School Improvement in Maryland

Public Release Items: Public release items have appeared on MSA forms and then are released for public viewing and use. Releasing items is one step to ensuring that schools, districts, and other stakeholders understand how the content standards are assessed on the MSA.

Standard 1.0 Skills and Processes

Topic A. Constructing Knowledge

Indicator 1. Gather and question data from many different forms of scientific investigations which include reviewing appropriate print resources, observing what things are like or what is happening somewhere, collecting specimens for analysis, and doing experiments.

Objective b. Select and use appropriate tools hand lens or microscope (magnifiers), centimeter ruler (length), spring scale (weight), balance (mass), Celsius thermometer (temperature), graduated cylinder (liquid volume), and stopwatch (elapsed time) to augment observations of objects, events, and processes.

Selected Response Item

A student is measuring the mass of a container of water.

Question Image

Which of these tools should be used to measure the mass of the container of water?

  1. a balance
  2. a thermometer
  3. a centimeter ruler
  4. a graduated cylinder
/share/assessment_items/xml/items/msa_science_5_029.xml

Correct Answer:
A

Selected Response Item

A student needs to measure the volume of some pond water.

Which of these tools will best measure the volume of pond water?

  1. Answer Option
  2. Answer Option
  3. Answer Option
  4. Answer Option
/share/assessment_items/xml/items/msa_science_5_047.xml

Correct Answer:
A