10 exam-style questions with answers and explanations, straight from our 1,030-question bank. Tap an answer to check yourself. When you're ready, take the scored version in the free practice test.
The Praxis Core exam has 152 questions and runs 4 hours 35 minutes.
These 10 free Praxis Core questions are organized by exam domain, so you can see how each part of the Praxis Core Academic Skills for Educators: Combined Test (5752) blueprint is tested. Reveal the answer and explanation under each question.
Domain 1: Reading - Key Ideas and Details 35% of exam
Question 1
When a city replaces a stretch of asphalt with permeable pavement, the stated goal is almost always drainage: rainwater passes through the surface instead of pooling on it. Engineers in several coastal cities have since documented a second effect they never designed for. Because the material stores less heat than conventional asphalt, surface temperatures on treated blocks run measurably lower on summer afternoons, and residents on those blocks report running their air conditioners less often. Drainage remains the reason most projects win approval. The cooling effect, however, is increasingly what persuades neighborhoods to tolerate months of construction.
Which of the following BEST states the main idea of the passage?
Show answer & explanation
Correct answer: D - A drainage technology turned out to have a cooling benefit that now aids its adoption
Question 2
Curators once labeled the small clay figures "toys" without much hesitation. The objects were recovered from ordinary domestic rooms, they are modeled roughly rather than finely, and several show wear consistent with frequent handling. Over the past decade, however, figures of the same type have been recovered from burial chambers, placed beside objects whose ritual purpose is not in doubt. No inscription from either setting explains what the figures were for. Two major collections have since revised their labels to read "figurines, function uncertain."
It can be inferred from the passage that the collections revised their labels because:
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Correct answer: A - new evidence made the original interpretation less certain
Domain 2: Reading - Craft, Structure, and Language Skills 30% of exam
Question 3
The committee's early confidence was qualified by the auditor's memo, which pointed out that the projected savings assumed no increase in fuel costs.
As used in the sentence above, "qualified" most nearly means:
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Correct answer: A - limited
Question 4
(1) The new wing added twelve classrooms, making it the largest single addition in the district's history. (2) Enrollment across the district has risen eleven percent since 2019. (3) The wing's open-plan layout is the most sensible possible response to that growth. (4) The bond measure that paid for the wing passed with fifty-eight percent of the vote.
Which sentence is presented as an opinion rather than as a fact?
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Correct answer: C - Sentence 3
Domain 3: Reading - Integration of Knowledge and Ideas 35% of exam
Question 5
Passage 1: Requiring candidates to pass a basic skills test before they enter a teacher preparation program protects the children they will eventually teach. Someone who cannot read a district memo closely or calculate a class average will struggle in front of a classroom, and discovering that during student teaching is too late for the candidate, the program, and the students.
Passage 2: Basic skills tests screen candidates out at the moment when they have the least support and the least reason to persist. The skills these tests measure are teachable, and a preparation program is exactly where they could be taught. A gate at the entrance does not make graduates stronger; it only makes them fewer.
The author of Passage 2 would most likely argue that the concern raised in Passage 1 is BEST answered by:
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Correct answer: D - teaching those skills within the preparation program
Question 6
A district newsletter states: "Our after-school tutoring program is working. Since we launched it in 2021, the share of students meeting the reading benchmark has climbed every year." District records show that the share of students meeting the reading benchmark was 58 percent in 2021, 62 percent in 2022, 66 percent in 2023, and 71 percent in 2024. Over the same period, the number of students enrolled in tutoring was 410 in 2021, 395 in 2022, 240 in 2023, and 135 in 2024.
Which observation MOST weakens the newsletter's claim?
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Correct answer: D - The largest yearly gain came in the year with the fewest students tutored
Domain 4: Writing - Text Types, Purposes, and Production 60% of exam
Question 7
On the source-based (informative/explanatory) essay of the Praxis Core Writing test, a candidate accurately restates ideas drawn from both provided sources in his own words, but nowhere in the response does he name the authors or otherwise identify where the ideas came from. According to the scoring guide, this response is MOST limited by the fact that it:
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Correct answer: A - never cites the sources whose ideas it restates
Question 8
(1) The library cut its evening hours in 2022 to close a budget gap. (2) Circulation fell sharply over the following year, and staff assumed the shortened hours were the cause. (3) ______ a survey found that most patrons who had stopped visiting had simply moved out of the service area. (4) Evening hours were restored in 2024, and circulation recovered only slightly.
Which transition BEST fills the blank at the beginning of sentence 3?
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Correct answer: B - However,
Question 9
On the Praxis Core argumentative essay, a candidate states a clear position and arranges the response into three logically ordered paragraphs, but supports the position only with broad claims such as "many people have felt this way," never offering a specific instance. According to the scoring guide, the feature MOST likely to hold this response below the upper score points is its:
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Correct answer: D - absence of well-chosen reasons and examples
Domain 5: Writing - Language and Research Skills for Writing 40% of exam
Question 10
Neither the principal nor the two counselors ______ informed that the enrollment report was incomplete.
Which of the following correctly completes the sentence?