2 days is fine in 4th grade for a unit test. This isn't an AP History final exam or something. As PPs have said, if she's been keeping up with the material all along,2 days is plenty of time to brush up on some specific facts. And if she hasn't been keeping up with the material all along, this is a valuable life lesson to learn before she gets to middle school.

Anonymous wrote:If your 4th grader has a social studies test with lots of facts she needs to regurgitate then your problems shouldn't be with the timing of the test.

Agreed. The focus in SS these days is on demonstrating skills not memorization. There might be something to analyze that requires drawing on background knowledge, but the entire test should not be questions about who, what, when, and, where.

If your 4th grader has a social studies test with lots of facts she needs to regurgitate then your problems shouldn't be with the timing of the test.

Anonymous wrote:If she were better organized, she could give more notice. 2 days is generally enough, but sometimes people are busy and need to plan a bit more.

Sometimes students actually just spend more time panicking when given more than 2 days notice. This is especially true of the students with anxiety it seems. They get the study guide a week ahead, think to themselves, "But we haven't learned these last three things yet." and make themselves sick with worry. Then the parents start emailing, "How is Larla supposed to study for a test on x, y, and z when she says you haven't talked about them at all in class." Then, you have to explain that you are teaching x on Tues, y on Wed, z on Thurs, and the test is next Mon, so you are reviewing everything on Fri. Nope, better to just make a course policy that there is a two day notice for tests. That's all my school requires and we have designated testing days for each subject so students know in advance which day of the week anyway.

I hear that but a lot of the questions I've seen on these tests are so specific that you can easily have a good general idea of the material yet still miss it if you didn't really study. I can see giving a 2 day notice for a quiz, but not a big end of unit test based on a lot of specific details.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:This is for an end of unit 4th grade test, and it's the third time it's happened this year. This just doesn't seem like enough time for the kids to study - or am I wrong?

They should't have to "study" for a test. That isn't how education works anymore. You learn and retain the information so it can be applied in many different way. If you know the content then you don't have to "study" for it. I could take a test in my field tomorrow and not have to study for it because I know the content area.

Tend to agree.

My 4th grader has his math test tomorrow and he did not study. He's been acing homework sheets and class work so I don't push it.

This is for social studies and there are a lot of specific facts that they have learned. Really I'm to expect that my 9 year old should just remember all this information and not have to study? I had no idea so many people made it through school without studying for tests.

There's a difference between learning it and then studying before the test vs. "Cramming" the material.

When I was in grad school to become a secondary level social studies teacher, my program's director advocated frequent quizzes. She liked to see us give a weekly quiz to help students stay on top of regular studying and avoid cramming. Plus, students get more frequent feedback from the teacher this way.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:This is for an end of unit 4th grade test, and it's the third time it's happened this year. This just doesn't seem like enough time for the kids to study - or am I wrong?

They should't have to "study" for a test. That isn't how education works anymore. You learn and retain the information so it can be applied in many different way. If you know the content then you don't have to "study" for it. I could take a test in my field tomorrow and not have to study for it because I know the content area.

Tend to agree.

My 4th grader has his math test tomorrow and he did not study. He's been acing homework sheets and class work so I don't push it.

This is for social studies and there are a lot of specific facts that they have learned. Really I'm to expect that my 9 year old should just remember all this information and not have to study? I had no idea so many people made it through school without studying for tests.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:This is for an end of unit 4th grade test, and it's the third time it's happened this year. This just doesn't seem like enough time for the kids to study - or am I wrong?

They should't have to "study" for a test. That isn't how education works anymore. You learn and retain the information so it can be applied in many different way. If you know the content then you don't have to "study" for it. I could take a test in my field tomorrow and not have to study for it because I know the content area.

So, you've never studied for a test?

My sons have weekly quizzes and monthly tests in math and English and tests at the end of every unit in science and social studies.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:This is for an end of unit 4th grade test, and it's the third time it's happened this year. This just doesn't seem like enough time for the kids to study - or am I wrong?

They should't have to "study" for a test. That isn't how education works anymore. You learn and retain the information so it can be applied in many different way. If you know the content then you don't have to "study" for it. I could take a test in my field tomorrow and not have to study for it because I know the content area.

Tend to agree.

My 4th grader has his math test tomorrow and he did not study. He's been acing homework sheets and class work so I don't push it.

Anonymous wrote:This is for an end of unit 4th grade test, and it's the third time it's happened this year. This just doesn't seem like enough time for the kids to study - or am I wrong?

They should't have to "study" for a test. That isn't how education works anymore. You learn and retain the information so it can be applied in many different way. If you know the content then you don't have to "study" for it. I could take a test in my field tomorrow and not have to study for it because I know the content area.

If she were better organized, she could give more notice. 2 days is generally enough, but sometimes people are busy and need to plan a bit more.

Students are supposed to stay on top of the material.

Clearly, she thinks it's enough time. So the kids have to buckle down for a couple of nights, if they didn't already absorb the material. This is how school works.

This is for an end of unit 4th grade test, and it's the third time it's happened this year. This just doesn't seem like enough time for the kids to study - or am I wrong?