About this book
Give your fifth grader the confidence to succeed on the Missouri MAP Grade-Level Assessment in Science.
This book contains five full-length practice tests — 210 questions in all — aligned to the Missouri Learning Standards for Science and built to the shape of the real Grade 5 test. One thing about this test surprises Missouri families more than anything else: the Grade 5 science test is not a test of Grade 5 science.
- Format: Missouri tests science at Grades 5 and 8 only, so the Grade 5 test covers the science standards for grades 3, 4 and 5 together — 42 expectations in all, of which 16 are grade 5, 15 are grade 4 and 11 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 of what the test can ask about.
MAP — the Missouri Assessment Program — is the test the Missouri Department of Elementary and Secondary Education (DESE) gives every public-school student in Grades 3–8, delivered by Data Recognition Corporation (DRC) on the INSIGHT online platform each spring.
- Format: the Grade 5 science test is given in two sessions.
- Tools at Grade 5: a calculator is allowed, and no reference sheet and no periodic table are provided.
- Question types: multiple-choice questions with technology-enhanced items — circling words, ordering pictures, sorting into columns, matching in a table, drawing bars on a graph — and, unlike most state science tests, a large share of written-response questions scored with rubrics.
- Each practice test here: each test follows that same shape.
What’s inside
- 5 complete 42-question practice tests in two sessions, worth 60 points each — the same length, sessions and point total as a real form
- Nearly 90 labeled drawings — apparatus, animals, landforms, models — so a student sees the setup the way the online test shows it
- Built to the real blueprint weighting: Physical Science is the largest category, with Life Science and Earth and Space Science close behind, in every test
- Questions spread across all three years the test covers, grades 3 through 5, not grade 5 alone
- The full range of MAP question types, rendered for paper so nothing on test day is unfamiliar: multiple choice, select-two, circle-the-word, ordering, sorting, table matching, bar-drawing, and written responses in Part A / Part B / Part C form
- Scenario sets, exactly as on the real test: one investigation followed by four to six questions, each scored on its own
- Eleven written-response questions per test — more than a quarter of the points — each with a rubric that lists exactly which elements earn each point, a full-credit sample answer, and guidance on what a partial-credit answer looks like
- Detailed answer explanations for every question — not just the correct letter, but the reasoning, each closing with a Tip, Check, or Strategy — and a line naming the standard and its grade
- A quick-reference answer key for all five tests for fast scoring
- A parent letter with test-taking tips and a Grade 5 Science Study Reference for use before test day — on the real test a student receives no reference materials, and the book says so plainly
- Settings drawn from across Missouri — the Missouri River at Hermann, an Ozark cave near Branson, the Katy Trail, Taum Sauk Mountain, the Bootheel, Table Rock Lake, a Joplin tornado shelter — so the science is anchored in places students know
Topics covered
- Water changing state when heated or cooled, and which changes reverse and which do not
- Matter made of particles too small to see, and why the total weight stays the same through heating, cooling and mixing
- Identifying and separating materials by their properties, and evidence that mixing made a new substance
- Electric and magnetic forces acting across a distance
- Patterns of motion, balanced and unbalanced forces, friction, and fair tests of a force
- Speed and energy, energy changes into sound, light, heat and electricity, and devices that convert energy
- Simple machines that change the effort or the direction of a force
- Waves, amplitude and wavelength
- Gravity pulling toward the center of Earth
- Energy in food traced back to the sun, and how objects are seen by reflected light
- Life cycles of plants and animals, inherited traits, variation, and survival in a changing habitat
- Structures of plants and animals, and how the senses send information to the brain
- Organ systems, how plants build themselves from air and water, and how matter moves through a food web
- Seasonal weather data, climates of different regions, and designs that reduce a weather hazard
- Rock layers and fossils, weathering and erosion, and maps of Earth’s features
- The sun as a star, daylight through the year, shadows and the night sky
- Earth’s four spheres, where Earth’s water is found, and how communities protect resources
Why parents and teachers choose Smart Stars
- Written by experienced educators who study the state’s own blueprint, released form, item specifications and scoring guide
- Built to the real weighting and the real grade band, which is the difference between practice that matches the test and practice that does not
- Written-response practice is the heart of the book, because on this test it is a quarter of the score and the part students practice least
- 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
