ACK! My dc are doing the test prep books and they have not covered

[Gamom3]

things being done in the book!! Dc are 6th and 4th graders. They will being taking the Standford test the end of May.
The books cover Government and Earth Science, which we have not covered.
Ds had a question on government and I wouldn't even know the answer!!!

Would you just get some books from the library and hope they retain the information for the test?

[Beth in Central TX]

No, I wouldn't. I just viewed the Stanford test training DVD, and the presenter stated that as a standardized test, there are going to be items on the test that the student has not encountered. That's just the nature of a standardized test. I instruct my boys to make their best guess if they don't know an answer and move on. In addition, there's no guarantee that a government or earth science question will even be on the test, so you could be wasting your time.

[Cindy in NY]

No advice but we are in the same boat. This is the first year we have to test (5th). I bought two test prep books and thought the same thing you did, I couldn't answer some of the questions!

We also use a non-traditional math program, so he has never seen some of the math either.

After I got over me initial freak-out, I realized that most of the pages in the test prep weren't test, they were more teaching pages. When I looked at just the actual test pages they didn't look quite so bad.

I don't know how he will do, but I am not expecting to much.

[nestof3]

I only give the math and language arts tests. They are the only ones required by my state. Since I don't teach science and social studies in the order listed in state standards, I don't bother with these portions.