To me, the important point is not the CONTENT, but rather the fact that a lot of learning had to take place before the student would be able to take this test. In that learning process, the brain learns to learn. THAT is the important point of it all. In today's world, we have dumbed down education to the point that a HS senior would not likely pass. Just look at the comments in this thread that note that additional knowledge is required to answer the question. Those comments prove the point about learning to learn as Job #1 in the educational process.
Most HS seniors wouldn't pass,true. The amount of children attending HS now is much larger than it was 100 years ago,so I'd expect the avg standard to drop. How can you even compare the two?
Why do you assert the average should drop just because the overall sample size is larger? The size of the sample should not change the curve to a significant degree.
So...people get stupider on average as they grow in number? Hmm good argument for smaller Government...Too bad they're all so stupid now that they don't realize it.
This is very basic stuff. 100 years ago, the children who went to HS,and above were the elite,with some exceptions. The standard deviation decreases as the random sample size increases. It's why Cal Tech has an avg SAT score(old version) of over 1500 usually, while a school like Berkeley will be almost 150 points lower. Both schools' elite are very similar,but unlike Cal Tech, Berkeley lets in a large amont of avg kids. Btw, can you answer that question? Define a fraction, and a whole number?
BTW, congrats on your new job. I understand what you are saying here but I believe it goes without saying that teenagers have neither the perspective nor the experience to decide what may or may not be of value to them in the future. Hence, there must be strict requirements to maintain performance levels in core subjects if we are to produce future generations of capable, responsible adults. Allowing a student to substitute a Drama class for Language Arts is NOT a responsible decision by the Academic Dean but it happens at a local HS. And I think 90% of teachers would agree with you but yet we, as a nation, are wimping out. WHY????