This week began the final round of California’s standardized test, STAR, administered to every second- through eleventh-grade public school student in the district.

Calendar

  • Round 1: March 1 and 2
  • Round 2: April 7 through 22
  • Round 3: April 26 through May 5

Additional Resources

  • You can see more sample questions from each grade level here.
  • Click here for samples of the science reference sheets found in each test booklet. Samples include chemistry, physics, integrated science and fifth- and eighth-grade science.
  • For help understanding test scores, click here.
  • PDFs with test questions for each grade level, from tests given from 2003 to 2008, can be downloaded here.

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Patty Espinosa, from the border town of Mission, Texas, feels at home with the Mission's Latino culture, humming along to the mariachi songs playing during her lunch break. Hearing workers at a taqueria shouting "gritos" convinced her the Mission is unlike any other neighborhood in San Francisco.

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  3. One stressed out teacher plus 32 hyper students after a STAR assessment equals HATRED of standardized tests!

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  4. Low-G accelerometer can’t be used to plot velocity and change in position? Really? And isn’t an accelerometer just a type of motion sensor?

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    1. No, because an accelerometer measures weight/unit-mass, not velocity changes. Any random mass lying motionless on the ground will still show a reading on an accelerometer since it has a weight, even though its velocity isn’t changing. If you took physics, you may recall that velocity is the time-derivative (rate of change) of position, and that acceleration is the time-derivative of velocity. Thus, a non-zero, constant reading on an accelerometer (were you to use it to extrapolate position), would result in a plot showing you that the object was moving in a parabola, as opposed to being stationary.

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      1. I get what you’re saying, but couldn’t you account for the gravitational acceleration with simple vector subtraction?

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  6. Well I missed one…it was the math equation…
    I’ve ALWAYS hated math because I was never good at it…still holds true today!
    Not bad for 53!

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