Pennsylvania System of School Assessment Science Grade 8

1.Milk left in a warm Lancaster kitchen turns sour and tastes sharp. The sour milk is not the same substance as the fresh milk. What kind of change is this?

2.Blocks of ice outside a Pittsburgh market shrink into puddles on a sunny March afternoon. The puddles are still water. Which change is this?

3.Maple logs in a Pocono cabin stove become a small pile of ash, and smoke leaves the chimney. Ash and smoke are not wood. What does the burning show?

4.At a quarry near Bellefonte, a limestone boulder is broken into gravel. Every piece is still limestone. What kind of change is the breaking?

5.After a hot shower on a cold Erie night, a film of liquid water covers the bathroom mirror. That water had been vapor in the air. What formed the film?

6.A hiker in Cook Forest spills trail mix into dry sand, then picks the nuts and raisins back out. Those pieces look and taste as they did before. What is the sandy snack before it is sorted?

7.A closed plastic bin of iron nails sat in a damp Hershey shed. The nails rusted, and the bin was never opened. The mass of the closed bin stayed the same. Why?

8.At a campfire in the Allegheny National Forest, a log burns down to a light pile of ash. The ash has much less mass than the log had. What best accounts for the difference?

9.In a Somerset County sugar shack, water in maple sap becomes steam, and droplets form again on a cool lid. What is true of that water?

10.A cedar log floats on the West Branch of the Susquehanna, but a steel nail dropped from the same canoe sinks. Both are solid. Why does the log float?

11.Air over a York County farm is mostly nitrogen gas and oxygen gas together. Those gases are not chemically bonded to each other. What is the air?

12.A teacher in Scranton describes water as hydrogen and oxygen joined chemically in one substance. The parts are not just sitting side by side. What is water?

13.Oxygen gas used in a hospital in Allentown is made only of oxygen atoms. What is oxygen gas?

14.A Pocono pond is ice in February, liquid water in May, and a source of water vapor in July. How do the water particles compare?

15.A limestone sample from a road cut near Lewistown is gray, and a measured piece has a definite mass for its volume. Which statement names physical properties?

16.Damp iron spikes along a rail line near Altoona grow a flaky new substance. A glass bottle in the same weeds does not. What does the iron show?

17.A suitcase sits on the floor of a Keystone train traveling across Pennsylvania. When the train brakes, the loose suitcase slides forward. Why?

18.A lantern hangs still from a porch ceiling in Gettysburg. Gravity pulls the lantern down the whole time. Why does it stay in place?

19.A toboggan races down a snowy slope in the Laurel Highlands, then scrapes onto a bare wooden bridge and slows sharply. What changed at the bridge?

20.A cart has a mass of 5 kilograms. A net force of 20 newtons pushes it. What is its acceleration?

21.A hockey puck at a rink in Wilkes-Barre glides in a straight line, and for a short stretch its speed stays constant. What is the net force on the puck during that stretch?

22.A skater at a rink in Reading pushes the rail forward and rolls backward. Which statement matches the pair of forces?

23.A geology kit has a mass of 2 kilograms in a Harrisburg classroom. The same kit is carried into a limestone cave near Bellefonte. Which statement is accurate?

24.An acorn and a broad oak leaf are released from the same height in Fairmount Park. The acorn hits the ground first. Gravity acts on both. Why does the acorn land first?

25.A kayak on the Juniata River has a constant mass. The net force on the kayak doubles. What happens to its acceleration?

26.A car on the Pennsylvania Turnpike stops suddenly. A passenger wearing a seat belt stays with the seat instead of flying forward. What does the belt do?

27.A cyclist on a straight stretch of the Schuylkill River Trail covers 100 meters in 20 seconds without speeding up or slowing down. What is the cyclist's speed?

28.A bicycle on a flat street in Lancaster keeps the same direction but slows as the rider brakes. Is the bicycle accelerating?

29.Two children pull a wagon in York. A stronger pull is toward the east, and a weaker pull is toward the west. The wagon starts moving east. What does that show?

30.On the Appalachian Trail in Pennsylvania, a compass needle turns toward magnetic north without being touched. A backpack does not slide until a hand pushes it. Which comparison is accurate?

31.In a snowy Pocono yard, a parent tows an empty sled and then a sled stacked with firewood. The net force is the same both times. Which sled gains speed faster, and why?

32.A swimmer at a pool in State College pushes water backward and moves forward. A friend says those forces cancel, so swimming should be impossible. What is wrong with that claim?

33.A cyclist waits at the top of a long hill above Jim Thorpe, then coasts down. Where is the bicycle's gravitational potential energy greatest?

34.After a long downhill ride into Johnstown, a bicycle's brake pads feel warm. What energy transfer explains the warmth?

35.In a Lancaster kitchen, the metal handle of a hot cast-iron skillet is too hot to hold, while a wooden spoon in the same pan stays comfortable. Why the difference?

36.In a Scranton kitchen, warm air curls up from a simmering pot of soup while cooler air slides in along the counter. What is moving the thermal energy around the room?

37.On a sunny July afternoon, a dark roof on a Philadelphia row house gets hotter than the white roof next door. Both receive sunlight. Why is the dark roof hotter?

38.A swing at a playground in Hershey starts high, moves fastest at the bottom, and rises again, but each rise is a little lower until it stops. What happened to the energy?

39.A cup of hot cocoa sits in a cool cabin near Erie. After a while the cocoa is cooler and the nearby air is slightly warmer. Which way did thermal energy move?

40.A thick coat helps a hiker stay warm on a windy ridge in the Alleghenies. How does the coat help?

41.At a hydroelectric dam on the Susquehanna in Lancaster County, water falls through turbines and the station sends electricity to nearby towns. Which energy change occurs?

42.Solar panels on a Lancaster barn produce electricity on a bright afternoon. What energy change is that?

43.On an April morning, a mug of hot tea in an Erie cabin is much hotter than Lake Erie, yet the lake holds far more thermal energy. Why?

44.A lamp in a Harrisburg library uses electrical energy and gives off light, and the bulb area also becomes warm. What does that show?

45.A squirrel in Rothrock State Forest buries acorns and later uses that stored food to run and stay warm. What form of energy was in the acorns?

46.A wind turbine on a ridge in Somerset County spins and sends electricity out on the lines. What energy change is happening?

47.A summer storm over central Pennsylvania lifts warm air, builds tall clouds, and drives gusty wind. What is the main source of that energy?

48.During a thunderstorm near Williamsport, a student sees a lightning flash and hears the thunder a few seconds later. Why does the sound arrive later?

49.Inside a wooden covered bridge in Bucks County, one clap comes back from the far wall a moment later. What happened to that sound?

50.At a concert in Philadelphia, a flute holds a higher note than a tuba. The two notes can be equally loud. What is different about the flute's sound wave?

51.In a Pittsburgh parade, a drummer hits the same drum softly and then much harder. The pitch stays the same, but the second hit is louder. What changed?

52.A bobber on Lake Erie rises and falls as waves pass, but it does not travel to the beach with each wave. What does that show?

53.A hemlock needle beside a Pocono stream looks green in daylight. Why does it look green?

54.At a fountain in LOVE Park in Philadelphia, a coin on the bottom looks closer to the surface than it really is. The coin has not moved. Why is the view misleading?

55.On a bridge over the Schuylkill, a friend farther along the steel railing feels a tap through the metal before hearing that tap through the air. What does the difference show?

56.Dawn brightens an Adams County orchard even though there is no air filling the gap from the Sun to the top of Earth's atmosphere. How can that light arrive?

57.A house in West Chester has a brick wall, a clear front window, and a frosted bathroom window. How do they treat visible light?

58.Two sound waves travel at the same speed through the still air of a valley near State College. One wave has a shorter wavelength than the other. What else is true?

59.A fire truck races through Bethlehem with its siren on. A student on the sidewalk hears a higher pitch as the truck approaches and a lower pitch after it passes. Why?

60.A radio tower near Harrisburg sends radio signals, a campfire gives off infrared that feels warm, and a lamp gives off visible light. What do these have in common?

61.A minor earthquake is recorded near Lancaster. People some distance away feel a short shake a little later. What carried that energy through the ground?

62.Wind blows for a long time across Raystown Lake, and the waves grow taller. A taller wave shoves a floating stick harder than a small ripple did. What increased?

63.A pond on a Lancaster farm loses water to the air on a hot day. Clouds build, and rain falls on the fields that evening. Which sequence explains the path from pond to rain?

64.Rain on a hillside near State College flows into Spring Creek, reaches the West Branch of the Susquehanna, and that river system empties into the Chesapeake Bay. What is the land area that drains along this path?

65.One April afternoon in Harrisburg is rainy and cool. Year after year, April there is often mild and rainy. Which wording uses the terms correctly?

66.By late winter, ice covers most of Lake Erie, and heavy snow on the city of Erie becomes less common even while cold winds continue. Why can those snows ease?

67.A line of tall clouds and a short, hard rain moves from Ohio into western Pennsylvania. Cooler air follows the rain. What is a useful description of this change?

68.A road cut near Lewistown shows limestone in layers, and some layers hold shapes of shells. How did this rock most likely form?

69.Schist under parts of Philadelphia shows minerals lined up in bands. The rock changed from an older rock and did not melt. What type of rock is it?

70.Dark, crystalline rock forms ridges near Gettysburg. The rock solidified from molten material long ago. What type of rock is it?

71.Cracks in sandstone at a Pocono overlook are wider after many winters. Water had seeped into the cracks before each freeze. What widened them?

72.After a hard storm, the Susquehanna at Harrisburg looks muddy. When the water later calms, a sandbar farther downstream is larger. What happened?

73.The long ridges of central Pennsylvania are folded rocks worn down from an old mountain belt. The state is not beside an active plate boundary today. Which history fits?

74.Pennsylvania has long days and a high Sun in June, and short days and a low Sun in December. Earth is slightly closer to the Sun in January than in July. What causes the seasons here?

75.In Wilkes-Barre, a full moon rises around sunset. About a week later, about half of the Moon's face looks lit. Why did the visible shape change?

76.The Delaware River at Philadelphia rises and falls on a daily schedule. A creek high in the Poconos does not. Why does the city river behave differently?

77.Mixed clay, sand, and boulders cover parts of northwestern Pennsylvania. Many of the stones do not match the bedrock directly below them. What best explains that blanket?

78.A Lancaster County field has dark, crumbly soil that holds water and supports crops. What is that soil mainly made of?

79.A root cell of a sycamore along the Schuylkill lets water pass in and keeps many large molecules inside. Which part does that job?

80.A muscle cell in a runner's leg contains a nucleus. What is the nucleus's function?

81.Muscle cells of a cyclist climbing a Pittsburgh hill contain many mitochondria. What do the mitochondria do?

82.Leaf cells of an oak in French Creek State Park contain chloroplasts. What is a chloroplast's function?

83.A cell from a white pine needle has a stiff layer outside its cell membrane. A skin cell from the person standing by the tree has no such layer. What is the layer's function?

84.A tomato plant in a Berks County garden wilts on a dry afternoon and stands upright again after the soil is watered. Large storage structures in the leaf cells refill. What is their function?

85.Cells in a growing fawn build new protein for muscle. Which cell part carries out that building?

86.Many parts of an alga cell from a Pocono pond sit in a jelly-like material inside the membrane. What is that material's role?

87.A maple leaf cell and a squirrel muscle cell come from the same Pennsylvania woods. Which comparison is accurate?

88.Under a beech tree in Snyder County, one bacterium divides into two cells. What is that outcome called?

89.A root cell and a leaf cell from the same apple tree in Adams County contain the same genetic information, but they do different jobs. What is this an example of?

90.A white-tailed deer's heart is made of muscle, blood, and nerve tissue working together to pump blood. What level of organization is the heart?

91.A student in Erie is infected by a cold virus and later recovers. Which system defends the body against pathogens such as that virus?

92.A student runs up the steps at the Philadelphia Museum of Art, and the leg muscles need more oxygen. Which cells carry oxygen in the blood?

93.A hiker on the Appalachian Trail steps on a sharp stone and feels it immediately. What is the function of the nerve cells in that response?

94.In a Pocono hemlock woods, the trees make food, deer eat plants, and fungi break down a fallen log. Which match is correct?

95.In a Pocono stream, mayflies eat algae, brook trout eat the mayflies, and a heron eats a trout. Which organism makes food and brings energy into this chain?

96.Along a Delaware marsh, muskrats eat plants and minks eat muskrats. A stable marsh has many more muskrats than minks. Why are the minks fewer?

97.A model of a valley food chain gives the plants 10,000 energy units. About 10 percent passes to the herbivores, and about 10 percent of that amount passes to the first carnivores. About how many units reach the first carnivores?

98.Spotted lanternflies are insects new to southeastern Pennsylvania. They feed on grapevines and many trees, and those plants can weaken. What is this an example of?

99.On a forest floor in the Alleghenies, fungi on oak roots receive sugars from the tree, and the oak takes up extra water and minerals through the fungi. What relationship is this?

100.A barn owl hunts mice in a Lancaster field at night and eats them. What relationship is the hunt?

101.Two oak seedlings grow in one sunny opening near Ricketts Glen. Their leaves overlap, and their roots share a small patch of soil. What are the seedlings doing?

102.Hemlock woolly adelgids feed on the sap of hemlocks along a cool Pocono stream. Many hemlocks weaken, and the shady bank changes. What relationship is the feeding?

103.A hardwood forest can feed only so many white-tailed deer through a hard winter. When the deer become very numerous, few young trees remain. What idea does this illustrate?

104.An unused pasture in Chester County grows tall grasses, then shrubs, then young trees over many years. What process is this?

105.Sunlight, January cold, and rainfall on a ridge in the Allegheny National Forest help determine which plants can live there. What kind of factors are these?

106.Brook trout live in a cold, clear stream in Potter County under a canopy of trees. After the bank trees are cut, the water becomes warmer and siltier, and fewer trout remain. What was lost?

107.Fungi and bacteria break down a fallen beech log in a state forest. The log crumbles into the soil, and later plants use nutrients from that soil. What is being recycled?

108.A marsh along a creek in the Delaware watershed spreads out floodwater and gives frogs and herons places to live. What does the marsh do in this ecosystem?