PSSA Grade 5 Science common mistakes
PSSA Grade 5 Science · Understand the traps and how to avoid them.
Labels an inference as an observation - e.g., reads 'The plant is thirsty' or 'The rock was moved by a river' and marks it as something the scientist observed directly.
Everyday language blurs what we see with what we figure out, and grade-5 readers rarely distinguish 'the soil feels dry' from 'the plant needs water.' Inferences feel like seeing because they happen instantly.
What to do instead
Practice a two-column sort of sentence strips: 'I could see or measure this myself' vs 'I decided this by thinking.' Require a measurable detail (a number, a color, a texture) before accepting a statement as an observation.
Calls an experiment a 'fair test' when more than one thing was changed - e.g., approves a setup where one plant gets more water AND more sunlight, judging fairness by whether both plants got 'the same care.'
Students judge fairness by intent ('the scientist treated them the same') rather than by counting variables, and they read the setup as a story rather than a comparison.
What to do instead
Have students physically list what was different between the two groups and circle the number of differences; anything other than one difference is not a fair test. Then ask, 'What should the scientist keep the same next time?'
Chooses a conclusion the data cannot support - e.g., data table only goes to 50 g, but the student picks 'At 200 g the spring will stretch 40 cm,' or declares an experiment finished after a single trial.
Longer, more dramatic answers feel more like the 'real answer,' and students do not treat the edges of the data table as a boundary on what can be claimed.
What to do instead
Train the habit of circling the smallest and largest values tested, then rejecting any option that goes beyond them. Also ask 'How many times did they run it?' and favor answers that repeat trials or gather more data.
Says plants get their food from the soil and that roots 'make food,' treating the soil as the plant's kitchen.
The soil-as-food idea matches everyday experience (we add fertilizer, plants grow in dirt) and is reinforced by the word 'plant food' on packaging. Students cannot see photosynthesis happening, so they assign food-making to the visible parts.
What to do instead
Build the chain explicitly: roots take in water and minerals, leaves use sunlight to make sugar, the sugar is food. Ask 'What would happen to a plant watered with distilled water and no minerals in the soil?' to separate nutrients from food.
Reads a food chain as a ladder of power - concludes the hawk has the most energy or that there are more hawks than mice, or draws energy arrows pointing from the predator to the prey.
Cartoons and everyday talk present predators as 'top' and therefore 'most,' and the visual order of the chain (left to right) suggests growth rather than loss.
What to do instead
Have students build a pyramid of numbers and a pyramid of energy for the same chain and compare them. Anchor the rule: energy gets smaller at each link because most is used and released as heat, so there are fewer animals at the top.
Treats learned behaviors as inherited - e.g., says a dog's ability to sit on command, or a bear's knowledge of which berries to eat, is passed from parents in the genes.
Both kinds of traits 'come from parents' in a child's experience, and instinctive behaviors (migration, hibernation) look like choices, so the two categories collapse.
What to do instead
Sort trait cards into 'was born with it' vs 'learned by doing it,' and apply the test question: could this animal do it if it had never seen another animal do it? Add a note that instinct is inherited behavior, not a decision.
Asserts a continuing force is needed to keep an object moving - explains a rolling ball by saying 'a force is still pushing it,' and predicts motion stops instantly when the push ends.
Children's everyday experience is that things slow down on their own, and they read that slowdown as proof that the mover must keep supplying force. Friction is invisible, so it is not part of the mental model.
What to do instead
Contrast surfaces: roll the same ball on carpet, wood, and smooth tile and graph distance. Name friction as a force acting backward, then ask what would happen on a surface with almost no friction.
Describes cold as something that travels - 'the cold from the ice moved into the juice' or 'the refrigerator puts cold into the food.'
Everyday phrasing ('close the door, you're letting the cold in') installs the idea that cold is a substance. The student experiences the sensation, not the direction of energy flow.
What to do instead
Replace 'cold' with 'heat' in every explanation out loud: heat moves from the warmer object to the cooler one until both are the same temperature. Have students restate spoon-in-hot-cocoa and ice-in-juice examples using the word heat.
Explains the seasons with distance - picks 'summer happens because Earth is closer to the Sun,' and cannot explain why the Northern and Southern Hemispheres have opposite seasons.
The distance explanation is intuitive and fits the everyday 'closer means warmer' rule; diagrams of an oval orbit reinforce it. The tilt is a small number of degrees and is hard to visualize.
What to do instead
Use a globe and a lamp: keep the distance fixed, tilt the axis, and observe which hemisphere gets more direct light. Then ask which hemisphere is having winter at the same moment - the distance explanation fails, the tilt explanation works.
Confuses weathering, erosion, and deposition - calls a river carrying sand downstream 'weathering,' or says a rock cracked by ice 'was eroded.'
The three processes happen together in real landscapes, and all three words describe change to rock, so students use them as synonyms. Textbooks often show one picture with all three labeled.
What to do instead
Give each word one physical verb to check against: weathering = breaking apart in place, erosion = moving the pieces, deposition = dropping them. Have students narrate a single rock's journey and name each step as it happens.