Part I consists of 45 multiple choice questions. The questions test knowledge of content included in all social studies units and cover the five social studies standards—US and New York history, world history, geography, economics, and civics, citizenship, and government. The multiple choice part of the test makes up 50% of the total test score.

• Part II consists of 3-4 constructed response prompts with questions that follow the last prompt. Most questions are scored on either a 0-1 or 0-2 scale. This part of the examination is designed to test a student’s ability to draw inferences from a stimulus (e.g., a chart, picture, or map). This part makes up 20% of the total score.
• Part III consists of a document based question and makes up 30% of the total test score. The document based question requires students to identify and explore multiple perspectives on events or issues by examining, analyzing, and evaluating textual and visual primary and secondary documents. The document based question consists of a series of short-answer scaffold questions based on individual documents (making up 10% of the total score) and a document based essay question (making up 20% of the total score).

Items for the test were developed and pretested by a consortium of teachers, supervisors, and administrators from school districts across the State; Erie I BOCES staff; and State Education Department staff. All constructed response, scaffold, and essay type responses are scored holistically using scoring rubrics by trained teachers in their districts.

Purpose of this Site: This site is designed to provide useful information about the NYS Social
Studies Test for teachers, parents and students. Becoming familiar with the test format will take away the "fear of the unknown" aspect of the test and build confidence in students. This site is organized around the two sessions of the exam. For each session there will be a variety of resources and activities that can be used. These resources have been designed as:
Lessons (L)- These are tutorials that students can go through to gain a better understanding of the individual skills needed to be success on the exam.
Practice (P)- These practice pages are for the students to use to assist them in seeing if they have grasped an understanding of the lessons. These practice pages typically give immediate feedback to the students.
Interactive (I)- These pages are typically practice pages that are highly interactive. Students can engage in these activities to help test their knowledge of the skills taught.
Teacher Resource (R)- These pages provide ideas for both parents and teachers. These pages can consist of ideas and/ or activities that can be prepared for the students to help enrich their understanding of the skills taught.
Literature Connection (LI)- These are pages which highlight books that correspond with the particular concepts that are being taught. These pages may also have activities that you can incorporate into your classroom instruction when using the books.
CRQ- (CRQ)-These pages will provide sample CRQ's that can be used to practice for the Social Studies 5 test.
DBQ- (DBQ)- These pages will provide sample DBQ's that can be used to practice for the Social Studies 5 test.