Are You Smarter Than an Eighth Grader?

Before law school beat the living snot out of me, I considered myself a pretty excellent student. My report cards throughout K-12 were almost exclusively populated by A's. The random B occasionally made an appearance. And once, during a sunny February in the 9th grade, I got a once-in-a-lifetime C. This was because -- and, yes, really, I am not kidding -- I made the worst pinata in the class.

Somehow, I always grasped enough arithmetic, spelling, history, biology, and whathaveyou to sail through tests. I remembered the facts, wrote them down on a piece of paper, and happily reaped an avalanche of A's and a reputation as a know-it-all.

Of course, 90 percent of that knowledge now lies forgotten somewhere deep in the caverns of my memory. I once knew what ribosomes were supposed to do in a cell. Or how alkanes and alkenes were different from each other. Or how to solve a equations both quadratic and with three or more variables. But now, those facts only ring the faintest of bells -- those reserved for things you used to know but now you don't.

But then my world came crashing down.

I recently saw this reprint of an exam given to eighth graders in 1895. It is one of the most difficult things I have ever seen. If I got this exam today I would just stare at it, turn in an mostly blank page, and then go out and sit on the stairs and cry.

Two mitigating factors exist. Kind of.

1. While I am aware that I have mostly forgotten a lot of this information, I can't help but feel that I have never even heard of half the things they ask. It is never good when a word makes its debut in your vocabulary during a test. And it is especially bad when the question is something like, define a Trigraph.

2. Back in 1895, only the best and brightest made it to the 8th grade. Making it there was like receiving a Rhodes Scholarship today. Every other kid in America was either prepping the fields for harvest or functioning as a canary in a coal mine.

So those make me feel a little bit better. Not a lot. But enough that I don't want to cry and run to the teacher for an extra credit assignment. Still, look at this. Let me show you some of the questions in case you didn't click through to the full test. The questions are in bold letters, my answers in italics, and my thinking in non-bold, non-italic font.

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

Proper Nouns. That's one. Beginning of a sentence. Two. Acronyms. That's three, right there. Names of Movies. Four. Initials. That's five! I might make it! If you're German, to begin every Noun. Six. EMPHASIS. Seven! Pretending you're YELLING at someone in an email. Eight! Letter Grades. And nine! That last one was an easy one, all I had to do was picture the F I'm going to get.

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

Wait. What? A bushel of wheat is a standard unit of measurement? Surely not. This must be a trick question.

One bushel of wheat that is the size of that box.

(Smiles Proudly).

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?

I understood about half the words in that sentence. It was also my understanding that there would be no math. If you, however, would like me to tell you how many years passed between the end of Chevy Chase's run on Saturday Night Live and the beginning of Tracy Morgan's, I can do that kind of arithmetic. Maybe.

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

This is a bar exam question. As such, I refuse to answer it until such time when I actually want to become a barrister. Thank you for understanding.

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

All I know about Kansas is that, when I play that game where I'm supposed to name all 50 states, I only get to 49, and Kansas doesn't come to me until the middle of the night three days after that.

Dorothy wants to go to there.

1. What is meant by the following: Alphabet, phonetic orthography, etymology, syllabication?
3. What are the following, and give examples of each: Trigraph, subvocals, diphthong, cognate letters, linguals?
4. Give four substitutes for caret 'u'.
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.

(Stares in horror. Considers faking a seizure. Considers writing a desperate apology. Consider making an excuse like, "I was home sick with the plague," in order to explain away why I've never even seen these words before. Considers running away and joining the circus. Slowly lowers head to arms and weeps.)

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

OK. Here's my shot. If I use all of those words in just one super-mega-awesome sentence, maybe I can get extra credit. Here goes:

As the rays of the west sped out of sight behind me, in a sunset dash of color that bled out like an emptying vein, it was in vain that I considered whether to feign razing the weather vane, right after Jebediah, citing the old prophesy, had raised it on the site where the old fane used to be, asking us all, "What in tarnation does 'fain' mean?"

WHODAMAN! Maybe I can pull this off! If I can get the next one, I'm golden!

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

Crap!

Good Lord. What a spectacular failure. Thank God the Bar Exam was easier than this. Otherwise, I'd be stuck making pinatas.