North Carolina End-of-Grade Tests Science Grade 8

1.In a classroom model in Manteo, dune mice are born with different fur shades. Hawks catch darker mice on pale sand more often, and pale fur becomes more common over generations. Which statement explains this?

2.A pond near Boone freezes across the top while liquid water stays underneath, and the ice remains on the surface. Why does the ice stay up?

3.A square marsh plot near Beaufort is 3 meters on each side. Students double each side to 6 meters. How does the area change?

4.In January, Earth is at its closest point to the Sun, yet North Carolina is in winter. What does that fact show about the cause of seasons?

5.Over about a month, students in Raleigh see the Moon change from a thin crescent to full and back again. What causes these monthly phases?

6.At a campsite in Pisgah National Forest, a student burns a stick of wood and folds a paper map. Which statement compares the two changes?

7.Sunlight reaches a campsite on Mount Mitchell, but a bell's sound does not travel from the ground to a spacecraft where there is no air. Which statement fits both facts?

8.Students in Charlotte study a plate that moves 4 centimeters each year. How far does that plate move in 15 years?

9.People in Wilmington sometimes see the full Moon darken for a short time, and this does not happen at every full Moon. What is this event?

10.A runner in Charlotte trains until her leg muscles grow larger. She later has a child. Which claim about the child's legs is supported?

11.In a Greensboro garden, purple flower color (P) is dominant to white (p). Two heterozygous plants, both Pp, are crossed. What fraction of the offspring is expected to be white?

12.A grower near Kinston crosses a pea plant that is TT for tall stems with a plant that is tt for short stems. T is dominant. What do the offspring show?

13.A family in Cary studies a trait in which A is dominant and a is recessive. One parent has genotype Aa and shows the dominant trait. What else is true?

14.In a classroom model in Whiteville, blue shell spots appear only when a turtle's genotype is bb. One turtle in the model has genotype Bb. Which description is correct?

15.A class in Chapel Hill compares a gene with a chromosome in a body cell of a white-tailed deer. Which statement is accurate?

16.A student in Durham reads one strand of a DNA segment as A-T-C-G. Which strand pairs with it?

17.Before a lesson in Asheville, a teacher states that a human body cell has 46 chromosomes. How many chromosomes are in one human gamete?

18.A cut on a hiker at Hanging Rock heals as new skin cells form by mitosis. How do those new cells compare with the skin cell that divided?

19.A class in Wilmington compares cell division in a local fish. What is one result of meiosis?

20.A single bacterium living in pond water at Merchants Millpond divides into two cells. Which description fits this division?

21.Striped bass in the Roanoke River reproduce when eggs and sperm from two parents join. How do the young usually compare with the parents?

22.A model used by a class at Pilot Mountain shows one DNA base changing in a gene in a cardinal family line. The change is new. What is it, and what can it do?

23.Limestone of the Coastal Plain near Castle Hayne contains fossil shells of ocean animals, and the town is not on the modern beach. What can those shells show?

24.A class in Boone compares limb bones of a bat, a whale, and a person. The bones share a similar pattern but are used differently. What does that pattern suggest?

25.A great blue heron fishing near Engelhard has a long bill that helps it catch fish. The bill shape is inherited. Which term fits the bill?

26.Seedlings from one longleaf pine stand in the Sandhills are not all the same height, even in one nursery bed near Southern Pines. Why does that matter for evolution?

27.Sweet-potato growers near Clinton plant slips only from plants with the largest roots. How is this different from natural selection?

28.Venus flytraps grow in nutrient-poor bogs near Wilmington and catch insects with modified leaves. Which statement best links the plant to that habitat?

29.A van leaving a stoplight in Durham speeds up from 4 meters per second to 16 meters per second in 6 seconds. What is its acceleration?

30.A ferry on the Cape Fear River slows from 9 meters per second to 3 meters per second in 2 seconds. What is its acceleration?

31.A student pushes a 15-kilogram cart across a flat gym floor in Raleigh. The cart accelerates at 3 meters per second squared. What net force acts on the cart?

32.A net force of 48 newtons pushes a 12-kilogram cart at a dock in Washington, on the Pamlico River. What is the cart's acceleration?

33.A surveyor starts at a marker beside the Haw River, walks 8 kilometers east, then 15 kilometers north. What is the straight-line displacement from the marker?

34.A boat on Lake Norman travels 6 kilometers west and then 6 kilometers east, ending at the marina where it started. What is the boat's displacement?

35.A hiker in Pisgah National Forest walks 5 kilometers south and then 12 kilometers west. What is the magnitude of the displacement?

36.A research van drives 240 kilometers from Charlotte toward the coast in 4 hours at a steady pace. What is its average speed?

37.Hikers cover 18 kilometers of trail near Mount Mitchell in 6 hours. What is their average speed?

38.A soccer ball rests on a field in Winston-Salem. Nobody kicks it, and the net force on it is zero. Why does it stay at rest?

39.A paddler on the French Broad River pushes water backward with a paddle, and the kayak moves forward. Which statement names the force pair?

40.A barge on the Neuse River moves in a straight line at constant speed. The forward force and the drag are equal in size. What is the net force, and what happens to the speed?

41.A sled on a snowy path near Beech Mountain stays still until a push becomes greater than friction. What does that unbalanced force do?

42.A wagon rolled along a gravel path in Umstead State Park slows after the push stops. Which force mainly causes the slowing?

43.A city bus in Greensboro stops suddenly, and a standing rider lurches forward. Why does the rider's body move that way?

44.Two skiffs on Albemarle Sound each travel at 8 kilometers per hour. One heads north and the other heads south. Which comparison is correct?

45.Two horizontal forces act on a crate in a warehouse in High Point: 28 newtons east and 12 newtons west. What is the net force?

46.On a distance-time graph for a bike on the American Tobacco Trail, one section is a straight line sloping upward, and a later section is horizontal. What do those sections show?

47.A rock collected in Spruce Pine has a mass of 2 kilograms. If that same rock were on the Moon, where gravity is weaker, which comparison would be correct?

48.A model uses kinetic energy equal to one-half times mass times speed squared. Two canoes on Fontana Lake each have a mass of 50 kilograms. One moves at 2 meters per second and the other at 4 meters per second. How do their kinetic energies compare?

49.A model uses gravitational potential energy equal to mass times 10 newtons per kilogram times height. A 3-kilogram rock sits on a ledge at Chimney Rock 8 meters above a trail. What is its potential energy relative to the trail?

50.A boulder at the top of a slope in Linville Gorge rolls to the bottom. Friction acts while it rolls. Which energy description is best?

51.A metal spoon sits in a hot bowl of soup in a kitchen in Salisbury. The handle warms even though it is not in the soup. How does the thermal energy reach the handle?

52.Water heated in a pot on a stove in New Bern rises, and cooler water sinks to take its place. What is that transfer?

53.A person near a campfire at Jordan Lake feels heat on their face without touching the flames. The air is still. How does most of that energy arrive?

54.A student in Asheville plucks two guitar strings. One vibrates 220 times each second, and the other vibrates 440 times each second. Which comparison is correct?

55.A fallen oak on the forest floor at Eno River State Park is broken down by fungi. Nutrients return to the soil, and other plants later use them. What role are the fungi playing?

56.A class in Greenville models a sound wave in air and a light wave from a lamp. Which description matches the two waves?

57.A teacher in Cary lists electromagnetic waves from lower to higher frequency: radio, microwave, infrared, visible light, ultraviolet, X-ray, and gamma ray. Which statement is correct?

58.A calm inlet at Emerald Isle mirrors a lighthouse, while the dry sand beside it looks bright but shows no sharp image. Why does the water give a clear reflection?

59.An oar in a boat on Bogue Sound looks bent at the waterline. The oar itself is straight. What causes that look?

60.A loblolly pine in Croatan National Forest makes its own food in daylight. Which description of that process is accurate?

61.A piece of Mount Airy granite has a mass of 486 grams and a volume of 180 cubic centimeters. What is its density?

62.An oyster shell from Pamlico Sound has a mass of 126 grams and a volume of 60 cubic centimeters. What is its density?

63.A block of longleaf pine in a Southern Pines classroom has a mass of 150 grams and a volume of 300 cubic centimeters. The water in the tank has a density of 1.0 gram per cubic centimeter. What happens to the block in the water?

64.A classroom display in Spruce Pine labels a sample as pure copper. Which description fits an element such as copper?

65.A teacher in Fayetteville holds up water and writes its formula as H2O. How should the students classify water?

66.A student in Asheboro stirs sand into salt water. The sand settles on the bottom, and the salt stays dissolved. How should the material in the jar be classified before the sand is removed?

67.A model in a Statesville classroom shows an atom with 8 protons, 8 neutrons, and 8 electrons. Which statement is correct?

68.An atom studied by a class in Carrboro has 11 protons and 12 neutrons. What are its atomic number and mass number?

69.A model atom in a Kannapolis classroom has 11 protons and loses 1 electron, leaving 10 electrons. What is the ion's charge?

70.A chart in a Goldsboro classroom shows lithium and sodium in the same column of the periodic table. What should students expect?

71.A globe in a library in Davidson shows Earth covered mostly by ocean. Where is most of Earth's water?

72.In a closed container in Research Triangle Park, 35 grams of one reactant combine completely with 15 grams of another. No mass enters or leaves. What is the total mass of the products?

73.A camper burns wood on an open fire ring near Lake Lure. The ash left behind has less mass than the wood that burned. Which explanation agrees with conservation of mass?

74.A class in Burlington compares four models of hydrogen reacting with oxygen. Which model is balanced?

75.Ice from a freezer in Mooresville melts in a cup, and the water is later frozen again. How should these changes be classified?

76.An iron railing at a pier in Wrightsville Beach turns reddish brown after months in damp, salty air. Which description of the rust is correct?

77.Students in Hendersonville compare the particles in an ice cube, in liquid water, and in water vapor in a warm room. Which pattern is correct?

78.Rain on the west side of the Eastern Continental Divide near Waynesville flows into the Pigeon River. Rain on the east side of that divide takes a different route. Which statement is correct?

79.Producers in a food web at Alligator River store 20,000 kilojoules. About 10 percent of the energy at one level is available to the next level. About how much energy reaches secondary consumers?

80.Students in Brevard study a solar eclipse that darkens the daytime sky for a few minutes along a narrow path. What is the lineup, and why is a total solar eclipse uncommon at any one town?

81.In June, North Carolina has long days and more direct sunlight. In December, days are shorter and the sunlight is less direct. What mainly causes that pattern?

82.The Moon keeps circling Earth instead of flying off in a straight line or falling straight onto the Blue Ridge. Which pair of ideas explains the orbit?

83.A harbor master at Beaufort records the largest tidal range when the Sun, Moon, and Earth are lined up. What are these tides, and when do they occur?

84.Sunrise reaches Manteo in the morning, and sunset comes later the same day. Which motion of Earth causes this day-and-night cycle?

85.A student in Concord says one complete trip of Earth around the Sun takes about 365.25 days. What is that trip, and what does it define?

86.A poster in a Rocky Mount library groups Mercury, Venus, Earth, and Mars apart from Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, and Neptune. Which grouping is correct?

87.On a clear night at Cape Lookout, a camper sees the Moon and also expects the Sun at dawn. Which comparison is correct?

88.When it is summer in Asheville, it is winter in southern South America. Which statement explains that difference?

89.The Blue Ridge near Burnsville stands high, yet it is not beside an active ocean trench or a chain of active volcanoes. Which history fits these mountains?

90.A diagram in a Charlotte classroom shows a dense oceanic plate sinking under a continental plate. Which features match that convergent boundary?

91.Students in Buxton model the Mid-Atlantic Ridge, far east of Cape Hatteras, where plates move apart. What happens at that divergent boundary?

92.In a Raleigh classroom, students study the San Andreas fault, where plates slide past each other and crust is not created or destroyed. What type of boundary is it?

93.Granite quarried near Mount Airy has large, visible mineral crystals. A basalt sample in the same classroom has crystals too small to see easily. What cooling history fits the granite?

94.Coquina exposed at Fort Fisher is made of broken shell pieces cemented together. How should this rock be classified?

95.A museum in Raleigh displays marble that began as limestone. Heat and pressure changed it underground, but it did not melt. What type of rock is the marble?

96.A road cut near Old Fort shows five horizontal sedimentary layers. They have not been overturned, and no fault cuts them. Which layer is the oldest?

97.Geologists visiting a site near Lexington match a rock layer there with a layer in another state. Both contain the same fossil of a kind of organism that lived a short time over a wide area. What is that fossil called?

98.Water seeps into a crack in a boulder on Grandfather Mountain, freezes, and widens the crack. The pieces are still in place. What process is this?

99.Fields around Monroe often have red clay soil. The red color is tied to iron compounds in weathered rock, and the topsoil holds bits of decayed leaves. Which statement fits this soil?

100.Water evaporates from Pamlico Sound, forms clouds, falls as rain on the Coastal Plain, and runs back toward the sound in a river. Which set of processes is this?

101.A weather map for Greensboro shows cold air advancing into warm, humid air. Thunderstorms form along the boundary, and cooler air follows. What is that boundary?

102.In July, warm, moist air moves from the Gulf of Mexico into Lumberton, and afternoon storms become common. What kind of air mass is arriving?

103.A reporter in Morehead City writes that Tuesday was rainy and cool, then writes that summers there are usually hot and humid. Which use of the ideas is appropriate?

104.A hurricane approaches the Outer Banks. Forecasters warn that ocean water may rise far above the usual tide and flood the shore. What is that rise called?

105.Rain that falls in Raleigh can flow into the Neuse River and eventually reach Pamlico Sound. What is the land area drained by the Neuse and its tributaries called?

106.In Pamlico Sound, river water mixes with ocean water. The saltiness is between fresh water and open-ocean salt water, and young shrimp and fish use the area. What is this kind of water body?

107.A well near Elizabethtown draws water from pores in sand below the water table. Rain had soaked into the ground and filled those spaces. What is that underground supply called?

108.After heavy rain, fertilizer from fields along Contentnea Creek near Snow Hill washes into the water. Algae grow quickly, and later the dissolved oxygen drops. Which sequence fits?