New Jersey Student Learning Assessments Science Grade 11

1.In a made-up New Jersey salt marsh, cordgrass makes its own food and a snail eats the cordgrass. What is the role of the cordgrass?

2.On a diagram of a pitch-pine cell from the Pine Barrens, one structure holds the cell's DNA. Which structure is that?

3.A leaf cell in a school greenhouse uses light to build sugar. Which organelle is the site of that process?

4.A muscle cell uses glucose and oxygen and releases carbon dioxide, water, and usable energy. Which organelle is the main site of that release?

5.Which cell structure assembles proteins from the genetic information the cell stores?

6.What is the main job of the cell membrane?

7.A cordgrass cell has a rigid layer outside its cell membrane. What does that layer do?

8.A greenhouse tomato cell has a large sac that holds water and dissolved materials. What is that sac?

9.Which organelle packages proteins so they can be sent to other parts of the cell?

10.Waves along a made-up stretch of the New Jersey Shore break sand from a dune and carry it away. What is that carrying away called?

11.At a mid-ocean ridge, two plates move apart and new ocean crust forms between them. What type of plate boundary is this?

12.A student compares a cordgrass cell and a snail cell from the same marsh. Which structure is in the cordgrass cell and not in the snail cell?

13.Which set names the inputs of photosynthesis?

14.A greenhouse plant is carrying out photosynthesis. Which pair names the main outputs?

15.Which pair names the inputs of cellular respiration?

16.Which set names the outputs of cellular respiration?

17.How can photosynthesis in a greenhouse plant supply cellular respiration in that same plant?

18.At night the greenhouse lights are off, photosynthesis has stopped, and cellular respiration continues. Which gas does that respiration release?

19.A root cell in a Pine Barrens pitch pine divides by mitosis. What is the chromosome outcome?

20.What chromosome outcome does meiosis produce?

21.A student grows taller, and new body cells keep the full chromosome number. Which process produces those body cells?

22.In humans, sperm and egg cells carry half the body-cell chromosome number. Which process produces that outcome?

23.A human sperm and egg join. Compared with either gamete, what is the chromosome number of the zygote?

24.On a made-up undisturbed cliff, a gray clay layer lies under a tan sand layer. Which claim do those positions support?

25.What is the role of DNA in a cell?

26.Which statement matches the meaning of a gene?

27.Which description fits a chromosome?

28.Why is summer warmer than winter at the New Jersey Shore?

29.A mutation changes the stored order of bases in DNA. What can that change do?

30.A single bacterium divides into two cells. What kind of reproduction is that?

31.A pea plant has the genotype Tt and grows tall. Which statement uses those words correctly?

32.Two plants both have purple flowers. One has genotype PP and the other has Pp. P is dominant. What is true?

33.Two cuttings from one greenhouse plant have the same alleles. The cutting in full light grows sturdy, and the cutting in deep shade grows thin. What changed?

34.An organism has the genotype Aa for one generic trait. What does that genotype mean?

35.At a plate boundary, a denser oceanic plate sinks into the mantle beneath another plate. What is that process called?

36.A stated Punnett square for Bb crossed with Bb is BB, Bb, Bb, and bb. B is dominant and gives a brown coat, and b gives a tan coat. What fraction of the squares is bb?

37.A stated cross is TT crossed with tt. T is dominant. What genotype do all of the offspring have?

38.A stated cross is Aa crossed with aa. A is dominant and gives smooth seeds, and a gives wrinkled seeds. What fraction of the offspring is expected to show wrinkled seeds?

39.Both parents in a stated cross are Rr. R is dominant. What fraction of the offspring is expected to show the dominant phenotype?

40.Two plates slide past each other, and rock along the boundary breaks and causes earthquakes. What type of plate boundary is that?

41.Both parents are Hh. A stated Punnett square shows HH, Hh, Hh, and hh. What is the genotype ratio?

42.In a made-up Pine Barrens population, birds eat light moths on dark bark more often than dark moths. After several years, dark moths make up more of the population. Which process is that?

43.A made-up marsh starts with 40 thick-shell snails and 40 thin-shell snails. After crabs hunt, 32 thick-shell snails and 8 thin-shell snails remain. Which statement matches the counts?

44.Which condition must already be true for natural selection to change how common a trait is?

45.A student claims that fish in a marsh grew stronger fins because the fish wanted to swim better. Which statement fits natural selection?

46.In a made-up marsh, cordgrass with a heritable deeper root stays anchored and leaves more offspring than shallow-rooted plants. What is that helpful heritable trait called?

47.New Jersey lies in the interior of the North American plate, away from a plate boundary. Which comparison follows?

48.A made-up marsh food chain is written cordgrass, then an arrow to a snail, then an arrow to a heron. What does an arrow mean?

49.In the chain cordgrass to snail to heron, the cordgrass makes its own food and the snail eats the cordgrass. What is the snail?

50.In a made-up salt marsh, snails eat cordgrass. If the cordgrass died off, what is the most direct result?

51.Fungi and bacteria break down dead cordgrass in marsh mud. What is their role?

52.A class uses the rule of thumb that about 10 percent of the energy at one food-chain level is stored at the next level. Producers store 5,000 units. About how many units do the primary consumers store?

53.A made-up Pine Barrens chain is shrub to insect to songbird to hawk. The shrub makes its own food. What is the hawk?

54.In the carbon cycle, which process takes carbon dioxide out of the air and stores carbon in plant tissue?

55.A jogger on a Shore boardwalk exhales carbon dioxide that the jogger's cells produced. Which cell process released that carbon dioxide?

56.A school bus burns fuel on the way to the Shore and sends carbon dioxide into the air. Which carbon-cycle process is that?

57.Decomposers break down dead marsh plants. What can happen to some of the carbon in that dead tissue?

58.Which material is a long-term store of carbon that was once in ancient plants?

59.Which body system carries oxygen and nutrients to cells?

60.What is the main job of the respiratory system?

61.Which body system breaks food into molecules the body can absorb?

62.A student pulls a hand off a hot greenhouse bench. Which system carries the signal for that response?

63.What is the main job of the kidneys?

64.Which system supports the body and protects organs such as the brain and the heart?

65.What is the main job of the muscular system?

66.Which body system defends the body against pathogens?

67.Seawater at the Shore becomes water vapor, the vapor forms clouds, and rain falls. Which order names those processes?

68.Which statement sorts weather and climate correctly?

69.A thunderstorm lasts two hours over the New Jersey Shore this afternoon. What kind of event is that?

70.In a made-up climate record, a Shore town's average August rainfall over 30 years is 10 centimeters. What does that average describe?

71.On a hot day at the Shore, a student sweats and body temperature stays near its usual range. What is that steady internal condition called?

72.Which particle has a positive charge and is located in the nucleus of an atom?

73.A carbon atom has 6 protons. What is its atomic number?

74.Two atoms each have 6 protons. One has 6 neutrons and the other has 8 neutrons. What are the two atoms?

75.A sodium atom loses one electron. It then has more protons than electrons. What is it?

76.Two atoms share electrons. What kind of bond is that?

77.Sodium transfers an electron to chlorine, and the resulting ions attract. What kind of bond is that?

78.Carbon dioxide in the air absorbs infrared radiation from the surface and warms the lower atmosphere. What is that outcome called?

79.In a sealed jar, 12 grams of substance A combine with 20 grams of substance B. No mass enters or leaves. What is the mass of the products?

80.A candle burning in open air seems to lose mass. Which statement fits conservation of mass?

81.An iron nail and oxygen are sealed in a container, and the nail rusts. The rust has more mass than the iron alone. Why can that happen?

82.A made-up tide gauge on the New Jersey Shore reads 0 centimeters in 1996 and 12 centimeters in 2026, on the same zero point. Which claim do those readings support?

83.A cart in a school hallway has a mass of 4 kilograms. The net force on it is 12 newtons. What is its acceleration?

84.A backpack has a mass of 5 kilograms. Use 10 newtons per kilogram for the strength of gravity. What is the backpack's weight?

85.A student walks 180 meters along a Shore boardwalk in 60 seconds at a steady pace. What is the speed?

86.A bike at the Shore speeds up from 2 meters per second to 10 meters per second in 4 seconds, in one direction. What is the acceleration?

87.A 3-kilogram bag moves at 4 meters per second. What is its momentum?

88.A hockey puck on very smooth ice already moves at a constant velocity, and friction is nearly zero. What net force is needed to keep that velocity constant?

89.A book slides across a lab table and slows down. Which force mainly causes that slowing?

90.A student in a canoe at the Shore pushes the dock backward. What is the paired force?

91.A student pulls a sled 5 meters with a steady force of 8 newtons in the direction of motion. How much work is done?

92.A 2-kilogram pine cone moves at 4 meters per second. What is its kinetic energy? Use one-half times mass times speed squared.

93.A 3-kilogram rock sits on a dune 2 meters above the beach. Use 10 newtons per kilogram for gravity. What is its gravitational potential energy relative to the beach?

94.Two people pull a rope in opposite directions with 40 newtons each, and the rope does not move. What is the net force on the rope?

95.A lamp in the school greenhouse is plugged in and glows. Which energy transformation makes the glow?

96.During photosynthesis, light energy becomes energy stored in sugar. What transformation is that?

97.A made-up sandstone layer in a northern New Jersey hill contains fossil clam shells. Which claim do the shells support?

98.A bike rider at the Shore uses the brakes, and the wheel rims warm up as the bike slows. Which energy transformation explains the warming?

99.A classroom pendulum swings and slowly stops. Which statement fits conservation of energy?

100.A wave on a marsh creek has a frequency of 2 hertz and a wavelength of 3 meters. What is the wave speed?

101.Students at the Shore measure from one wave crest to the next crest along the direction the wave travels. What length is that?

102.A Shore foghorn sends out a sound wave, and the amplitude of that wave increases. What else increases?

103.Which statement about sound is correct?

104.Sunlight reaches New Jersey after crossing space. What does that show about light?

105.A wave travels along a rope toward the right while the rope itself moves up and down. What kind of wave is that?

106.A pencil in a glass of water looks bent where it enters the water. Which wave behavior is that?

107.Which comparison of electromagnetic waves is correct?

108.In one change, atoms rearrange and each nucleus stays the same. In another, a nucleus splits into smaller nuclei. Which pairing is right?