jamesaguilar]

More importantly, many of the test questions are dependent on rote memorization of facts that are nearly useless in the accomplishment of successful life. How many bushels in a tare? What is a "principle part" of a verb? These things can be found on Google. I have all the skills tested by this test, but lack some of the knowledge. Since my brain is just a cache for knowledge, I can always fault it in if the need arises.

[wmf]

I think of it more as a look at how different life was in 1895. You couldn't Google anything. A farm owner probably would benefit from being able to do those math problems in his head.

BTW, tare isn't a unit: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tare_weight

[knassy]

I think you are right about how it reflects a different time.

I doubt many average farmers kids made it through to 8th Grade though. Anyone who was taking the 8th Grade exam was probably reasonably wealthy, looking to continue studying, and take on a profession of some kind.

[thyrsus]

The "tare" is the weight of the container holding the item being weighed, in this case presumably the weight of the wagon, which is why the question specifies that weight. If you ask Google "tare in bushels", your comment itself shows up as the top answer :-).

[sliverstorm]

I don't agree with you, I rather think farmers would need to know how to convert things like bushels just as much as I need to know how to convert milliamps to amps. The only difference is metric is easy, so you don't need to get tested on it.

[jamesaguilar]

My point is that I am not a farmer, thus whether I can pass this test from memory is totally uninteresting and means nothing about whether or not education is declining in America. (I.e. I agree with the parent.)

[numeromancer]

But the long-term memory is a memory cache that shrinks when not used. That's why the ignorant are always thrashing about, no matter how clever they are.