Quiz & test questions Grade 4 Social Studies & Civics

Ambersill's Old Water Pipes: A Grade 4 Civics Quiz

A grade 4 quiz built on a fictional town council notice about replacing lead service lines, asking students to use text details to trace how a water policy was made.

Grade: Grade 4
Subject: Social Studies & Civics
Material: Quiz & test questions
Time: 25 min
Prep: No prep
Materials: None

Standards

D2.Civ.13.3-5 C3 Framework

Explain how policies are developed to address public problems.

How this material aligns: Items 2, 4, and 6 trace how the Ambersill council moved from a tested problem to a public meeting to an adopted replacement plan, the policy development this standard names.

All materials for D2.Civ.13.3-5 →

RI.4.1 Common Core ELA

Refer to details and examples in a text when explaining what the text says explicitly and when drawing inferences from the text.

How this material aligns: Items 1, 3, and 5 require students to point to a specific detail in the council notice when they explain what the town found and what residents should do.

All materials for RI.4.1 →

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This material is in the public domain (CC0) and may be copied, edited, and shared freely, without attribution. Updated 2026-09-04.

Objectives

Students will use details from a town notice to explain what a service line is.
Students will put the steps a town council took to make a water policy in order.
Students will describe what a town promised residents in a public water plan.

Vocabulary

Service line: A service line is the small pipe that connects the water main under the street to the plumbing inside one home or building. It is the last leg of the trip water makes to your tap.
Lead (Pb): A soft gray metal that is poisonous, especially for children. It can get into drinking water from old pipes and plumbing, so utilities work hard to control it.

Also: town council, public meeting, notice

Teacher overview

This 25-minute quiz is worth 20 points and uses a short town notice from the fictional town of Ambersill as its text. Three multiple-choice items and three short-answer items ask students to find details in the notice and to trace how a public problem became a town plan. Before the quiz it is worth settling where lead in tap water comes from, since the river and the treatment plant are the usual guesses. Lead usually gets into tap water from lead pipes, solder, and fixtures between the street main and the tap, and the lead service line is the largest source where one exists, which is why the notice is about replacing pipes rather than about changing the water source. EPA estimates that about 4 million lead service lines remain in US water systems, so this is a live question in many real towns.

Ambersill's Old Water Pipes: A Grade 4 Civics Quiz — Grade 4 Social Studies & Civics

Name: ____________________________ Date: ______________

Assessment

Read the notice from the town of Ambersill, which is a fictional town. Then answer the questions.

A NOTICE FROM THE AMBERSILL TOWN COUNCIL

Some of our homes are joined to the water main by an old pipe made of lead. That pipe is called a service line. It runs from the street to the house. Lead can get into water that sits in that pipe.

Last spring the town tested tap water at 60 homes built before 1960. In 9 homes the lead was above the federal action level of 15 parts per billion. That is the level at which a town must act to lower lead. It is not a safe level, because no amount of lead is safe. The action level drops to 10 parts per billion in 2027.

In June the council held a public meeting. Neighbors, teachers, and a plumber spoke. Some asked who would pay. Some asked how long the work would take.

In July the council voted for a plan. The town will make a map of every old service line. The town will replace those lines. The town will pay for the part under the street and the part in each yard. The work will be done a few blocks each year.

Until your line is replaced, run your cold tap for one minute before you drink or cook. The town will give a water filter to every home on the list.

(3 points) The notice says a service line is a pipe. What does that pipe do?
- A) It carries rain from the roof to the street.
- B) It brings water from the street main into a home.
- C) It carries used water to the treatment plant.
- D) It holds the town's water up in a tank.
(3 points) Which step did the Ambersill council take first?
- A) It voted for a plan.
- B) It gave out water filters.
- C) It tested tap water at 60 homes.
- D) It held a public meeting.
(4 points) The notice says the town tested homes built before 1960. Use a detail from the notice to explain why the town started with those homes.
(3 points) Who decided that Ambersill would pay for the pipe work?
- A) the town council
- B) each family on the list
- C) the plumber who spoke at the meeting
- D) the state governor
(4 points) Name one thing the notice tells residents to do while they wait for their line to be replaced.
(3 points) The notice says the council held a public meeting in June before it voted in July. Explain how that meeting could change the plan the council wrote.

From Water for Schools (waterforschools.org). This material is in the public domain (CC0) and may be copied, edited, and shared freely.

Answer Key

Answer: B.
The notice says the service line runs from the street to the house, so it brings water from the main into the home. Choice C describes a sewer pipe, which is the most common mix-up.
Answer: C.
The notice gives the order as last spring, then June, then July. Testing came first, then the public meeting, then the vote.
Answer: Accept any answer using the detail that older homes are the ones likely to have lead service lines.
Strong answers point to the notice saying some homes are joined to the main by an old pipe made of lead, then reason that houses built before 1960 are the older ones in town.
Answer: A.
The notice says the council voted for the plan in July, and that plan says the town will pay for both parts of the line.
Answer: Run the cold tap for one minute before drinking or cooking.
Students may instead name using the water filter the town gives to every home on the list. Both details come from the last paragraph of the notice.
Answer: Accept any answer explaining that what people said at the meeting could change what the council decided.
Strong answers use a detail from the notice, such as neighbors asking who would pay, and connect it to the plan saying the town will pay for the part in each yard.

Differentiation

Support

Give these students the notice with the four time words underlined, which are last spring, in June, in July, and until, so the sequence item 2 asks about is visible on the page. Provide a simple labeled drawing of a street, a water main, a service line, and a house, and have students point to the service line before answering item 1.

Extension

Ask students to write the short letter a family on the list might send back to the Ambersill council, naming one question the notice does not answer. Students can also list, in order, the four steps the council took, then mark which step let residents speak.

ELL supports

Pre-teach service line, main, and council with the labeled street drawing, and add the home-language word for pipe on each card. Offer sentence frames for the short-answer items: "The town started with those homes because ___." and "While people wait, they should ___."

Extensions

Ask students to find the yearly water quality report their own utility publishes, which most systems mail or post each summer, and to look for the section on lead. Students can compare what that report tells residents to do with what the notice from the fictional town of Ambersill tells residents to do, then write one sentence about what the two have in common.