Why don't most teachers allow you to use notes on tests?

Question

I don't get it. In real life, if you need to look up information for your job or something, you have resources. Why isn't it the same for tests? In some classes you are allowed to use a calculator or a dictionary, which are aids during a test, but you aren't allowed to use your notes. Is it practical to not allow students to use notes for a test? I was wondering this today when my Chemistry teacher explained that she lets us use notes for her tests simply because school is to prepare you for real life, and in real life, you have the resources you need. I'm really confused, can someone (possibly a teacher) explain why students shouldn't be able to use notes on a test? Thanks

Answer 1

I think it depends on the subject.  

I teach Latin, and for my high school class, I do allow my students to use their vocab cards for declension/conjugation endings, etc.  I do this for a reason - I want them to build a reference set for themselves that they can take into their adult life and further studies.  I don't allow them to use their book or notes, but anything they can put on their vocab cards is fair game.

This way, I know that they're really analyzing the passage, since they still need to know correct usage and case, but they're not stressing over tiny little details like "what's the plural accusative of _______?"  

However, if I were teaching a lit class, I wouldn't allow notes; I would expect my students to be able to analyze whatever they were working on without notes.  They're not likely to carry notes on lit analysis or grammar usage with them wherever they go, yet both are necessary later in life.  It's a learned and practiced skill, rather than something that requires references.

You don't always have the resources you need - there are skills that you just need to know and have.  Strictly informational tasks can be looked up - information on a customer's account, financial rules, whatever - but there are other tasks that you really need to be able to use the skills that you have.  Critical reading, public speaking and presentation (and the organization that goes into both), off the top of your head calculations...all of these need to be completed without access to references.

So...there are both types of tests, just like in real life.  And in college, you're likely to have profs that will not only want you to have the information memorized, but to be able to regurgitate it using their words, catch phrases, and acronyms.  Such is life.

Anyway, hope that explains it!

Answer 2

if you are allowed to use notes on your test, than you really arent being tested over what you know and understand.  you dont even have to try to learn it because you'll have it written down on a piece of paper in front of you.  anytime that i have had teahers allow the use of notes, they would allow us to have a sheet of difficult equations, but the equations that we need to have memorized for real life cant be on the sheet.

Answer 3

I am a teacher who completely agrees with you. Memorizing facts and definitions is almost useless, since only the short-term memory is used. Long term, most of these items are forgotten and we have to look them up. I would like to be able to allow notes on tests, but then to ask questions which require thinking. Research skills and higher-order thinking skills do not require rote memorization.

Answer 4

Try using notes on your driver's permit test or the ACT or Praxis or GRE or MCAT.  That's real life.