The grade 5 New York
State Test

The short version

Grade 5 is the year the sequence gets bigger and almost nobody mentions it. Alongside the ELA and mathematics sessions, grade 5 students also sit the New York State Science Test, which runs on its own schedule in May.

The grade 5 tests cover three tests. English Language Arts and mathematics are four sessions over four days, 83 questions worth 98 credits, of which 15 are written answers rather than multiple choice.

Session	Multiple choice	Written	Credits
ELA, session 1	26	2	30
ELA, session 2	7	4	17
Mathematics, session 1	30	0	30
Mathematics, session 2	5	9	21
Total	83 questions		98

Nobody is watching a clock

The tests are untimed. Grade 5 mathematics rewards a child who checks a fraction twice, and the clock will not stop them doing it. Schools communicate this poorly, because the published minute figures look exactly like time limits when they are average completion times used to plan the school day.

From spring 2026 every student in grades 3 to 8 takes these tests on a computer. Grade 5 is the year equations get typed into a box rather than written out, and a child who is slow at that loses time the test never meant to charge them. It is worth one practice session on a screen rather than on paper.

What the result actually decides

No consequence attaches to the result. Its value is timing: grade 5 is the last year a child is tested in a familiar building with familiar teachers, so it is the last result you can read without wondering how much of it was the transition.

Levels, and why there is no percentage

Results come back as a performance level from 1 to 4 with a scale score beside it, and level 3 is the state's definition of proficient. There is no percentage anywhere on the report. Families read the grade 5 level as a middle school placement prediction. It is not one; it describes April.

Of the 98 credits on the grade 5 test, 30 come from written answers. That is 31% of the whole result riding on questions where a child has to write something down, which is worth knowing before you buy a practice book made entirely of multiple choice.

The results arrive far too late to be a study plan

Here is the part that changes how you should treat these tests. The exams are sat in April and early May. Preliminary figures reach schools over the summer, and the full public release lands in the autumn, by which time your child has a new teacher, a new classroom and in some years a new school.

The grade 5 result is published once your child is already in a middle school building, which is the transition it would have been most useful before. So the score is a historical record rather than a diagnosis you can act on. Anything you want to know in time to do something about it, you have to find out yourself during the year, which is the honest argument for a practice test and the only one we will make.

You are allowed to refuse

New York has no statute requiring a child to sit these tests, and it has among the highest refusal rates in the country. The state education department and the Board of Regents recognize that parents refuse; districts handle it as routine.

The mechanism is a letter to the building principal giving your child's name, grade and teacher, and saying which tests you are refusing. You are not required to meet anyone, attend anything, or explain your reasoning. A school that tells you otherwise is describing its preference, not the rules.

Refusal in grade 5 covers the Science test too if you want it to, and families sometimes refuse one and not the other. There is no rule requiring consistency. Write to the principal naming the tests you are refusing.

We sell practice tests, so treat this as coming from an interested party: we think the test is worth sitting, because the information is worth having. But it is your decision and you should make it knowing it is genuinely yours.

The Science test nobody warned you about

Grade 5 is one of only two grades that also sit the New York State Science Test. It runs on its own schedule in May, after the ELA and mathematics windows have closed, and plenty of families first hear about it from a note that comes home in the spring.

We should be straight about this: we do not sell a Science practice test. Our grade 5 exams cover the four ELA and mathematics sessions and nothing else. If you want Science practice you will need it from somewhere else, and we would rather tell you that than let you buy from us on the assumption that it is included.

Who actually looks at this result

Grade 5 is an application year in New York City, and the results being looked at are the grade 4 ones, because grade 5 scores do not exist yet when applications close. That is worth understanding before you treat the grade 5 test as high-stakes: whatever it says arrives after the decisions it might have influenced.

What is worth doing at grade 5

Fractions. The grade 5 mathematics leans on them throughout, and a child who has memorized the procedure for adding unlike denominators without understanding why it works will hold up until the written answers ask them to explain it.

How a written answer is marked

Against the state's own rubric, on the content of the response alone. Spelling is not marked. Handwriting is not marked. Grammar is not marked. A correct idea in a child's own words earns full credit even when it is short, and copying a chunk of the passage without answering earns nothing at all.

Grade 5 rubrics want the reasoning. An explanation of why unlike denominators have to match before adding earns the credit at one line or six. This surprises parents in both directions: children who write beautifully and answer vaguely score worse than they look like they should, and children whose handwriting worries you may be scoring fine.

What we found when we tested our own exam

Grade 5 is the last clean read before middle school changes the building and the teachers, so a practice test that overstates it costs you the one comparison worth having.

So we measure it. Across the 24 sections of our New York State Tests exams long enough to measure (658 questions, in sections of 20 or more), the best score any length-based strategy reaches is 36%, against the 25% that guessing alone should give. Four strategies are scored: pick the longest option, pick the shortest, cross off the longest and guess, cross off the shortest and guess.

No consequence attaches to the result, so the only thing a practice test owes you is an honest number.

Every State Test section we sell now sits under the line, but that was not true in the spring. Grades 4 through 8 are hand-authored JSON that nothing regenerates, so each one had to be rewritten by hand, distractor by distractor, with the explanation attached to each wrong answer rewritten alongside it.

Where to practice

Our grade 5 practice tests run all four sessions, one per sitting, the way the real week is structured, and they mark the written answers against the state's rubrics rather than skipping them. Every wrong answer carries its own explanation saying what a student who picked it was probably thinking, which is the part that turns a score into something you can act on. There is a free sample on the samples page if you want to see the format before paying for anything.

Our shorter grade 5 guides cover what is on each session and how the scoring works.

Common questions

How many questions are on the grade 5 New York State Test?

83 across four sessions, worth 98 credits. 68 are multiple choice and 15 are written answers.

Is the New York State Test timed?

No. The grades 3 to 8 tests are untimed. A child who needs longer takes longer, and finishing early earns nothing. The minutes you see published are average completion times used for planning.

Can I refuse the grade 5 state test for my child?

Yes. New York has no statute compelling participation, and the practical route is a letter to your child's principal naming your child, their grade and teacher, and the tests you are refusing. You do not have to meet anyone or justify the decision.

When do New York State Test results come back?

Not quickly. Preliminary data reaches schools and districts over the summer, and the full public release follows in the autumn, months after the test and well into the next school year.

Does the grade 5 result affect anything?

No consequence attaches to the result.