Minnesota NES Essential Academic Skills (EAS) study plan

Diagnose baseline skills by completing one timed full-length practice set for Reading and one for Writing, then tabulate error types by subskill (main idea, inference, grammar, organization)

Identify the four passage genres the Reading domain tests (informational/expository, persuasive, literary narrative, and functional/procedural documents) and annotate one sample of each for structure and purpose

Build a personal error log with columns for question type, reason for miss, and corrective rule

Practice active reading by summarizing three 400-600 word passages in two sentences each without looking back at the text

Apply main-idea and supporting-detail strategies to ten expository passages, writing the thesis in your own words before answering items

Distinguish fact from opinion and identify an author's tone and purpose in five persuasive passages

Review the eight parts of speech and subject-verb agreement rules, then correct 25 deliberately flawed sentences

Practice vocabulary-in-context by defining ten underlined words from surrounding clues rather than memory

Draft two timed 30-minute essays (one persuasive, one expository) using a plan-draft-revise cycle

Edit your own drafts for comma splices, run-ons, fragments, and pronoun agreement, marking each correction with the rule applied

Relearn arithmetic fundamentals: fractions, decimals, percents, ratios, and order of operations, working 30 mixed computation problems

Translate word problems into equations by underlining the unknown and writing a let-statement before solving

Solve 25 multi-step word problems involving proportions, unit rates, and percent change, showing every step

Compute mean, median, mode, and range for five data sets and interpret what each measure reveals

Demonstrate file management literacy by naming, organizing, and backing up a practice folder using consistent conventions

Identify credible online sources by applying a five-criterion evaluation checklist (authority, currency, accuracy, purpose, support) to six websites

Solve 20 geometry problems covering perimeter, area, volume, and angle relationships, sketching each figure

Interpret tables, bar graphs, line graphs, and scatterplots by writing one accurate conclusion per display

Practice paired-passage reading by comparing two texts on one topic and charting agreements and disagreements

Complete a timed 25-question mixed Reading and Math set and record pacing per question

Explain safe, ethical digital practice by writing rules for password hygiene, phishing recognition, and personal-data sharing

Describe the function of common software tools (word processor, spreadsheet, presentation, browser) and match each to a task scenario

Revise a weak sample essay by strengthening thesis, organization, and transitions, then justify each change in one sentence

Practice sentence-combining and varying sentence structure across 20 exercises

Take one full-length timed practice test under exam conditions, including the constructed-response writing section

Score the test and re-sort every miss into your error log by subskill

Re-teach your three weakest subskills using targeted drills of 15 items each

Write one timed essay in 30 minutes and self-score it against a four-point rubric for ideas, organization, and conventions

Review your entire error log and restate each corrected rule from memory in a condensed one-page cheat sheet

Complete two 20-question speed drills per domain to confirm retention and pacing

Simulate test-day logistics: confirm registration, identification, timing plan, and a strategy for flagging and returning to hard items

Take a final half-length mixed review and compare scores to your Week 1 baseline