Fire Skates

U. S. PUBLIC SCHOOL SEVENTH-GRADE SOCIAL STUDIES

FIRST-SEMESTER EXAM, JANUARY 1989 — TRANSCRIPT

 

1.       Oldest Alphabets passed on to our culture __________________.

2.       The first form of writing starting in Egypt was symbols with pictures

_________________.

3.       The American Indians were the first _________________ of this country.

4.       The Indians used _________________, _________________ and _________________ to communicate.

5.       The Europeans were interested in getting rich with materials such as _________________, _________________, _________________ and _________________.

6.       Gold and Oil is a natural in what African Countries? _________________, _________________

7.       The Bantu Family were minders of cattle and _________________.

8.       The Greeks were divided into a Military and Educational State: _________________, _________________

9.       Athens were known for great Scientist, _________________, Artist, _________________ and _________________.

10.   The Romans were the most dynamic and powerful law makers and organized the first Federal _________________.

11.   A famous Norseman name _________________ The Red was the mascot of our _________________ symbol of football teams.

 

Part II. Write the word TRUE or FALSE in the blank:

1.       ______________ Greece is located in the Northern Mediterranean Sea.

2.       ______________ Italy is the capital of Rome.

3.       ______________ Marco Polo came from a city in Rome called Venice.

4.       ______________ The Olympic Games was once very dangerous and competitive.

5.       ______________ The Soviet Union hosted the 88 Olympic Games.

6.       ______________ Nobel invented the bomb for peace instead of War.

7.       ______________ Nobles were next in line to the Kings.

8.       ______________ The gods and Pharoahs had the same powers over the people.

9.       ______________ The symbols of many flags flying at half-staff represents START.

10.   ______________ A tyrant man an unjust gangster group like terrorists.

11.   ______________ Most of Italy's exports include the fine wines, sauces and foods.

12.   ______________ The Alps are located in France.

13.   ______________ Mount Kilimanjaro is located in South Africa.

14.   ______________ Ibo and Yourbi are languages spoken in Nigeria.

15.   ______________ Homer was a blind poet and greatest Greek writer.

16.   ______________ Socrates was a Greek philosopher.

17.   ______________ The Logo is a Newspaper in the Name of the Paper.

18.   ______________ An adobe or clay hut was used by the Seminole and the Eastern Woodland Indians.

19.   ______________ Libyan Desert life is very prosperous for calves and camel.

 

Part III. Write a Paragraph of three complete sentences about one of the following topics:

I.                Hitler and Zeus in Power

II.               Cyrus McCormick and the Reaper

III.             Medussa & Ramses

 

Part IV. Completion of Statement with one Word:

1.       The Acropolis is a ______________.

2.       The White House is in ______________, ______________.

3.       Old bondage type control of Industry is _________________.

4.       OPEC is an agency of controlling the export and import of _________________.

5.       Mt. Olympus was the home of Greek ______________.

6.       Ben Franklin edited the first Newspaper in _________________, Penn.

7.       Fire skates ascended out of the Skyscraper State _________________.

8.       A way of life that may be shared or borrowed is ones _________________.

9.       Those habits we constantly do all the time become ______________ because they are accepted by society.

10.   Those goals that make each one of us a real person are _________________.

11.   A decade of work can be counted in ______________ years.

12.   A hundred years can become a whole _________________.

13.   Our Country's Constitution celebrated its _________________ birthday.

14.   Omega is the last Greek Alphabet and in Christ; make it _________________.

15.   Marie Curie and her husband discovered _________________.

16.   Another name for X-RAYS is the Greeks _________________ Rays.

17.   Goodyear is known for its invention of tires, and the balloon _________________.

18.   The escalator and the elevator was invented by a man called _________________.

19.   Estevanico was one of the Black Slaves who came on the 1620 ship _________________.

20.   If we were in Greece we would shop at the Agora or _________________.

 =  =  =

The foregoing, I hasten to inform readers, is no work of fiction or imagination come to life from the hands of yours truly.

The foregoing is an exact transcript of an old, faded mimeographed test paper that was actually administered in an American seventh-grade classroom as the students' first-semester exam in the subject of Social Studies in January 1989. (The original document rests and resides somewhere in the United States.) Nota bene: this was the test instrument composed by the duly-certified and credentialed teacher.

I could be reproached, perhaps, for not having shared this startling document with the public much or much much earlier: but do not think for one moment or dare believe that I did not attempt to do so more than twice already. I have shared it privately with amazed friends and family members, some few already sadly departed. Not because I am anticipating my own imminent demise am I sharing the document now: think of the timing more as an accident of afterthought.

After permitting some editors and a book publisher to consider the document and my account of it to no effect, some years later I did in fact approach a newspaper editor with the transcript and with the supporting essay titled “Fire Skates” that began to explain my initial encounter with the document and to explicate the document itself to the best of my ability, but that offer, too, was declined. Whatever insights the material might have offered into the practice of classroom instruction in American public schools of the era was not deemed sufficiently newsworthy, I could only conclude. Sigh alas alack.

Of course, I continue to think (even [or especially] after more than three decades) that the document continues to hold enormous explanatory power, but as soon as I say that, I am obliged to concede that I am but one person with a single, limited perspective (regardless of whatever degree of candor I might be possessed of), articulating views that might not be welcomed with the good-natured tolerance that typified the ebullient era in which the cited document was created as a pedagogical instrument.

Without attempting to guide interpretation or to suggest its significance, I hereby deposit and leave this document in the capable hands of the capable reading public. 

 

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