About this book
Give your fifth grader the confidence to succeed on the Texas STAAR Science test.
This book contains five full-length practice tests — 130 questions in all — aligned to the Texas Essential Knowledge and Skills (TEKS) and built to the shape of the real Grade 5 STAAR Science exam. One thing about this test surprises Texas families more than anything else: the Grade 5 science test is not a test of Grade 5 science.
- Format: it assesses the science standards for grades 3, 4 and 5 together — 28 student expectations in all, of which 13 are grade 5, 8 are grade 4 and 7 are grade 3.
- Each practice test here: every test spreads its questions across all three years the way a real form does.
A student who reviews only this year’s science has prepared for fewer than half the standards the test can ask about.
What’s inside
- 5 complete 26-question practice tests worth 30 points each — the same length and point total as a real STAAR form
- Built to the real blueprint weighting, which is the single most important thing to know about this test: Earth and Space is by far the largest category, taking 10 to 12 questions and 11 to 15 points. On the state’s released 2026 form it was 11 questions and 13 points — 42% of the whole score. Every test here is built to those proportions
- Questions spread across all three years the test covers, grades 3 through 5, not grade 5 alone
- The full range of STAAR question types, printed on paper so nothing on test day is unfamiliar: multiple choice, two-part questions that ask for an answer in Part A and the evidence behind it in Part B, table questions that ask for one choice in every row, and written responses in a box
- Question sets, exactly as on the real test: one scenario followed by three or more questions, each scored on its own, so a student who misreads the first can still earn every other point in the set
- Detailed answer explanations for every question — not just the correct letter, but the reasoning, each closing with a Tip, Check, or Strategy
- A printed scoring guide for the two-point questions, so a parent can award partial credit the way the state does
- A parent letter with test-taking tips, plus a Grade 5 Science Study Reference for use *before* test day — on the real test a student receives no reference materials and may not use a calculator, and the book says so plainly rather than implying otherwise
- A quick-reference answer key for all five tests for fast scoring
- Settings drawn from across Texas — the Chihuahuan Desert, Palo Duro Canyon, Enchanted Rock, the Blackland Prairie, the Permian Basin, Port Aransas, the Trinity and Nueces rivers — so the science is anchored in places students know
Topics covered
- Physical properties that identify a material, including sinking and floating, dissolving, conducting electricity, and attraction to a magnet
- Mixtures and solutions, how the parts keep their own properties, and conservation of matter in a sealed container
- Heating and cooling, and changes between solid, liquid and gas
- Equal and unequal forces and what each does to an object’s motion
- Forces that act across a distance, including gravity and magnetism
- Designing a fair test of a force, changing one variable and holding the rest steady
- Circuits, including series and parallel paths, and the energy changes inside them
- Light traveling, reflecting, refracting and being absorbed, and why an object is visible at all
- Earth’s rotation, and the day-and-night and shadow patterns it produces
- Seasons, Earth’s tilt, and the changing appearance of the Moon
- The water cycle, and the parts the Sun and the ocean play in it
- Weather against climate, and which record answers which question
- Weathering, erosion and deposition, and the landforms built and carved by wind, water and ice
- Rapid changes to the land, including earthquakes and landslides
- Sedimentary rock, fossils and fossil fuels
- The order of the planets and their distance from the Sun
- Natural resources, renewable and nonrenewable
- Living and nonliving factors in an environment and how a change in one affects the others
- Structures plants and animals use to survive
- Food chains and food webs, and what happens when part of one is removed
Why parents and teachers choose Smart Stars
- Written by experienced educators who study the state’s own blueprint, released forms and TEKS alignment documents
- Built to the real weighting, not an even split across categories — the Earth and Space tilt is the difference between practice that matches the test and practice that does not
- 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
- Names, settings and contexts varied across all five tests, so no question feels like one already answered
