---
license: cc
language:
- en
tags:
- vintage
- historical
pretty_name: Vintage exams Q&A
size_categories:
- 10K<n<100K
---
# Vintage exams Q&A

This is a fine-tuning dataset, extracted from vintage books using code (not with AI).

These 6 books from Archive.org are included:

- [Advanced question book](https://archive.org/details/advancedquestion00sout) 1883
- [Common school examiner and review](https://archive.org/details/commonschoolexam00row) 1890
- [New common school question book](https://archive.org/details/newcommonschoolq01crai) 1888
- [New common school question book](https://archive.org/details/newcommonschoolq00crai) 1900
- [Recreations in the common school studies](https://archive.org/details/recreationsincom00stiv) 1885
- [School Room Search Light](https://archive.org/details/schoolroomsearch00macd) 1895

Four books have separate sections for the questions and answers, so they had to be matched (you don't need to do this).
Only two books have the questions and answers in the same place.

There are *11,218* Q&A pairs in total.

## Challenges

The OCR scanning quality of these books is bad, and it required significant effort to get to perfection.

Example of text from "The advanced question book":

```text
20.  What  are  Chaucer's  works  ?

Ans. — The  principal  one  is  the  Canterbury  Tales.    It  la


Literature.  15

a  collection  of  admirable  daguerreotypes  of  the  various
classes  of  English  society,  and  consists  of  twenty-four
stories  supposed  to  have  been  told  by  a  company  of  pil-
grims on  their  way  to  Canterbury.  The  others  are  the
Bomaunt  of  the  Base,  Court  of  Love,  Chaucer's  Dream,  Bok&
of  the  Duehesse,  Legend  of  Good  Women,  etc.

Extract: —

"  And  the  rivere  that  I  sat  upon,
It  made  such  a  noise  as  it  ron,
Accordaunt  with  the  birdes  armony,
Methought  it  was  the  beste  melody
That  mighte  ben  y heard  of  any  man."

Cuckow  and  the  Nightingale.
```

This was the original text, but after the first step of processing, I got it to this:

```text
20. What are Chaucer's works?
Ans.—The principal one is the Canterbury Tales. It is a collection of admirable daguerreotypes of the various classes of English society, and consists of twenty-four stories supposed to have been told by a company of pilgrims on their way to Canterbury. The others are the Romaunt of the Rose, Court of Love, Chaucer's Dream, Boke of the Duchesse, Legend of Good Women, etc.

Extract:—
" And the rivere that I sat upon,
It made such a noise as it ron,
Accordaunt with the birdes armony,
Methought it was the beste melody
That mighte ben yheard of any man."
Cuckow and the Nightingale.
```

And the last step, structured JSON:

```json
{
  "type": "qa",
  "number": 20,
  "question": "What are Chaucer's works?",
  "answer": "The principal one is the Canterbury Tales. It is a collection of admirable daguerreotypes of the various classes of English society, and consists of twenty-four stories supposed to have been told by a company of pilgrims on their way to Canterbury. The others are the Romaunt of the Rose, Court of Love, Chaucer's Dream, Boke of the Duchesse, Legend of Good Women, etc. Extract:— \" And the rivere that I sat upon, It made such a noise as it ron, Accordaunt with the birdes armony, Methought it was the beste melody That mighte ben yheard of any man.\" Cuckow and the Nightingale.",
  "section": "GENERAL LITERATURE"
},
```

I consider this dataset gold level, not platinum. I would have to spend way more time to get the plain-text books to absolute perfection, but the structured JSON is very clean.

## Disclaimer

This dataset contains historically accurate information that was considered perfectly normal at the time, but by today's standards can be considered: toxic, offensive and unsafe.

## Citation

If you find this dataset valuable, please consider citing:

```bibtex
@misc{vintage-exam-qa,
  title  = {Vintage exams Q&A},
  author = {Cristi Constantin},
  month  = {June},
  year   = {2026},
  url = {https://huggingface.co/datasets/croqaz/vintage-exam-qa}
}
```