Praxis Core Academic Skills for Educators Study Guide

The Praxis Core Academic Skills for Educators is one of the most important exams you'll take on the path to becoming a teacher. It's required in most states for teacher licensure, and it covers three separate tests — reading, writing, and mathematics — that assess the foundational academic skills every educator needs. This guide gives you a complete breakdown of each test, what you actually need to know, and how to structure your preparation.

What Is the Praxis Core?

The Praxis Core Academic Skills for Educators is a suite of three standardized tests developed by Educational Testing Service (ETS). Most teacher preparation programs and state licensing boards require passing scores on all three tests before you can earn your teaching license. Some states also require the Praxis Core for admission into teacher preparation programs, so you might take it even before you start your education courses.

The three tests are:

• Praxis Core Reading (5713) — 56 questions, 85 minutes
• Praxis Core Writing (5723) — 40 selected-response questions + 2 essays, 100 minutes total
• Praxis Core Mathematics (5733) — 56 questions, 85 minutes

You can take the tests separately or combined in a single session. Most test-takers take them separately to allow for focused preparation. The tests are computer-delivered and available at Prometric testing centers year-round.

Praxis Core Reading: What's Actually Tested

The reading test measures your ability to read and understand academic texts — the same skill you'll need to evaluate student work, read professional literature, and process curriculum materials as a teacher.

Reading Content Categories

• Key Ideas and Details (35% of questions): Main idea, supporting details, text structure, summarizing arguments, drawing inferences
• Craft, Structure, and Language Skills (30%): Author's purpose and point of view, text organization, vocabulary in context, distinguishing fact from opinion
• Integration of Knowledge and Ideas (35%): Evaluating arguments, identifying evidence, comparing multiple texts, analyzing rhetorical strategies

The reading test uses both informational and literary passages. Passages range from short (100–200 words with 1–2 questions) to long (400–600 words with multiple questions). You'll encounter a variety of text types: academic articles, historical documents, literary excerpts, and argumentative essays.

Reading Study Strategies

The single best thing you can do for the reading test is practice reading academic text actively and quickly. This means:

• Read the question before reading the passage — know what you're looking for
• Annotate as you read: underline main claims, circle key transitions, mark where the author's argument shifts
• For vocabulary questions, use context clues rather than trying to recognize the word from memory
• For inference questions, the answer must be directly supported by the text — don't bring in outside knowledge

The reading test doesn't penalize guessing, so answer every question.

Praxis Core Writing: Two Parts, Two Skill Sets

The writing test is the most complex of the three because it has two distinct components: selected-response grammar and usage questions, and two written essays.

Selected-Response Writing (40 questions, 40 minutes)

These questions test your knowledge of standard English grammar, usage, and mechanics. Categories include:

• Text Types and Purposes: Identifying the appropriate writing strategy for different purposes
• Production and Distribution of Writing: Clarity, organization, and coherence
• Language and Research Skills for Writing: Grammar, usage, punctuation, sentence structure, vocabulary

Common question formats include identifying the error in an underlined portion of a sentence, choosing the best revision of a sentence, and selecting the best word or phrase to complete a sentence.

Grammar areas most frequently tested: subject-verb agreement, pronoun-antecedent agreement, misplaced modifiers, parallelism, comma usage, apostrophes, and run-on sentences.

Essay Component (2 essays, 60 minutes total)

The writing test includes two types of essays:

1. Argumentative Essay (30 minutes): You'll be given a claim and asked to write an essay that supports your position with examples and reasoning. There's no right or wrong position — ETS scores based on the quality of your argument, not which side you take.
2. Informative/Explanatory Essay (30 minutes): You'll be given source material (typically two short passages on the same topic) and asked to write an essay that synthesizes and presents information from those sources. This is not an argument — it's an accurate, organized summary and explanation.

Essays are scored on a 0–6 scale by two raters (averaged). Your essay score is combined with your selected-response score for the total writing score. Strong essays have:

• A clear, specific thesis in the introduction
• Well-developed body paragraphs with specific evidence or examples
• Appropriate transitions between ideas
• A concluding paragraph that returns to the thesis without simply restating it
• Varied sentence structure and precise vocabulary
• No significant grammar or mechanics errors

Praxis Core Mathematics: What You Need to Know

The math test covers content from roughly 6th grade through early high school level. It doesn't require calculus or advanced algebra — but you do need solid command of foundational math, and you need to apply it accurately under time pressure.

Math Content Categories

• Number and Quantity (30%): Operations with integers, fractions, decimals, percentages; order of operations; number properties; ratio and proportion
• Algebra and Functions (30%): Linear equations and inequalities; quadratic equations; functions; word problems requiring algebraic setup
• Geometry (20%): Perimeter, area, volume; coordinate geometry; Pythagorean theorem; angle relationships; similarity and congruence
• Statistics and Probability (20%): Mean, median, mode, range; interpreting data displays (bar graphs, histograms, scatterplots, box plots); basic probability

An on-screen calculator is available for the mathematics test for some questions. ETS designates certain questions as calculator-active and others as calculator-inactive. Building your mental math skills helps on the calculator-inactive questions — they're designed to be solvable without a calculator, but speed matters.

Math Study Strategies

Math is the most predictable of the three Praxis Core tests in terms of what appears. The same content areas recur reliably, which means targeted study pays off well. Key approaches:

• Identify your weakest content category through a practice test first, then drill that area specifically
• Know your formulas: area, perimeter, and volume formulas aren't always provided — memorize the basics (rectangle, triangle, circle, cylinder)
• For word problems, write out what you know and what you're solving for before computing
• For data interpretation questions, read the axes, scale, and title before trying to answer

Praxis Core Score Requirements by State

Passing scores vary by state. These are ETS's recommended passing scores, but states set their own cutoffs:

• Reading: Most states require 156–162 (scaled score out of 190)
• Writing: Most states require 158–162 (scaled score out of 190)
• Mathematics: Most states require 150–162 (scaled score out of 190)

Always check your specific state's requirements on the ETS Praxis website or your state education department's website — cutoffs differ and some states set them higher than the recommended minimum.

How to Structure Your Praxis Core Study Schedule

A 6-week plan works well for most candidates who have been out of formal education for a few years and need to rebuild familiarity with the content. Candidates who are still in school or recently graduated often succeed with 3–4 weeks of focused prep.

Weeks 1–2: Diagnostic and Foundation Building

• Take one full practice test for each of the three sections (can spread across the two weeks)
• Score yourself and identify the 2–3 areas within each test where you lost the most points
• Review underlying content for math gaps (fractions, percentages, basic geometry as needed)
• Review grammar rules for writing errors you made consistently

Weeks 3–4: Targeted Content Drilling

• Focus daily on your identified weak areas
• For reading: practice active reading strategies on academic texts (not just Praxis practice passages)
• For writing: write one timed essay per week and evaluate it against ETS's scoring rubric
• For math: work 20–30 practice problems daily in your weakest content category

Weeks 5–6: Full Tests and Refinement

• Take a full practice test per section each week under realistic conditions
• Review every wrong answer thoroughly
• For essays: practice the informative essay with different source types
• Final week: focus on pacing and stamina rather than new content

Praxis Core Reading, Writing, and Math: Key Differences in How to Prepare

Each test rewards different preparation approaches:

Reading is most improved by volume of practice reading. Read academic articles, opinion pieces, and challenging literary excerpts regularly — not just Praxis practice passages. The skill transfers.

Writing grammar is best improved by drilling grammar rules with immediate feedback. The errors on the test recur: subject-verb agreement, modifiers, parallelism, and comma rules account for a large percentage of selected-response errors.

Essay writing requires practice under time pressure. Writing a timed essay is a different experience from writing without a clock. Do it multiple times, compare your work to the ETS scoring rubric, and focus on structure and clarity over vocabulary.

Math requires the most varied preparation because it has the most distinct content subcategories. Don't just practice what you're already good at — the points you're missing in statistics or geometry are the ones worth chasing.

Common Mistakes That Lead to Failing Scores

1. Skipping practice tests. Reading study guides without doing timed practice doesn't build the applied skill the tests measure. Practice tests are the most important study resource.
2. Ignoring the essay component. Many candidates drill the grammar questions and don't practice writing timed essays. The essay score is a significant portion of the total writing score.
3. Studying the wrong math content. Praxis Core math is foundational — algebra, geometry, statistics. If you're studying trigonometry or calculus, you're studying the wrong thing.
4. Not checking your state's specific score requirements. The ETS recommended passing score isn't always the state requirement. Check before your test date.
5. Taking all three tests in one session unprepared. The combined session is about 5 hours. Cognitive fatigue affects performance on the later tests. If you're not confident in all three, test separately.

The Core Academic Skills Assessment is a real hurdle for many teacher candidates — but it's also a learnable test. The content is well-defined, the question formats are consistent, and preparation directly improves scores. Check out the Core Academic Skills Assessment practice tests and the core academic skills assessment to start your preparation with official-style questions.