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Comment on Could You Have Passed the 8th Grade in 1895? Take a Look

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6. Find the interest of $512.60 for 8 months and 18 days at 7 percent.

If this is a genuine question then I find it interesting that it was possible to answer back then. Now you'd have to know which months as the length of each month affects the answer.

I had a 'mistake' in a question like that on an exam just a few weeks ago. You write 'I assume all months are 30 days' or 'I assume a full 30/31 day cycle' or whatever it is you assume at the top and you get full credit.

Additionally, I remember that most tests came with verbal instructions even as recently as when I was in primary school (well recent, 20 years ago). The teacher would dictate the questions which you'd write down on the paper; then afterward you had time to answer them. I think it's quite plausible that a similar system was used back then, especially considering the brevity of the questions. (I don't know how wide spread printing presses were back then, I know that many primary schools in Belgium in the 1980's still either didn't have them or only used them when it was 'necessary').

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