Give your fifth grader the confidence to succeed on the Pennsylvania System of School Assessment (PSSA) Science test.
This book contains five full-length practice tests (210 questions total) aligned to Pennsylvania’s STEELS standards (Science, Technology and Engineering, Environmental Literacy and Sustainability) for Grade 5. (A real PSSA Science form also carries field-test questions: items being tried out for future tests that look exactly like the rest but do not count toward your child’s score, and nobody in the room can tell which is which. Each test here runs a full 42 questions worth 48 points, so a practice sitting is the same length as test day, with every question a scored-style item carrying a full explanation.)
What’s inside
- 5 complete 42-question practice tests (210 questions total), each worth 48 points
- The real scoring mix: 39 computer-scored questions at one point each, plus 3 open-ended questions worth three points, scored 0:3 by a person
- Scenario sets, as on the real test: a passage, table, or diagram followed by several questions drawing on it
- Two sections per test, with the honest note that students are given the time they need
- 90 drawn figures: circuits, food webs, rock layers, levers, line plots, weather graphs
- Detailed explanations for every question, plus model responses and partial-credit guidance for open-ended items
- Contexts and item types varied across all 5 tests
- All four reporting categories, weighted as on the official test: Life Sciences and Environmental Literacy, Physical Sciences, Earth and Space Sciences, and Technology and Engineering
- Pennsylvania settings throughout, from a mine above Shamokin Creek to a reservoir at Pottsville
- A parent letter, a Grade 5 Science Study Reference for studying, and a quick-reference answer key
How to use this book: Take one test at a time in a quiet space, working through both sections in one sitting: that full-length sitting is the point. A calculator is permitted on the real test though no question requires one. Score with the quick answer key, then review every explanation, even for questions answered correctly. For the three open-ended questions, read the model response and partial-credit guidance together with your child. Space the five tests over several weeks.
Topics covered
- Forces and motion, balanced and unbalanced forces, and predicting motion
- Energy transfer through sound, light, heat, and electric current
- Simple circuits, cells, and what changes when a cell is added
- Waves, light, reflection, and why an object is visible
- Properties of matter, mixtures, evidence of a new substance, and conservation of matter
- Plant and animal structures and the functions they perform
- Life cycles, inherited traits, and traits shaped by the environment
- Food webs, decomposers, and matter moving through an ecosystem
- Weather, climate, reading weather data, and Earth’s water
- Weathering, erosion, deposition, rock layers, and fossils
- The sun, stars, and patterns in the sky; natural hazards and design solutions
- The engineering design process: criteria, constraints, testing, improving
- Choosing materials and tools, and the trade-offs a choice carries
- Technological systems, and renewable versus nonrenewable resources
Why parents and teachers choose Smart Stars
- Written by educators who study Pennsylvania’s official PSSA specifications, the STEELS standards, and released item samplers
- Every question mirrors what students will see on test day: no surprises in format, content, or rigor
- Explanations teach the “why,” not just the “what,” so students learn from every mistake
- Item types and contexts varied across the five tests: every question feels fresh
- Honest about what Pennsylvania has not published: the STEELS grade 5 cut scores are not set, so we name the four performance levels and invent no numbers