California CAASPP Science Practice Test for Grade 5 by Teach Simple

About this resource

What's inside this resource

Segment A presents 20 discrete selected-response and two-part questions spanning physical, life, and Earth/space science phenomena — dissolving sugar, a burning candle, food-chain energy transfer, plant growth, and daily shadow patterns among them — while Segment B is a 14-question performance task in which students read four sources on ocean acidification and answer selected-response, multi-select, and two constructed-response questions synthesizing that evidence. A complete answer key gives the correct answer, the CA NGSS performance expectation code, and a content rationale for every objective item, plus scoring rubrics with sample exemplar responses for the two constructed-response questions. An extensive teacher's guide adds a standards-alignment table, administration guidelines, accommodations and English-learner supports with sentence frames, discussion-question extensions, and a performance-level scoring band table for interpreting results. The three files are clearly separated by audience, with the answer key and teacher's guide both marked for educator use only.

In the classroom

Teaching tips & learning objectives

Learning objectives

Students explain conservation of matter across physical and chemical changes (e.g., dissolving sugar, a burning candle) using evidence rather than assumption.
Students describe how energy and matter move through food chains and ecosystems, including trophic energy loss and decomposer cycling.
Students explain interactions among Earth's four spheres (atmosphere, hydrosphere, biosphere, geosphere) using a real-world ocean acidification scenario.
Students synthesize evidence across multiple sources to recommend and justify long-term and short-term solutions to an environmental problem, explaining trade-offs.

Teaching tips

Pre-teach key performance-task vocabulary before Segment B — acidification, carbonate, hydrosphere, geosphere, biosphere, atmosphere, criterion, constraint, trade-off — as the teacher's guide recommends.
Use the provided sentence frames for the two constructed-response questions to scaffold struggling writers and English learners.
Score the objective items with the answer key, hand-score the two constructed-response items with the included rubrics, and log results on the class tracking sheet to spot domain-level gaps before the spring CAST.
Extend advanced students with the guide's suggested challenge of adding a fourth Earth-sphere interaction to their Q34 explanation or designing a controlled experiment on CO2 and shell growth.

Skills covered

Conservation of matter reasoning — students use particle-model evidence to explain where matter goes during dissolving, burning, and chemical reactions.
Multi-source evidence synthesis — students read four sources on ocean acidification and combine evidence to answer selected-response, multi-select, and constructed-response questions.
Data interpretation — students read a pH-versus-shell-thickness data table to identify patterns and make quantitative predictions.
Engineering trade-off evaluation — students weigh short-term local fixes like calcium oxide buffering against long-term root-cause solutions like reducing CO2 emissions, justifying recommendations with evidence.

Good to know

Questions teachers ask about this resource

How does the demand on Grade 5 students differ from Grade 3, according to the teacher's guide?

Grade 5 requires quantitative proof that matter is conserved, interactions among all four Earth spheres instead of two, more complex matter-cycling system models, explicit engineering trade-off analysis, and more demanding data analysis than Grade 3.

What supports does the teacher's guide suggest for English learners completing the constructed-response questions?

It recommends pre-teaching vocabulary with labeled diagrams, walking through the data table as a class before independent work, providing sentence frames for both constructed-response items, and allowing students to annotate sources in their home language before writing in English.