jmc

At 8:00, the hour hand is in the 8 o'clock position and the minute hand is in the 12 o'clock position. The angle between the two hands is two-thirds of a full revolution, which is $\frac{2}{3}(360^{\circ })=240$ degrees. Every minute, the minute hand goes $\frac{1}{60}(360^{\circ })=6$ degrees and the hour hand goes $\frac{1}{60}\cdot \frac{1}{12}(360^{\circ })=0.5$ degrees. Therefore, the angle between the hands decreases at a rate of 5.5 degrees per minute. After 15 minutes, the angle between the hands has decreased to $240^{\circ }-5.5^{\circ }\cdot 15=\boxed{157.5}$ degrees.