8th Grade Math Tests and Quizzes

This is our last chance to get students excited about math prior to entering High school. Most curriculum directors realize this and put their strongest teachers at this level. If you are an eighth-grade teacher, you are most likely an elite teacher in your field. Unknowns in algebra play a huge role in this curriculum and it is expected that students have a high level of comfort with single unknowns within equations and inequalities. Linear equations are explored in detail. Having a sound understanding of this is essential before transition to High School Algebra. Students learn how to evaluate and graph functions at this level. Systems of equations seem to give students the greatest level of trouble. I would plan to spend a good amount of time on this. Geometry because much more of an application process as students explore geometric transformations. Students will also be expected to model data and interpret what they have modelled. This is where the Core Math Curriculum takes the biggest jump, in my opinion. There is a steep learning curve. My theory seems to be backed by a recent survey that asked students which subject they liked best in school. The biggest decrease occurred in 8th grade students choosing math (year-over-year) for the survey; right after the core curriculum had the largest adoption rate.

• Grade 8 Common Core Test Sampler - A twenty question sampler of the most common questions that we see asked on standard exams for this level. A complete answer key and bubble sheet follows the test as you will find in all our tests.

• Multiple Choice Questions Form A - I tend to make my tests a little longer than the samples I have seen to make sure I cover the entire curriculum. This test covers just about everything.
• Multiple Choice Question Version 2 - The complete exam. This test has a question for each topic and skill at this level.
• Full Length Practice Exam - Name a standard and it is incorporated in here. When you are trying to grasp where your grade 8 students are at, this is the test that will tell you.
• Short Response Questions Form B - From being in contact with the academic consultants for the core test development it seems they are trying to ask more questions in this format in the future.
• Extended Response Questions Form C - You will often see these types of questions with multiple choice answers at the State level.
• Number System, Statistics & Probability Quiz - Due to the limited number of standards, I combined these areas.
• Expressions and Equations Quiz - Two recent State samples took questions from our site verbatim in this section. We must be hitting the target. It doesn't hurt that we were just asked permission for next year too.
• Functions Quiz - This is a very unique topic. Half of the questions are easy and the rest are very difficult. Seems like there is minimal balance at this level on this skill. It is because the skill level elevates quickly as you transition to high school materials.
• Geometry Quiz - From the recent assessment numbers I have seen, this section is giving students the most difficulty at this level. It mostly stems from a lack of fundamental vocabulary. They simply do not know what is being asked of them.

What Should an 8th Grade Math Student Know?

As with any form of non-subject focused math, the 8th grade starts off with building up numbers and operation skills. We really start to see the decimal place values and new forms of value notation appear. We work up from what they learned in early middle school and extend to the concept of irrational numbers. The concept of irrational numbers and learning to approximate their value is a tricky one for students. These will often cause students that are inpatient a great deal of difficulty.

Students will become very familiar with the properties of exponents. I have seen some teachers rush through this topic, but it is important unit for students to grasp. This will lead them into properly using scientific notation and word problems that involve them. This will all build the foundation for single step algebra where we help students learn how to balance equations. At this level we are working on Prealgebra skills that we will need when we leap into the high school level.

Students have already learned how to plot graphs, now they will learn how to interpret these graphs and make sense of them. Students begin working with bivariant data and much larger data sets. Through a variety of statistical techniques, they learn to find the central tendencies of this data. The goal being to make sense of the data and make good choices based on our interpretation of it. Students will take linear equations and functions and learn how to manipulate them to their advantage or predict trends based on them. This will lead them into data modeling to help them better understand data and systems that are complex and vast.

Towards the end of the course students will switch gears from algebra to geometry. They will explore the common vocabulary and properties shapes as well as understand the fundamental theory of right triangle geometry. They are introduced to several different theorems and laws that can be applied to several different types of geometric shapes and figures. In the end, students will cover a breadth of information that prepares them for their high school courses and the challenges that they have yet to see.