FREE STAAR Practice Test: Supercharge Your Assessment Preparation

April 18, 2024 | 4 min read

Christi Kulesza

This STAAR practice test is perfect for assessing your students’ math knowledge. Each grade level STAAR practice test for 3rd to 6th grade includes multiple-choice questions, short answer response questions and extended response questions across the mathematics TEKS standards.

What is the STAAR practice test?

The STAAR test, or the State of Texas Assessment of Academic Readiness, is the official testing program for elementary, middle and high school students in the state of Texas.

Every school year the STAAR tests are administered to school districts in Texas by the Texas Education Agency (TEA).

To help students in the state of Texas prepare for their STAAR tests, this STAAR practice test is aligned to the Texas Essential Knowledge and Skills standards (TEKS) for 3rd-6th grade.

STAAR practice test prep

Taking any kind of assessment can be a very stress inducing time. Because of this, it’s important to help your students prepare for success.

Using a practice test helps students reduce nerves and stress, helping to eliminate a lot of unknowns for them.

Test results can be an incredibly powerful tool for students. Results of the practice test, inform students which areas they need to review, revision and practice.

TEA releases a STAAR released test from the previous spring administration each year as an online practice test. Now that STAAR is administered online, PDF versions are no longer available.

Third Space Learning’s STAAR practice assessments are available as a PDF to allow you to simply print off the practice test questions and use them within your classroom ahead of end of year state assessments.

What to expect from this STAAR practice test

These STAAR practice tests, designed by experience math teachers, are aligned to the Texas Essential Knowledge and Skills standards (TEKS).

This STAAR test is designed to help 3rd-6th grade students prepare for the types of questions they’ll see in their end of year STAAR assessment in math.

Included in this STAAR test:

Multiple choice questions
Non-multiple choice questions
STAAR answer key
STAAR practice rationale

Download grade level STAAR practice test:

Example multiple-choice question (3rd grade)

Example non-multiple-choice question (3rd grade)

Answer key and question rationale

Each practice test includes a detailed answer key that provides TEKS aligned standard, reporting category and the standard category.

Question rationales are also included, which is designed to assist in understanding not only how students can get to the right answer, but to explain why they may have selected another one of the answer choices.

*Question rationale for 3rd grade question number 5 from above.*

How to use this STAAR practice test

Think of this practice STAAR test as a worksheet with a lot of questions based on the tested standards!

Teacher time is valuable and having this resource at your fingertips will save you from having to create STAAR aligned word problems for your students.

Here are a few different ways teachers may choose to use this practice test:

As a mock STAAR exam
Problem of the day for whole group or small group discussions
As homework
In math intervention group
As exit tickets or checks for understanding
To identify areas students may need more support in

Methodology behind the STAAR practice test

When creating these STAAR practice test, expert math teachers analysed the most commonly tested math TEKS and TEA Readiness and Supporting standards.

To ensure as much accuracy as possible, Third Space Learning’s math professionals followed the TEA blueprint for creating the STAAR test.

As readiness standards are tested every year, all readiness standards are included in the practice tests. Supporting standards are rotated every few years, so only the most frequently tested supporting standards are included in these practice tests.

Importance of STAAR practice tests

There are many reasons that practice math tests are important for both teachers and students.

First and foremost, they allow students to become familiar with a testing format and testing environment to best prepare them for state assessments.

Additionally, practice tests provide teachers with important information regarding areas of strength and weakness for each student.

This also helps students to know exactly which areas they need to practice in order to be ready and confident when test day arrives.

What should 3rd – 6th graders know in math?

Texas Essential Knowledge and Skills standards (TEKS) defines what your student should know in math by grade level.

Below is a brief summary of the topics students will need to know by the end of course each year.

3rd grade TEKS

Students will be introduced to and work with topics such as:

place value
addition and subtraction
introduction to multiplication and division
one and two-step word problems
fractions
frequency table, dot plots, picture and bar graphs
polygons
area and perimeter
measuring side lengths
telling time

4th grade TEKS

Students will be introduced to and work with topics such as:

place value to the millions place
addition and subtraction of decimals and fractions
multiplication and division of multi-digit numbers with the standard algorithm
one- and two-step problems
stem-and-leaf plots
measuring angles with protractors and finding the missing angle

5th grade TEKS

Students will be introduced to and work with topics such as:

place value
performing all 4 operations with decimals and fractions
prime and composite numbers
using parentheses and brackets in numerical expressions and simplifying numerical expressions
volume
coordinate planes
representing discrete data on a scatterplot

6th grade TEKS

Students will be introduced to and work with topics such as:

performing all 4 operations with rational numbers
finding the absolute value
ratios
rates and percentage
independent and dependent quantities
order of operations
area of 2D and 3D shapes
one-step inequalities and equations

4th and 5th grade STAAR practice tests

Download these free 4th grade and 5th grade STAAR practice test for state assessment preparation. Includes answer key and answers organized by standard.

Download Free Now!

STAAR practice sample test questions

3rd grade STAAR practice test

Algebraic Reasoning

Number and Operations – Base Ten

Number and Operations – Fractions

Geometry and Measurement

Data Analysis

Personal Financial Literacy

4th grade STAAR practice test

Algebraic Reasoning

Number and Operations – Base Ten

Number and Operations – Fractions

Geometry and Measurement

10.

Data Analysis

11.

Personal Financial Literacy

12.

5th grade STAAR practice test

Algebraic Reasoning

13.

Number and Operations – Base Ten

14.

Number and Operations – Fractions

15.

Geometry and Measurement

16.

Data Analysis

17.

Personal Financial Literacy

18.

6th grade STAAR practice test

Number and Operations

19.

20.

Proportionality

21.

Expressions, Equations and Relationships

22.

Measurement and Data

23.

Personal Financial Literacy

24.

FAQs

Is the STAAR test only in Texas?

All 3rd to 12th grade public school students in Texas take STAAR assessments. STAAR testing is based on the TEKS in core subjects including reading, writing, mathematics, science, and social studies. While end of curriculum assessments are given in all states, STAAR specifically refers to TEKS for the state of Texas only.

When do students sit the STAAR test?

Texas STAAR tests in elementary and middle school are based on the TEA curriculum standards for reading, writing, mathematics, science and social studies. Students in 3rd grade through 8th grade take their STAAR tests in the spring.

In high school, students are tested on Algebra I, English I, English II, Biology and U.S. History in their end-of-course (EOC) STAAR exams. These are taken throughout the duration of the school year.

The STAAR test is available in both English and Spanish, depending on the decision of the LPAC committee at your student’s campus.

What are the hardest math problems for 3rd – 6th grade?

While each student may find different topics difficult and struggle, the topics below are areas that many students typically find difficult and may benefit from extra revision.

Difficult 3rd grade topics
Multiplication and division
Fractions
Area and perimeter

Difficult 4th grade topics
Addition and subtraction of decimals
Multiplication and division
Calculating profit

Difficult 5th grade topics
Multiplication and division of decimals
Addition and subtraction of fractions with unlike denominators
Graphing on coordinate planes

Difficult 6th grade topics
One-step equations and inequalities
Absolute value
Adding, subtracting, multiplying and dividing with rational numbers

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