Welcome to a new school year. 

You have 51 days, 47 minutes, 33 seconds before your brand new 5th graders will sit down to take the  NYS Grade 5 Social Studies test.  Keep in mind that the content of the this test is based on any information that your students learned in Grade 3 and Grade 4 Social Studies.  Also keep in mind that this test will will be given in two 90 minutes sessions and broken down into three sections : Part 1 - 35 multiple choice, Part 2 - 3 to 5 Constructed Response Questions and Part 3 - a document based essay with scaffolding questions requiring students to analyze 4 to 6 documents, answer questions, relate them together and write a well-developed essay to answer a larger, big picture type question. Whew!

 Has panic set in yet?

Relax, it doesn't have to!

You don't have to give up teaching 5th grade to prepare students to take this test!  One way to help your students prepare for this test is to understand the purpose and format of the test.  This test is designed to test students knowledge of social studies and the skills that they use in acquiring that knowledge.  It is comprised of a variety of highly visual stimuli.  Students must look at a variety of prompts and extract and synthesize knowledge to answer questions.

How are your students' skills in the following areas?

• Locating information on a time line?

• Using scale of miles to find distances on a map?

• Using a bar graph to extract information? ... a pie graph? ...line graph? ...pictograph?

• Using latitude and longitude to locate places on a map or globe representation?

• Reading keys and legends on maps, charts, graphs?

• Reading and understanding the purpose of a variety of map types including a population map, a product map, a climate map, a road map?

• Interpreting political cartoons?

• Analyzing a picture - including captions, title and pictorial clues?

Look at previous tests and sample tests - they provide a wealth of information as to the format of the questions that your students will be required to answer. Remember, it is difficult to accurately assess a student's knowledge of content or skills if they are unfamiliar with the format in which the assessment is taking place. These can be found at the New York State Department of Education website or by following the link below.

NYS Grade 5 SS test

Student tutorials for answering test questions can be found on this website:

Answering a multiple choice question
Answering a multiple choice question with visual prompts
Answering a CRQ
Answering a DBQ

Vocabulary is another important component of student success on the the test - and not just content vocabulary. 

Do your students know the meaning of the following words or phrases?

(these are just a few examples taken directly from test samples and previous tests - don't assume that your students will know the meaning of all these words and phrases)

Students will have difficulty demonstrating content knowledge-if they DO NOT understand what is being asked of them!   We know you are teaching content - ARE YOU SPEAKING THE SAME LANGUAGE AS THE TEST???

Remember - content for this test is taken from the NYS Social Studies core curriculum for grades 3 and 4.  Lessons, practice, CRQs, DBQs, interactive games, videos, resources and a wealth of other information pertaining specifically to the core curriculum can be found right here on this website.  These resources provide a variety of approaches to help students master content.  They can be used in class or at home, as part of a whole class lesson, small group lesson or individual practice.  Use them to help refresh or remediate students' knowledge of content material.

In addition to multiple choice and CRQs that students will be asked to answer, students will also be required to answer a DBQ essay with scaffolding questions.  Like any test format, students need to be familiar of what is required when answering a DBQ essay.  One way to do this is to have them familiar with the rubric that will be used to score their answers.  Please see the section "Using Rubrics" which will discuss this in detail.

The more students are familiar with the format of the test - the more comfortable they will be in taking the test and demonstrating their true knowledge of social studies and the skills that they have acquired to help them gather that knowledge and become critical thinkers.