Michigan Student Test of Educational Progress Science Grade 5

1.On a January morning, a dock bucket in Houghton holds liquid water from Lake Superior and several chunks of lake ice. The ice stays at the top. Why?

2.Snow left on a bench in Grayling warms during the day and becomes a puddle. The puddle is still water. What kind of change is the melting?

3.Near Rogers City, a heavier rock and a lighter rock are released at the same moment from the same height. Air resistance is ignored. Which statement is right?

4.A class in Marquette, on Lake Superior, notices that January is cold. One student says Michigan is in winter then because Earth is farthest from the Sun. What is accurate?

5.On a clear night in Petoskey, a thin crescent Moon is in the sky. A student says the dark portion is Earth's shadow. What is accurate?

6.During a night program at Wilderness State Park, a guide says the Sun belongs with the distant points of light in the night sky. What is the Sun?

7.In Traverse City, students watch a flagpole late in the afternoon, when the Sun is low in the sky. How does that low Sun affect the shadow?

8.Just after sunrise in Alpena, the Sun is in the eastern sky. Which way does a parking-lot sign's shadow point?

9.At noon in Lansing, students look for the Sun and then at a stick's shadow on level ground. Where is the Sun, and which way does the shadow point?

10.A sugar maple in Ann Arbor is making sugar in sunlight and giving off oxygen gas. Where does that oxygen gas come from?

11.In spring at Mackinac Island, harbor ice, liquid lake water, and invisible water vapor above the harbor are all present. How are they related?

12.A sealed container in Escanaba holds 240 grams of ice. It stays sealed until the ice has melted. What is the mass of the water then?

13.In a kitchen in Sault Ste. Marie, Michigan, a spoon of salt is stirred into warm water until no grains can be seen. Is the salt gone?

14.At a dock in St. Ignace, an open bottle is pushed mouth-down into the lake, and the inside stays mostly dry. What is already filling the bottle?

15.At a table in Kalamazoo, baking soda and vinegar meet and a fizzing gas appears. That gas was not present in either material before the mixing. What does the gas show?

16.A steel anchor chain left on a dock in Leland grows a rough reddish-brown coat after weeks in the damp air. What is that coat?

17.A bag in a Midland kitchen has a mass of 15 grams when empty. A cook adds 65 grams of salt and 120 grams of water, then seals the bag. After the salt dissolves, what is the mass of the sealed bag and its contents?

18.A 48-gram cracker at a table in Battle Creek is broken into four pieces. What is the total mass of the four pieces?

19.Water in a pot on a stove in Owosso is boiling. Bubbles rise, and gas leaves the surface. What change is happening to the water?

20.On a warm afternoon at Warren Dunes, a cold metal water bottle is covered with droplets on the outside. Nothing is leaking from a crack. Where did the droplets come from?

21.A puddle on a warm sidewalk in Ypsilanti shrinks until the concrete looks dry. The water was not boiling. What happened to it?

22.A sealed terrarium in a Mount Pleasant classroom has a mass of 350 grams. Days later, droplets hang on the glass lid and the soil looks drier. The seal was never opened. What is the mass now?

23.A tray of liquid water is left in a freezer in Cadillac until it becomes solid ice. What kind of change is that?

24.A cook in Charlevoix pours 250 milliliters of cherry juice from a tall bottle into a wide glass. None spills. What is true of the juice?

25.Cinnamon rolls bake in a Frankenmuth kitchen. Soon the smell is strong by the front door, far from the oven. Why can the smell spread?

26.At a beach in New Buffalo, a pail holds a mixture of coarse gravel and fine sand. Poured onto a screen, the sand falls through and the gravel stays on top. What does this show?

27.A jar in a Bay City workshop holds sand mixed with small iron bits. A magnet is held just above the mixture. What happens?

28.Two white powders were spilled on a bench in Grand Haven. One is pulled to a magnet. The other is not magnetic, and it dissolves when stirred into water. What is the useful conclusion?

29.On Torch Lake in Antrim County, a dry cedar log floats and a granite stone sinks. What explains the difference?

30.A sealed bottle full of liquid water is left outside in Ironwood on a night cold enough to freeze it. The bottle cracks. Why?

31.A basketball is released in a gym in Big Rapids. Which way does Earth's gravity pull the ball?

32.At a farm stand in Saugatuck, one pumpkin has more mass than the other, and it also weighs more. What is weight?

33.On a calm day in Hudsonville, a flat sheet of paper and a crumpled sheet of the same paper are dropped together. Air pushes on them as they fall. Which result fits?

34.A toboggan in Negaunee slides off a short hill onto flat snow and then slows to a stop. What makes it slow down on the flat snow?

35.A hockey puck on a rink in Calumet, in the Keweenaw, glides a long way after a gentle push. Why can it travel so far?

36.A textbook rests on a desk in Hillsdale and does not start moving by itself. What is true of the forces on it?

37.A soccer ball sits still on a field in Dearborn until a player kicks it and it starts moving. What does the kick do?

38.On a workbench in Saginaw, a magnet is tested with a wooden pencil, an aluminum can, a rubber eraser, and a steel paperclip. Which object does the magnet attract?

39.In a classroom in Marine City, the north pole of one magnet is brought near the south pole of another magnet. What do those poles do?

40.In a classroom in Onekama, the north pole of one magnet is brought near the north pole of another magnet. What happens?

41.At a bench in Iron Mountain, a magnet pulls a steel paperclip across a small gap without touching it. What does that show?

42.A hiker in the Porcupine Mountains holds a compass, and the needle points generally north. Why?

43.Near Seney, a fox eats a snowshoe hare, and that hare had eaten plants. Where did the energy in the fox's meal begin?

44.An oak at Kensington Metropark grows new leaves in the sun. Where does the oak get its food?

45.A silver maple in Grosse Pointe is much heavier than it was as a sapling. Where did most of that new mass come from?

46.In a marsh at Shiawassee National Wildlife Refuge, cattails grow in the sun. What is the cattail's role?

47.A muskrat in a marsh near Munising eats cattail stems. What is the muskrat in that relationship?

48.A bracket fungus grows on a dead hemlock log at Hartwick Pines and softens the wood. What is the fungus doing?

49.On the Au Sable River, algae use sunlight, mayfly nymphs eat the algae, and brook trout eat the mayflies. Which list is the path of energy?

50.A drawing of Saginaw Bay shows algae and the zooplankton that eat them. The class wants the arrow to show how energy moves. Which way should it point?

51.A white-tailed deer at Waterloo State Recreation Area gets energy from the plants it eats. What can that energy be used for?

52.At Headlands International Dark Sky Park near Mackinaw City, the Sun looks far brighter than the stars seen later that night. Why?

53.At noon in Grand Rapids the sky looks bright, and the stars cannot be seen. What is true about those stars?

54.A bean plant on a windowsill in Farmington Hills makes sugar in its leaves during the day. What happens to that sugar-making after dark?

55.A sugar maple in Rochester Hills is building sugar in its leaves. Which gas from the air supplies the carbon in that sugar?

56.A red oak in a schoolyard in East Lansing takes in minerals from the soil. What is the right role for those minerals?

57.A fallen yellow birch in the Huron Mountains is crumbling under fungi. What happens to the matter in the dead tree?

58.A lake trout dies near Tawas City and sinks in Lake Huron. What happens to the matter in its body?

59.On Isle Royale, moose eat plants and wolves eat moose. Which path shows how energy reaches the wolves?

60.In garden soil in Chelsea, west of Ann Arbor, one bacterium splits into two cells. What kind of reproduction is that?

61.On the Old Mission Peninsula, bees visit cherry blossoms and carry pollen from flower to flower. What can that pollen transfer lead to?

62.A runner on the Lansing River Trail breathes out a gas that nearby plants can use. Which gas is it?

63.A red pine at Interlochen takes water in through its roots. How can some of that water later become part of a cloud?

64.A dairy farm near Clare spreads manure on a field. What is true of the matter in that manure?

65.In a forest near Crystal Falls in the Upper Peninsula, matter moves among plants, animals, and decomposers. What is different about the energy?

66.In a marsh near Munising, insects are eaten by frogs and by fish, and a heron eats both frogs and fish. What does this feeding pattern show?

67.On Isle Royale, plants feed the moose, and moose feed the wolves. What would matter for that food web if the plants were gone?

68.Tiny algae drift in the water near Copper Harbor in Lake Superior. What is their role in the lake food web?

69.Detroit has daylight, and later that same date it has darkness. What motion explains the change?

70.People in Escanaba see the Sun appear over Little Bay de Noc in the morning and seem to travel toward the west later. What causes that apparent path?

71.Students in Adrian mark one full year on the calendar, about 365 days. What trip does Earth finish in about that time?

72.On a July afternoon in South Haven, the day is long and the sunlight feels strong. Why is it summer in Michigan?

73.In January, Sault Ste. Marie, Michigan, has short days and low, slanted sunlight. Why is it winter?

74.A student in Kentwood says Michigan has summer because Earth moves much closer to the Sun. What is the better explanation?

75.On January evenings in Boyne City, Orion is easy to see. On July evenings, that pattern is not in the night sky. Why does the season change which stars are up at night?

76.Campers on Beaver Island see the Moon shining at night. Where does that moonlight come from?

77.Over Lake Charlevoix, the Moon looks like a bright full disk. What are people seeing?

78.During a new moon, people at Hoffmaster State Park see little or no lit part of the Moon. Why?

79.A full moon seen from Mackinaw City sometimes darkens for a while and then brightens again. What is that darkening?

80.For a few minutes, the Moon can block the Sun's light from part of Cheboygan, and the day grows dim. What is that event?

81.Just before sunset on the Lake Michigan shore in St. Joseph, the Sun is low in the western sky. Which way does a pier post's shadow point?

82.In Ludington, a flagpole's shadow is long at 8:00 a.m. and much shorter at noon. Why is the noon shadow shorter?

83.An oak trunk in a park in Royal Oak blocks sunlight, and a dark patch lies on the ground on the side opposite the Sun. Why is that patch dark?

84.In early July, Earth is a little farther from the Sun than it is in January. A picnic in Pentwater is still on a summer day. How can both facts be true?

85.At Pictured Rocks, lake water meets sandstone cliffs, the air, and living cedar trees. Which match of Earth's systems is right?

86.Water seeps into a crack in the sandstone at Pictured Rocks and then freezes. What can that freezing do to the rock?

87.At Sleeping Bear Dunes, sand moves up and over the dune on a windy day. Which Earth systems are interacting?

88.Waves along the shore at Ludington State Park pick up sand and drop it farther down the beach. What interaction is that?

89.In winter, cold air crosses the open water of Lake Michigan, and snow falls on Muskegon, downwind of the lake. What happened?

90.A class in Monroe, on Lake Erie, compares Earth's water reservoirs. Where is most of Earth's water?

91.Students in Clawson compare fresh water stored in ice sheets and glaciers with fresh water in lakes and rivers. Which statement is right?

92.A family stands on the Lake Michigan shore at Empire and looks across the water. What is true of the Great Lakes?

93.On a sunny day, water leaves the surface of Lake Huron near Harrisville and becomes vapor. What supplies the energy for that step of the water cycle?

94.A white cloud hangs over the Mackinac Bridge. What is that visible cloud made of?

95.Rain falls on a parking lot in Grandville and flows into a storm drain that leads toward the Grand River. What is that flowing water called?

96.Rain falls on sandy soil near Shelby, close to Lake Michigan, and soaks downward out of sight. What can that water become?

97.A kettle steams in a kitchen in Coldwater. There is a clear gap just above the spout and a white cloud a little farther up. What is true?

98.Snow falls at Tahquamenon Falls. In the water cycle, what is that falling snow?

99.A wetland along Saginaw Bay holds water after a storm, traps sediment, and shelters wildlife. Which description fits?

100.Used aluminum cans collected in Grand Rapids are melted and formed into new cans. What does that show about the metal?

101.Apple cores and fallen leaves sit in a compost bin at a school in Kalamazoo. Weeks later they have broken into dark, soil-like material. What happened?

102.Zebra mussels in Lake St. Clair filter tiny plankton out of the water. How can huge numbers of them affect the food web?

103.Students in Port Huron want to know which cup keeps cocoa hot longer: foam, paper, or metal. How do they keep the comparison fair?

104.Two toy cars roll down a ramp in a Flint classroom. One timing could be a fluke. What should the class do before deciding which car is faster?

105.A class wants the mass of a copper-rich rock from the Keweenaw. Which tool fits the measurement?

106.Students in Manistee measured a flagpole's shadow: 96 centimeters at 9:00 a.m., 28 centimeters at noon, and 84 centimeters at 3:00 p.m. What pattern do the measurements show?

107.A lifeguard at Grand Haven wants the temperature of the lake water by the pier. Which tool should be used?

108.A class in Novi is choosing a question about toy cars and ramps. Which question can be answered by measuring?