What did Victorian pupils write on instead of paper?
In Victorian times, many children went to school in a single large room. A teacher stood at the front and pupils sat in rows on hard wooden benches. Instead of paper, they wrote on slates with pieces of chalk, and they chanted spellings and times tables together until they remembered them. Children who arrived late, or whose handwriting was untidy, might be punished with a cane. Some pupils walked three miles each way, in all weathers, and many left at the age of ten or eleven to work in factories or on farms. In 1880 a law was passed that made school compulsory for children until they were ten, and later the age was raised. Slowly, schools became warmer, kinder and better equipped places.
Answer and explanation
Correct answer: A. Slates
- Step 1: The passage says they wrote on slates with chalk. Step 2. Slates were small boards. Answer: slates. Why not the others: the passage does not mention these.
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