STAAR Science Grade 5

1.A bowling ball and a beach ball are about the same size. The bowling ball is much harder to lift. Which statement is true?

2.A student stirs sugar into warm water until the sugar can no longer be seen. What happened to the sugar?

3.Sand is stirred into a jar of water. After a minute, the sand sits on the bottom. What kind of mixture is this?

4.An ice cube melts into a puddle. What kind of change is that?

5.A wooden match burns down to ash and smoke. Why is this a chemical change?

6.A student cuts a sheet of paper into strips. What changed?

7.A magnet picks up steel paper clips and does not pick up plastic buttons. Which property is being tested?

8.A wooden block floats in a tank of water. A steel washer sinks. What does that show?

9.A circuit uses copper wire covered with rubber. Electricity flows through the copper, not through the rubber coating. What is the rubber?

10.A metal spoon and a wooden spoon sit in the same hot soup. After a minute the metal handle is hotter. Why?

11.Water vapor is water in which state?

12.Ice is sealed in a bag and melted. Nothing enters or leaves the bag. What is true of the mass?

13.A jar holds sand mixed with iron filings. What is one way to separate the filings from the sand?

14.Salt is stirred into water and disappears. Pepper stirred into the same water does not disappear. What property differs?

15.Juice is poured from a bottle into a glass. What is true of the juice?

16.A pot of water boils and steam rises. The steam is still water. What kind of change is boiling?

17.Baking soda is mixed with vinegar. The mixture fizzes, and a new gas forms. What kind of change is this?

18.Which tool measures mass?

19.A battery, a bulb, and a switch are wired in one loop. The switch is open, so there is a gap. What happens?

20.What does a simple circuit need in order for the bulb to light?

21.Two bulbs are on one loop with one battery. One bulb burns out and breaks the path. What happens to the other bulb?

22.Two bulbs each have their own loop back to the same battery. One bulb burns out. What happens to the other bulb?

23.A book stands in sunlight and a dark shadow forms on the far side. Why is the shadow there?

24.A student aims a flashlight at three objects. Which one reflects the most light back?

25.A ringing bell sits under a glass jar. A pump removes most of the air, and the ring grows quieter. Why?

26.A drummer hits a drum harder and the sound gets louder. The pitch stays the same. What changed?

27.A student shortens a guitar string and plucks it. The note is higher. What changed?

28.Rubbing your hands together makes your palms warmer. What energy change is that?

29.Which is the main energy source for the water cycle and for most food chains on Earth?

30.A solar panel on a roof powers a lamp in daylight. What energy change is the panel doing?

31.Hot chocolate stays hot longer in a foam cup than in a metal cup. Why?

32.One end of a metal rod is held in a flame. After a while the other end is too hot to touch. How did the heat move?

33.A pencil standing in a glass of water looks bent at the waterline. Why?

34.A shout in an empty gym comes back from the far wall a moment later. What happened to the sound?

35.A toaster uses electricity and the bread comes out hot. Which energy change happens in the toaster?

36.A switch in a circuit is closed, and the bulb lights. What does "closed" mean here?

37.An apple falls from a tree. Which force pulls it toward Earth?

38.A box slides farther on ice than on carpet when it is given the same push. Why?

39.A toy car is still. A student pushes it and it rolls forward. What did the push do?

40.A book lies still on a table. Gravity pulls it down. What other force keeps it from falling?

41.A soccer ball is rolling slowly. A player kicks it in the direction it is already moving, and it speeds up. What is true of the forces?

42.A magnet attracts an iron nail. It does not attract a piece of aluminum foil. What does that show?

43.The north pole of one magnet is brought toward the north pole of another magnet. What happens?

44.The same ball is kicked gently, then kicked much harder. What does the harder kick do?

45.Runners slip more on a wet gym floor than on a dry one. Why?

46.A skydiver opens a parachute and the fall slows. Why?

47.A hockey puck glides in a straight line across smooth ice. What will it do if no new force acts on it?

48.The sun shines on a puddle, and the puddle shrinks. Where does the water go?

49.Drops form on the outside of a glass of ice water. The glass has no crack. Where did the drops come from?

50.Rain, snow, sleet, and hail are all examples of what?

51.How do clouds form?

52.Tuesday is rainy and 15 degrees cooler than Monday. Which word names that short-term condition?

53.Which tool measures how much rain has fallen?

54.A wind vane points to the east. What does that tell you?

55.Which tool measures air temperature?

56.A river slows where it meets the sea and drops the sediment it has been carrying. What landform can build up there?

57.Frost cracks a boulder, and the pieces stay at its base. Later a stream carries those pieces downhill. Which sentence is correct?

58.A river cuts a deep canyon over a very long time. How should that change be described?

59.Layers of sand and mud are pressed and cemented together over a long time. What kind of rock can form?

60.A shell fossil is found in rock on a dry hill, far from the ocean. What is a reasonable conclusion?

61.During one heavy storm, a soaked hillside gives way and rock rushes into the valley. What kind of change is that?

62.Coal formed from ancient plants over a very long time. Once a coal deposit is used up, people cannot replace it quickly. What kind of resource is coal?

63.Which resource is renewable?

64.A class turns off the lights when they leave the room. What are they doing?

65.Garden soil contains tiny pieces of weathered rock and bits of decayed leaves. What is that mixture?

66.On a sunny afternoon, air over a parking lot becomes warmer than air over a nearby pond. What does the warmer air tend to do?

67.Rain soaks into the ground and collects in spaces in the rock. A well reaches that water. What is the water called?

68.Where is most of the water on Earth?

69.Wind piles sand into a hill on a beach. What is that hill called?

70.A glacier scrapes a valley as it creeps forward over thousands of years. How should that change be described?

71.Dark, crumbly material in soil comes from decayed plants and animals. What is that material called?

72.Earth spins all the way around once about every 24 hours. What does that rotation cause?

73.It is noon on the side of Earth facing the sun. What is it like on the opposite side?

74.Earth travels once around the sun in about 365 days. What is that trip called?

75.Why is it summer in the northern half of Earth?

76.The moon shines in the night sky. Where does that light come from?

77.Over a month, the moon looks full, then thinner, then full again. Why does the shape seem to change?

78.During a solar eclipse, the daytime sun is blocked for people in a certain place. What is lined up?

79.During a lunar eclipse, the full moon darkens. Where is Earth?

80.Which object is a star?

81.Stars seem to move across the night sky during one night. What causes that apparent motion?

82.Which pair is correct?

83.A flagpole's shadow is long in the early morning and much shorter near noon. Why?

84.Grass in a field makes its own food using sunlight. What role does the grass have in the food chain?

85.A rabbit eats the grass. What is the rabbit?

86.Mushrooms break down a dead log and return nutrients to the soil. What are the mushrooms?

87.A food chain is drawn as grass → rabbit → fox. What does the arrow mean?

88.A drought kills most of the grass in a field. Rabbits eat that grass, and foxes eat the rabbits. What is the most likely result?

89.A cactus stores water in its thick stem and has spines instead of wide leaves. How does that help it in a desert?

90.A duck has webbed feet. How does that adaptation help the duck?

91.A green insect sits on a green leaf, and a bird flies past without eating it. What helped the insect?

92.A child has brown eyes, like one parent. The child did not practice having brown eyes. What kind of trait is eye color?

93.A dog learns to sit when a trainer gives a command and a treat. What is that behavior?

94.Which set do animals need from their surroundings in order to survive?

95.A plant makes food in its leaves. Which gases are involved?

96.Which organism is not a producer?

97.A fox hunts rabbits. In this relationship, what is the fox, and what is the rabbit?

98.A pond includes fish, plants, insects, water, sunlight, and mud, all affecting one another. What is that whole system?

99.A meadow gets almost no rain for months. The grass wilts. What is the most direct reason?

100.In a forest ecosystem, which part is nonliving?

101.How is a food web different from a single food chain?

102.Wolves are removed from a valley where they had been hunting deer. The deer have plenty of grass at first. What is a likely next change?

103.Geese fly from a cold valley to a warmer marsh for the winter, then return in spring. What is that seasonal trip?

104.A ground squirrel spends winter in a burrow, using stored body fat. Its heart rate and breathing slow. What is that behavior?

105.Oil washes into a stream and coats the gills of the fish. Many fish die. What does this show?

106.Bean seeds are kept dry in a cold cupboard and do not sprout. Matching seeds are given water and kept warm, and they sprout. What did the second group receive that the first did not?

107.Which pairing describes jobs of plant parts?

108.A fish stays underwater and does not come up for air. How does it get oxygen?

109.Two kinds of birds want the few hollow trees in a woods. There are more birds than holes. What are the birds doing?