FAST study guide
FAST · Work through your exam, one topic at a time.
The Florida Assessment of Student Thinking (FAST) is Florida's statewide progress-monitoring assessment system for K–12 students, aligned to the Benchmarks for Excellent Student Thinking (B.E.S.T.) Standards. It is administered in stages across the school year, and it is computer-adaptive - the difficulty of the items a student sees adjusts based on how they are performing, so no two students take an identical path through the test. The FAST study guide has 9 sections and about 3,009 words.
01Reading - Key Ideas and Details
Key Ideas and Details questions ask you to identify what a text says outright, what it implies, and how its parts hold together. The core skills are central/main idea , theme , objective summary , supporting details , inference , and citing the best textual evidence .
362 words, about 2 min02Reading - Craft and Structure
Craft and Structure questions focus on how a text is built and why the author made those choices: word choice, figurative language, text structure, point of view, tone, and purpose. denotation: denotation is the dictionary meaning; connotation is the feeling a word carries (thrifty vs.
349 words, about 2 min03Reading - Integration of Knowledge and Ideas
This domain asks you to combine information and judge it: comparing two texts or two media on the same topic, tracing an argument, evaluating whether evidence is relevant and sufficient, and connecting written information with charts, graphs, or other formats. Claim, evidence, reasoning: a claim is what the author asserts; evidence is the support; reasoning is the link between them.
345 words, about 2 min04Language and Vocabulary
These questions test how well you decode unfamiliar words and apply language conventions. Two skill families appear: vocabulary in context (context clues, morphology, connotation, figurative and academic language) and standard English conventions (usage, punctuation, sentence structure, spelling).
316 words, about 2 min05Writing and Text-Based Responses
This domain covers both the essay and short text-based responses: stating a clear claim, organizing ideas logically, developing them with evidence from the provided sources, and explaining how that evidence supports the claim - while controlling conventions. Claim: a debatable, specific position, not a summary of the topic.
329 words, about 2 min06Mathematics - Number Sense and Operations
Number Sense and Operations covers place value, the four operations with whole numbers, fractions, decimals, integers and rational numbers, factors and multiples, order of operations, ratios, proportions, percents, exponents, and scientific notation - along with estimation and reasonableness. Place value and regrouping across whole numbers and decimals, including how multiplying or dividing by powers of ten shifts the decimal point.
333 words, about 2 min07Mathematics - Algebraic Reasoning
Algebraic Reasoning asks you to write, simplify, evaluate, and solve: expressions, one- and two-step equations, inequalities, linear relationships, systems, and functions, plus the modeling that connects them to real situations. equation: an expression is simplified or evaluated; an equation is solved.
330 words, about 2 min08Mathematics - Geometric Reasoning
Geometric Reasoning spans angle relationships, triangle properties, congruence and similarity, transformations, the Pythagorean theorem, perimeter, area, surface area, volume, circles, and coordinate geometry. Angle relationships: complementary (90°), supplementary (180°), vertical angles equal, and angle sums (triangle 180°, quadrilateral 360°).
321 words, about 2 min09Mathematics - Data Analysis, Probability, and Statistics
This domain covers reading and building data displays, summarizing data with measures of center and spread, recognizing misleading graphs, sampling and bias, and computing probabilities for simple and compound events. Displays: dot plots, histograms, box plots, stem-and-leaf, scatterplots, and two-way tables - and which summary each display suits.
324 words, about 2 min