Praxis Practice Test 5008
Weighing the water after it is placed in the tray and the ice cubes before they are removed from the tray
A student investigated whether matter is conserved during a change of state. The student weighed an empty glass beaker and then filled it with water before weighing it again to determine the weight of the water. The student then poured the water from the beaker into an ice-cube tray and placed it in a freezer. The student later removed the ice cubes from the tray and weighed them. After repeating the procedure five times, the student found that the weight of the ice cubes was slightly less than the initial weight of the water. The student concluded that freezing the water reduced its mass. Which of the following modifications to the procedure would best remove the error that affected the student's data?
The student is comparing decimals as if they are whole numbers.
A student is asked to compare three pairs of decimal numbers. The student correctly states that 0.59 is less than 0.721. The student correctly states that 0.96 is greater than 0.008. The student incorrectly states that 0.7 is less than 0.021. Which of the following misconceptions most likely explains the student's answers?
Have you considered a benefit for bees when they help flowers reproduce?
A student presents a project to the class describing the relationship between flowering plants and bees. The student concludes the presentation by stating, "Flowers have bright colors so they can trick bees into helping them reproduce." Which of the following responses by the teacher would best help the student develop a more accurate view of the relationship between bees and flowers?
By providing a habitat in which shade-intolerant plants can grow
A teacher leads a discussion about the impact of environmental change on an ecosystem. The teacher asks the students in the class to explain how the death of a tree can be beneficial. To help the students, the teacher suggests that they consider how a fallen tree can affect the species diversity of the surrounding forest. In which of the following ways can a tree-fall gap result in increased species diversity in a mature forest community?
Chanelle has 13 crayons. Chanelle has 7 more crayons than Chuck has. How many crayons does Chuck have?
A teacher poses the following problem to the class. Helena has 20 red beads for making bracelets. She has 12 more red beads than yellow beads. How many yellow beads does she have? Which of the following problems has the same mathematical structure as the problem the teacher poses?
Amphibians
A teacher presents the students in a class with the characteristics of a certain animal. The teacher describes the animal as having a backbone and soft, moist skin covered by a slippery layer of mucus. The teacher also says that the animal goes through complete metamorphosis in its life cycle and that it lives part of its life in water and part of its life on land. The teacher then asks the students to classify the animal on the basis of its characteristics. Based on the information provided, the animal is best classified as a member of which of the following groups?
Samples of two different materials with two thicknesses each
A teacher provides students with several rectangular samples of flexible materials, with the same length and width but with varying thickness. The students are asked what causes the difference in stiffness among the materials. A student picks up a thin sample that is very flexible and a thick sample that is much stiffer. The student concludes that the thick sample must be made of a stiffer material since it is harder to bend. Which of the following sets of samples should the teacher provide to allow the student to determine that both the type of material and the thickness of the material can affect stiffness?
Posing a follow-up question: If gravity is not pulling on the ball when it stops, why does it start to fall back down?
A teacher shows students a short video of a ball being thrown vertically upward, momentarily coming to rest, and falling back down toward the ground. When asked about the force of gravity on the ball throughout its motion, a student says that gravity pulls down on the ball at all times except for when the ball stops briefly before reversing direction. Which of the following responses by the teacher will best help the student overcome the misconception about gravity?
"Fish live in schools. By being one of a large number of fish, each individual has less chance of being eaten."
A third-grade teacher wants to assess students' mastery of providing explanations. The teacher asks the class to select a species that lives in groups and to write an explanation of how certain interactions within a group will help increase the likelihood of an individual's survival, growth, and reproduction. Which of the following explanations best meets the objective?
All whole numbers that are less than 60 and have a remainder of 1 when divided by 8.
1, 9, 7, 25, 33, 41, 49, 57 Which of the following statements best describes the numbers in the preceding list?
13.102
A student found an incorrect answer to the problem 19.9 + 1.3. The student's answer is represented in the following work. The figure shows a student's work. The work is as follows. 19.9 plus 1.3, equals 20.12. The numbers are arranged vertically, such that the decimal points are aligned. Which of the following incorrect answers to the problem 12.94 + 1.08 is the result of an error that is most similar to the error made in the preceding work?
The number of units of measure increases as the size of the unit of measure increases.
In Ms. Werner's classroom, students are measuring the length of objects around the room. Shaun measures the length of the rug using a ruler and gets 108 inches. Tim measures the length of the same rug using a yardstick and gets 3 yards. Ms. Werner overhears them discuss their results. Shaun says that inches are bigger than yards because there are more inches in the length of the rug, but Tim says that yards are bigger than inches because there are fewer yards. Which of the following statements best expresses Shaun's misconception about measurement?
Earth revolves around the Sun.
In a classroom activity using images of the night sky, a teacher helps the students observe that the positions of stars seen in the summer at 11 P.M. are different than those seen in the winter at the same time. Which of the following statements best helps explain the observation?
Water and minerals will not be absorbed from the soil.
In an activity using an illustration of a plant, a teacher guides students through a lesson about the different parts of a plant. When discussing the structure and function of the roots, the teacher points to small projections that are shown on the plant's roots. The teacher tells the students that the projections are called root hairs and asks the students to predict what would happen if all the root hairs were suddenly gone. Which of the following is likely to be the most direct effect on the plant of the sudden loss of all its root hairs?
Alyssa, who wrote that they had created a new substance because the slime has properties that are different from the properties of the three ingredients
In an activity, Mr. Shope's students mix one cup of warm water, one tablespoon of borax powder, and one‑fourth cup of glue. After a period of thorough mixing, the students are left with a puttylike substance commonly referred to as slime. The students determine the properties of their substance and record their observations. Mr. Shope then asks the students to state whether they created a mixture or a new substance and to support their claim with evidence. Which of the following students made the best use of evidence to support his or her claim?
An object will continue moving at a constant velocity unless a force is exerted on it.
In an investigation, students kicked soccer balls along thick grass, short grass, and smooth pavement. The students' teacher then asked the students to use ideas about forces to explain the observed changes in the movement of the soccer balls. One student responded by saying, "The ball rolled after I kicked it. The force of my leg made the ball move. When that force was gone, the ball stopped rolling." Based on the student's response, the teacher should focus on which of the following concepts to correct the student's misunderstanding?
Marcus drives 3 times as many miles to get to work as Hannah does. Hannah drives 16 miles to get to work. How many miles does Marcus drive to get to work?
In word problems that have a multiplicative comparison problem structure, two different sets are compared, and one of the sets consists of multiple copies of the other set. Which of the following best illustrates a word problem that has a multiplicative comparison problem structure?
LaShawn wrote that the mosquitoes are better adapted to the cooler, damper climate at higher altitudes on the mountain than to the hotter, dryer climate at lower altitudes.
Mr. Aslanian's class watched a video about a species of mosquito that is found only at relatively high altitudes on a particular mountain in Africa. Mr. Aslanian then asked the students to use the information presented in the video to propose an explanation for the mosquitoes' limited geographical range. Which of the following responses indicates the most accurate understanding of the factors that influence the natural range of a species?
Counting out a particular quantity from a larger set and Understanding that the last word count indicates the amount of objects in the set.
Mr. Benner places a row of 5 cubes on a student's desk and asks the student, Chanel, how many cubes are on the desk. As Chanel points at the cubes one by one from left to right, she counts, saying, "One, two, three, four, five." Then she says, "There are five cubes!" Mr. Benner then asks Chanel to pick up the third cube in the row. As Chanel points at three cubes one by one from left to right, she counts, saying, "One, two, three." She stops, then picks up the three cubes, and gives them to Mr. Benner.
It neither gives useful examples for showing that Katie's claim is true, nor does it establish in general why her claim is true.
Mr. Bennett's class was discussing strategies for adding whole numbers. One student, Katie, said, "When I add two numbers, I get the same answer as when the numbers switch places." Mr. Bennett asked his students to explain why Katie's claim is true when adding any two whole numbers. After giving the class time to work, he asked another student, Joel, to present his explanation. Joel said, "If the answer is a little number like 4, then 2 plus 2 is the same either way. And if the answer is a big number like 400, then 200 plus 200 is the same either way." Which of the following statements best characterizes Joel's explanation?
16 and 20
Mr. French's students are working on finding numbers less than 100 that are multiples of given one-digit numbers. When Mr. French asks them how they know when a number is a multiple of 6, one student, Crystal, says, "Even numbers are multiples of 6!" Mr. French wants to use two numbers to show Crystal that her description of multiples of 6 is incomplete and needs to be refined. Which of the following numbers are best for Mr. French to use for this purpose?
Knowing the value of each place in a two-digit number
Mr. Marzotto asks his students the following question. "If you have a 2 and a 5, what is the greatest two-digit number you can make using the 2 and the 5 ?" One student, Addy, responds, "With those two digits, I can make 25 and 52. The greatest number of the two is 52 because it has 5 tens, and 25 only has 2 tens, and 5 is greater than 2." Addy has demonstrated evidence of understanding which of the following mathematical ideas or skills?
A square is a rectangle that has 4 sides of equal length/A square is a rhombus that is also a rectangle.
Mr. Varela asked his students to define a square in terms of other two-dimensional geometric figures.
A Benchmarking Strategy
Mr. Walters asked his students to order 89, 708, 37, and 93 from least to greatest, and to be ready to explain the process they used to order the numbers. One student, Brianna, ordered the numbers correctly, and when Mr. Walters asked her to explain her process, she said, "The numbers 89, 37, and 93 are less than 100, so they are all less than 708, since that is greater than 100. Also, 37 is the least because it comes before 50 and the other two numbers are close to 100. Then 89 is less than 90, but 93 is greater than 90." Which of the following best describes the strategy on which Brianna's explanation is based?
The leftmost digit in a three-digit number represents the number of hundreds in the number.
Mr. Wilson wrote the numbers 657, 756, and 576 on the board and asked the students to state which number is the greatest and explain why. One student, Lily, answered, "756 is the greatest. The first number has 6 hundreds, the second number has 7 hundreds, and the third number has 5 hundreds, so 756 is the greatest." Which of the following statements best describes the evidence of understanding place value that Lily's explanation provides?
The variable is a letter that stands for the unknown number that will make the equation true.
Ms. Aggarwal tells her students that the x in the equation x+4=7 is called a variable. She then asks her students to write down what they think the word "variable" means in this context. One student wrote, "The variable is a letter that stands for something we don't know." Which of the following revisions to the student's definition most improves the precision of the definition as it relates to this use of the word "variable"?
15 quarts of orange juice will be poured into a certain number of 2-quart containers. What is the least number of containers needed for the orange juice?
Ms. Aguilar's class is learning about word problems involving division. Ms. Aguilar's goal is to assess whether her students recognize when the remainder forces the answer to the next-highest whole number when solving a word problem. Which of the following word problems is aligned with Ms. Aguilar's goal?
Knowing that each previous number name refers to a quantity which is one less.
Ms. Carter shows one of her students, Brandon, a set of cubes. She tells Brandon that there are 13 cubes in the set and asks him to take 1 cube away from the set. Ms. Carter then asks Brandon, "How many cubes do you think are in the set now?" Brandon quickly answers, "Twelve." Brandon has demonstrated evidence of understanding which of the following mathematical ideas or skills?
The student has overgeneralized by applying the commutative property to subtraction.
Ms. Chambers writes the following equation on the board. 5×19−40=40−5×19 Ms. Chambers asks her students to determine if the equation is true. One student says, "The equation is true because on both sides of the equation, you subtract after you multiply 5 times 19." Which of the following statements most likely gives the reason underlying the student's error?
A picture of a female cocker spaniel with her litter of eight puppies, some black, some golden, some brown / A diagram that shows a corn plant with red kernels and a corn plant with yellow kernels that have produced offspring containing both red and yellow kernels.
Ms. Egbuniwe wants her students to analyze information and provide evidence that individuals inherit traits from their parents but with variation between the individuals and their parents. She would like to provide them with resources that contain appropriate evidence for an upper-elementary student. Of the following, which TWO would provide the best evidence?
Mentally adding ten to a three-digit number
Ms. Hammonds asked one of her students, John, to write the number five hundred. John wrote 500 in his workbook. Next, Ms. Hammonds asked John to write the number that is ten more than five hundred. John immediately said, "Five hundred ten," and wrote 50010" in his workbook. Which of the following mathematical skills is most evident in John's response?
The 2 is two groups of ten counters and the 4 is four counters.
Ms. Karp gives each of her students 24 counters. She asks the students to count the number of counters each of them has and to write the number on their worksheets. All the students write "24" on their worksheets. Next, she asks the students to explain the meaning of the 2 and the 4 in "24." Which of the following student explanations provides the most evidence of place-value understanding?
Place new groups of plants in the original locations and water half of the plants in each group daily and water the other half weekly.
Ms. Keane had her students plant seeds in pots of soil. The students then placed some of the pots on a sunny windowsill and some on a table that was out of direct sunlight. As the seeds began to sprout, the students cared for them and observed their growth. After a weeklong break, the students found that some of their plants were wilted, and some were dead. Ms. Keane asked the students to suggest a way to investigate why some of the plants had died and others had not. Which of the following plans will best allow the students to collect data that can be used to determine why some of the plants died?
James did not start his count on the correct number.
Ms. Lee is teaching her first graders addition and subtraction within 20 by counting. She has her students work individually on finding the answer to 7+5. During the whole-class discussion of the answer to the problem, James says, "I think 7 plus 5 equals 11, because I counted 7, 8, 9, 10, 11." James puts up a finger each time he says a number in the sequence. Which of the following statements most likely explains the reason behind James's error?
Matthew's strategy is valid, but it will not always provide an equivalent subtraction problem where the ones digit of the number to be subtracted is less than the ones digit of the number from which to subtract.
Ms. Lussier asked one of her students, Matthew, to explain how he found the answer to the subtraction problem 54−37. Matthew explained his answer as follows. "I didn't want to have to trade, so I added 3 to 54 so I would have 7 like in 37. Then I added 3 to 37 to keep the problem the same, but now I have 57 minus 40 so I just do 7 minus 0 and 5 minus 4." Which of the following statements best characterizes Matthew's strategy for finding the answer to two-digit subtraction problems?
The commutative property can be used to rewrite one third plus one fourth, plus two thirds 1/3+1/4+2/3 as 1/3+1/4+2/3 to make the landmark number 1 in the sum 1 plus one fourth 1+1/4
Ms. Marley is working with her students on fraction addition. She wants to highlight how the commutative property of addition can be used to make landmark numbers when adding fractions. Which of the following expressions best highlights the use of the commutative property of addition for this purpose?
A). Finding equivalent fractions, B). Finding a common denominator, D). Finding a common denominator
Ms. O'Neil asked her students to find the sum five sixths plus seven tenths, plus two fifteenths 5/6+7/10+2/15. The figure shows a student's work. The work is as follows. Five sixths plus seven tenths, plus two fifteenths, equals the fraction with numerator 25 plus 21, plus 4, and denominator 30, which equals the fraction 50 over 30. Which THREE of the following mathematical strategies were used in the student's process?
Measuring the final heights of the plants but not the initial heights
Ms. Pellegrino divides her class into four groups and gives each group a dozen bean seedlings to monitor for the semester. She asks each group to use the seedlings to investigate whether plants need sunlight to grow. Although she wants each group to develop its own procedure, she wants to prevent errors that will result in the collection of unusable data. Which of the following is a procedural error that Ms. Pellegrino should correct to prevent the collection of unusable data?
Showing students 10 pencils and asking them to get enough erasers for all the pencils.
Ms. Roderick asked her lunch helper in her kindergarten class to get one paper plate for each student in the class. Which of the following counting tasks assesses the same mathematical counting work as this task?
The teacher gives each student a shuffled deck of 10 cards, each with a single number from1 to 10. When the students draw a number card, they must count to 20, starting from the number on the card they drew.
Ms. Rodriguez is working with her kindergarten students to develop the skill of counting on. Which of the following tasks is best aligned with the goal of having students count on?
The strategy is valid and the unit of measurement is square units.
Ms. Shaughnessy is working with her class on measuring area using nonstandard units. While the students are finding the area of the surface of their desks using rectangular note cards, one student says, "I can just measure the long side of the desk with the long side of the card, then measure the short side of the desk with the short side of the card and multiply them." Which of the following best describes the validity of the student's strategy?
Asking students to represent the numbers 35 and 53 using base-10 blocks.
Ms. Simeone is working with her first-grade students on writing two-digit numerals. She wants to use an activity to assess whether her students are attending to the left-to-right directionality of the number system. Which of the following activities is best aligned with Ms. Simeone's purpose?
324.7000
Ms. Stine is doing an activity with her students in which she says a decimal number out loud and her students respond by writing the numeral. When Ms. Stine says, "one hundred eight and eight‑hundredths," a student named Roy writes the numeral "108.800." The students are then asked to write the numeral corresponding to "three hundred twenty‑four and seven‑thousandths." Which of the following responses shows an error that is most similar to the error Roy made?
Repeating the investigation, using two flashlights of the same size
Ms. White's students investigate why some stars appear to be brighter than others in the night sky. They take observational notes about the apparent brightness of two different-sized flashlights that they shine from various distances onto the same wall. After the investigation, the students conclude that brighter stars must be larger than dimmer stars. Which of the following activities will provide the best data for directing the students toward a more accurate conclusion?
The layers of rock are in different colors in the shape of an ocean wave.
On a class field trip, students look at a profile of a local canyon wall. Sandy says, "I didn't realize this area was once an ocean." The teacher asks the other students to explain why they think Sandy may have come to this conclusion. Which student response indicates a lack of understanding about the evidence and geologic history?
Evaporate the water and show that the salt still remains
Students are conducting an investigation on dissolving solids in a liquid. After mixing a spoonful of salt into a large container of water, a student says, "I can no longer see the salt in the water because the salt is gone." What can the teacher do to clarify this misconception?
What would cause a compass to not point to the north?
Students are studying various aspects of magnetism. Which of the following questions should upper-elementary students be able to answer experimentally with classroom resources?
Erosion is always harmful to the environment.
Students completed a simulation examining the erosion of soil by water and made several conclusions. Which of the following conclusions presents a misconception?
Pictures of seashell fossils found in a desert
Students in an upper elementary classroom are studying fossils. Which resource would best support the idea that fossils provide evidence that ecosystems can change over time?
Sean interpreted the remainder incorrectly.
When Sean, a third-grade student, solved the following problem, he gave an incorrect answer. Adele is baking cakes. Each cake needs 3 eggs. How many cakes can she make with 22 eggs? Sean said the answer was "7 remainder 1 cakes." Which of the following statements describes the error Sean made to arrive at his incorrect answer?
Rolling one soccer ball along the floor into another that is not moving
Which of the following activities provides fourth-grade students with the best opportunity to make and test predictions about the transfer of kinetic energy between objects?
Students are presented with two trays of soil set at a slight angle, one containing growing grass. The students pour water on both samples and compare the amounts of soil lost.
Which of the following activities would best introduce students to a method of erosion control?
An interconnected web showing the movement of matter between plants, animals, decomposers, and the environment.
Which of the following describes a student-created model that best represents the movement of matter through an ecosystem?
Because the beaver lives in a lodge in the lake formed by the dam, it is protected from predators
An elementary school class has been learning about how animals can change the environment to meet their needs. After viewing a video of a beaver building a dam, the students are asked to explain how changing its environment helps the beaver to support its needs. Their explanation needs to be supported by evidence. Which explanation responds to the teacher's direction and is most likely to be supported by evidence from a video about beavers?
Unit and Ten
Consider the following incomplete statement about rounding a decimal number. When 390.396 is correctly rounded to the nearest ________________________, the result is 390. Which of the following words make the preceding statement true when inserted into the blank in the statement?
Water waves slow down when they encounter an obstacle.
During a class demonstration, a teacher floats a small toy boat in the center of a long, narrow rectangular tank filled with water. Initially, the water is still and the boat is not moving. The teacher asks students to predict what will happen if they use their hand to create a wave crest that travels toward the other end of the tank. A student predicts that the boat will be carried by the wave to the other end of the tank. Which of the following statements indicates a misconception that the student most likely has about water waves?
The cooking of an egg
During a lesson on physical and chemical changes, a teacher asks the students to come up with examples of changes in matter that can be observed in everyday life. Which of the following is an example of a chemical change?
