Michigan Student Test of Educational Progress Science Grade 8

1.A neutral copper atom from a Keweenaw specimen has 29 protons. Which statement identifies the atom?

2.A pickup truck in Flint is stopped, then starts forward. A loose toolbox in the bed slides toward the tailgate relative to the truck. Why?

3.A white pine in Hartwick Pines State Park makes food in its needles on a sunny day. Which word equation best describes photosynthesis?

4.Round lakes near Pinckney sit in sand and gravel left by the last ice sheet. How did a kettle lake there form?

5.Brook trout hatch in the Au Sable River with a mix of light and dark spots. Birds take more of the trout that stand out on the gravel. Many generations later, the harder-to-see pattern is more common. Which statement accounts for that shift?

6.A sealed bag in a Grand Rapids classroom holds a dry iron nail and air. The nail rusts, and the bag stays closed. How does the mass of the closed bag compare with the starting mass?

7.A student in Ann Arbor compares a maple leaf cell with a rabbit muscle cell. Which comparison is correct?

8.On a sunny summer afternoon, wind at Grand Haven often blows from Lake Michigan onto the beach. What starts that lake breeze?

9.A net force of 12 newtons speeds up a 3-kilogram cooler on a dock at Charlevoix. What is the cooler's acceleration?

10.Sodium and potassium sit in the same column of the periodic table. What do elements in one column tend to share?

11.A human body cell has 46 chromosomes. A human egg cell is a gamete. How many chromosomes does that egg cell have before fertilization?

12.Anglers on Higgins Lake stand beside a sheet of ice that stays at the surface instead of resting on the bottom. Why is the ice at the surface?

13.Students diagram a Saginaw Bay food chain as algae, then small fish, then walleye. Each arrow points from the organism that is eaten toward the organism that eats it. What does the arrow into the walleye show?

14.Iron in a steel beam of the Mackinac Bridge meets oxygen and water and forms a reddish-brown coating. What kind of change is that?

15.A cyclist on the Lansing River Trail travels 18 kilometers in 2 hours at a steady pace. What is the cyclist's average speed?

16.At solar noon on a clear day in Lansing, a flagpole casts a shadow on level ground. Which way does that shadow point?

17.In a classroom model, purple flower color (P) is dominant to white (p). Two heterozygous plants, Pp and Pp, are crossed. What fraction of the offspring is expected to be white?

18.A metal spoon sits in hot cocoa in a Marquette mug, and the handle warms. How does thermal energy reach the handle?

19.The perched dunes at Sleeping Bear are tall hills of sand above the shore. Which process built most of that loose sand into dunes?

20.A class in Kalamazoo compares a gene, a DNA molecule, and a chromosome in a human cell. Which description is accurate?

21.A student in Flint says Michigan's winter happens because Earth is farthest from the Sun in January. Which statement is accurate?

22.Over one month in Petoskey, the Moon changes from a thin crescent to full and back again. What causes those monthly phases?

23.At a campsite near Interlochen, one scout burns a stick of wood and another folds a sheet of paper. Which comparison is correct?

24.Sunlight reaches a beach at South Haven, but campers do not hear sounds from events far out in space. Which statement explains the difference?

25.In a Marquette classroom model, two plate edges move apart at 2 centimeters a year. How far apart do those edges move in 30 years?

26.In a Bay City lesson, one bacterium becomes two cells without a second parent. What is that kind of reproduction?

27.A class in Midland compares division that replaces a human skin cell with division that forms a sperm cell. Which statement is correct?

28.A white-tailed deer in the Pigeon River Country area is born with one gene sequence that differs from both parents' matching gene. Which statement matches the meaning of a mutation?

29.A sandstone sample from Pictured Rocks has a mass of 48 grams and a volume of 16 cubic centimeters. What is its density?

30.Two sleds at Crystal Mountain have the same mass. One moves at 2 meters per second, and the other moves at 4 meters per second. How does the faster sled's kinetic energy compare?

31.The same sandstone rests first at the base of a Sleeping Bear dune and later at the dune crest. Where does it have more gravitational potential energy?

32.Cocoa in a cabin near Tahquamenon Falls is hotter than cocoa left beside an open window. What does the higher temperature mean?

33.Lake ice near St. Ignace melts into liquid water during a spring thaw. Which statement describes that change?

34.A cold pack used by a trainer in Kalamazoo feels cold while the materials inside it mix. Which energy description fits the pack?

35.A wood stove in a Calumet cabin warms the people sitting nearby. How should they describe the energy change of the burning wood?

36.A kayaker on the Au Sable River pushes the paddle backward against the water. Which paired force helps the kayak move forward?

37.A sled slows as it crosses unpacked snow near Tahquamenon Falls, even though nobody pulls backward. Which force mainly causes the slowing?

38.A textbook rests on a desk in a Mount Pleasant classroom and does not start moving. Which statement describes the forces on the book?

39.At the same spot in Houghton, a 2-kilogram rock and a 1-kilogram rock sit side by side. Which statement about gravitational force is correct?

40.A student in Troy wraps more loops of wire around an iron nail and keeps the electric current the same. The nail is being used as an electromagnet. What happens?

41.In spring, inland Greenville warms faster on a sunny afternoon than the beach at Grand Haven. Both places receive similar sunlight. Why does the lakeshore stay cooler?

42.A hiker in the Porcupine Mountains holds a magnetic compass level and away from metal tools. What does the needle do?

43.Two water waves roll toward a beach at Ludington. They have the same wavelength, but one has a taller crest. What does the taller crest mean?

44.A bell choir in Ypsilanti rings two bells. The second bell's sound has a higher frequency, and both sounds travel at the same speed. What else is true?

45.A shout near the cliffs at Pictured Rocks returns a moment later as an echo. What wave behavior is that echo?

46.A red maple leaf in a Rochester yard looks red in sunlight. Why does the leaf look red?

47.An oar dipped partly into Torch Lake looks bent at the waterline. The wooden oar itself stays straight. Why does it look bent?

48.In Calumet, the Sun rises in the east and sets in the west. About one year passes before the same stars return to the same place at midnight. Which motions explain those two cycles?

49.Water evaporates from Lake Michigan, forms clouds, and later falls as snow on Muskegon. Which statement describes this path?

50.In winter, cold air crosses the warmer water of Lake Michigan, and heavy snow falls on Holland. Why does that lake-effect snow form?

51.A cold air mass replaces a warmer air mass over Lansing, and rain begins along the boundary between them. What is that boundary called?

52.A barometer in Traverse City rises through the morning, and the sky clears. Which condition usually matches that change?

53.A model in a Sault Ste. Marie classroom shows hot rock slowly flowing in Earth's mantle. How can that flow affect plates?

54.Sand from the Grand River is buried, pressed together, and cemented over a long time. What can form from that sand?

55.In one undisturbed stack of limestone layers near Alpena, a clam fossil lies in a layer below a coral fossil. Which inference is best?

56.The same extinct marine animal appears in a thin rock layer near Alpena and in a matching layer from a Michigan drill core. The animal lived for a geologically short time and was widespread. Why is it useful?

57.A ridge of unsorted clay, sand, and boulders crosses farmland near Port Huron. Glaciers left the ridge. What is this landform?

58.Water freezes in a crack in the sandstone cliffs at Pictured Rocks, and the crack widens after many winters. What process is this?

59.After a storm, the Grand River looks muddy at Grand Haven and drops sand where the water meets Lake Michigan. Which statement is accurate?

60.Soil in a farm field near Frankenmuth contains broken rock and dark bits of decayed plants. What is that soil made of?

61.Rain falls on the land around Ann Arbor, flows into the Huron River, and that river reaches Lake Erie. What is the land area called?

62.Wells near Kalamazoo draw water from sand and gravel underground. Why can water move through that sand?

63.The basins of the Great Lakes were deepened during the last ice age and later filled with water. Which process did most of that ice-age deepening?

64.The Keweenaw Peninsula has ancient lava flows and deposits of native copper. Which geologic history explains those rocks?

65.Traverse City has cold, snowy winters in most years. One July afternoon there reaches 30 degrees Celsius. Which statement uses the words correctly?

66.A white pine in Hartwick Pines takes carbon dioxide from the air while it makes food. Which process removes that carbon dioxide?

67.Cars and power plants in Michigan add carbon dioxide to the air when fuel burns. How can extra carbon dioxide affect Earth's energy budget?

68.Zebra mussels in Lake St. Clair filter tiny algae from the water. The water becomes clearer, and some fish have less food. What does this show?

69.Marram grass grows on dunes at Sleeping Bear. Where the grass was removed, more sand blows away. What were the plants doing?

70.Algae grow in the sunlit water of Higgins Lake. Yellow perch eat smaller animals that ate those algae. Which statement is correct?

71.A fallen hemlock near Tahquamenon Falls slowly crumbles, and mushrooms grow on the log. What are the mushrooms doing?

72.In a food-web model of Saginaw Bay, producers store 20,000 kilojoules. About 10 percent of the energy passes to the next level. About how much energy reaches the primary consumers?

73.Deer near Grayling survive a hard winter only when enough woody buds are available. One winter leaves less food, and fewer deer survive. What limit does that food set?

74.Two sunfish species in Gull Lake hunt the same insects along the same weed bed. What interaction is this?

75.On Isle Royale, wolves eat moose, and moose eat balsam fir. Which statement describes the wolves and the moose?

76.Bees visit wildflowers in a meadow near Ann Arbor, drink nectar, and carry pollen from flower to flower. What relationship is this?

77.A sea lamprey attaches to a lake trout in Lake Huron and feeds on the trout's body fluids. The trout is harmed. What relationship is this?

78.A fire burns a jack-pine stand near Mio. The soil remains, and young jack pines grow over the following years. What is this regrowth?

79.Which structure in a soybean leaf cell near Bay City is the main site of photosynthesis?

80.A maple cell and a rabbit muscle cell both break down glucose to release usable energy. Where does most of that cellular respiration happen?

81.A runner on Belle Isle needs oxygen delivered to leg muscles. Which body system carries that oxygen from the lungs?

82.A swimmer at Petoskey steps into cold Lake Michigan water and feels the cold at once. Which statement explains that response?

83.After a long run on the Detroit Riverwalk, a runner sweats and the sweat evaporates. How does that help the body?

84.A stand of quaking aspen in the Upper Peninsula sends up many trunks from one root system. If no mutation occurs, how do those trunks compare?

85.A fawn in the Pigeon River Country area has a mother and a father. How did the fawn receive its genes?

86.In a Jackson classroom model of plant height, T stands for tall and t stands for short. A plant has the alleles Tt and is tall. Which description fits?

87.In a Jackson classroom model, tall is T and short is t. A Tt plant is crossed with a tt plant. What fraction of the offspring is expected to be short?

88.In late winter, Higgins Lake still has ice on top. Water just under the ice is colder than deeper water that is near 4 degrees Celsius. Why does that deeper water stay down?

89.Snowshoe hares in the Upper Peninsula have a heritable trait for a thick winter coat. Which explanation fits natural selection?

90.The front limb of a Michigan bat and the front limb of a white-tailed deer have similar bones in a similar order. The limbs do different jobs. What does the similarity suggest?

91.Early embryos of a brook trout and a white-tailed deer both show a tail and similar folds in the throat region for a time. How can scientists use that observation?

92.Insects on Beaver Island stay separated for a very long time from a related population near Charlevoix, and the two places favor different heritable traits. What can happen?

93.Over many seasons, growers near Traverse City save seeds from the cherry trees with the sweetest fruit and plant those seeds. What is this an example of?

94.Lake whitefish in Lake Superior are not genetically identical. Why does that matter for evolution of the population?

95.Passenger pigeons once flew over Michigan forests in huge flocks. No living passenger pigeons remain. Which term fits the species?

96.Students in Empire design a boardwalk section for a dune. It must hold 500 newtons, stay within a 40-dollar materials limit, and keep walkers off the marram grass. What are those requirements?

97.A student in Dearborn tests a model filter for muddy water from the Rouge River. The first design leaves the water cloudy, so the student changes the layers and tests again. What practice is that?

98.A thicker wall proposed for the South Haven shore would block more storm waves, cost more, and could stop sand from moving along the beach. What is that comparison?

99.A square plant survey on a Muskegon dune has sides of 5 meters. The class enlarges it to a square with sides of 10 meters. How does the area change?

100.A copper model cube in a Houghton class has sides of 2 centimeters. A second cube has sides of 4 centimeters. How do the volumes compare?

101.On a trail map of Pictured Rocks, 1 centimeter represents 2 kilometers. A lakeshore trail measures 6 centimeters on the map. How long is that trail on the ground?

102.On a map of the Porcupine Mountains, a hiker walks from the 200-meter contour line up to the 260-meter contour line. What is the change in elevation?

103.If people in Cheboygan saw a total solar eclipse, which alignment would cast the Moon's shadow on that town?

104.A distance-time graph for a walker on Belle Isle is a straight line through the origin. At 4 seconds the distance is 20 meters. What is the walker's speed?

105.A student in Grand Rapids pushes a crate 3 meters with a steady force of 20 newtons in the direction of motion. How much work is done on the crate?

106.A motor in a Grand Rapids shop does 60 joules of work in 3 seconds. What is the power of the motor?

107.A block of northern white cedar from Manistee has a density of 0.4 grams per cubic centimeter. It is set in lake water with a density of 1 gram per cubic centimeter. What happens?

108.A class in Flint compares two rain samples. One has pH 4 and the other has pH 6. Which comparison is correct?