How to Prepare Students for the Fifth Grade TAKS Science Test
The Texas Education Agency (TEA) administers the Texas Assessment of Knowledge and Skills (TAKS) program. The TAKS exams include a science exam for fifth grade students. In addition to the normal Texas science curriculum, TEA provides a number of resources to assist students in TAKS test preparation. Teachers and parents of fifth-grade students can use study guides, released tests and other resources to prepare students for the fifth grade TAKS science test.
Things You'll Need
- Internet access
- TAKS released tests
- TAKS information booklet
- TAKS study guides
- TEKS science curriculum standards
Instructions
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Access the Texas Essential Knowledge and Skills for Science, Elementary (See References). These official curriculum standards include science standards from kindergarten to the fifth grade. Texas uses the Texas Essential Knowledge and Skills (TEKS) as the official source of standards for the TAKS test. Use the TEKS curriculum standards as a guide for preparing students for the TAKS science test. Make sure any textbooks used in class cover all the TEKS curriculum standards. Otherwise, you will need to incorporate extra class lessons to ensure that students are exposed to all of the TEKS standards used to make the TAKS science test.
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Access the online "Information Booklet" for the fifth-grade TAKS science exam (See References). Use the booklet to get familiar with the objectives of the science exam. Each objective is a subset of knowledge and skills from the TEKS science curriculum. You can use the objectives to confirm that you have prepared students in all of the subsets required by TEKS. The booklet also contains sample questions for each objective and explanations for each question. You can use the objectives and TEKS curriculum together to formulate similar practice questions for students.
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Open the "Study Guide" for the TAKS fifth-grade science exam (See References). According to TEA, parents and teachers should use the guide as a review of the subject areas tested on the TAKS science test. The guide has a lesson on each objective. It also has a practice test and answer key.
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Have students take the practice exams on the TEA "Released TAKS Tests" web page (See References). TEA provides actual exams and answer keys from past school years. Texas also releases additional test items on the "Released TAKS Items" page (See References). As of 2010, TEA has four TAKS released tests for fifth -grade science for the English and Spanish versions of the TAKS. Score the exams. You can use the scores to get an idea of the strengths and weaknesses of the class and individual students. Engage the students in a discussion of each question to help the students understand the thought process required to successfully answer the questions.
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Use the results from the practice tests to isolate specific areas for review. Teachers should discuss a review plan for individual students with parents. The parents should supplement class study with the review plan to assist students in improving on weak areas.
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Tips & Warnings
Use the TEA "Testing Calendars" page to find out testing dates (See Resources). Begin student preparation for the TAKS science test early in the school year. Take any extra class or home study time to periodically do practice questions from the resources and review important objectives. You can do a more comprehensive review as the testing day nears, but you may run out of time if you wait too long to start preparations.
References
Resources
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