NJSLA Cheat Sheet 2026

The 30 highest-yield NJSLA facts, distilled from real exam questions. Print it, save it as a PDF, or study it here — free, no sign-up.

1. A student wants to show rather than tell that her character is nervous before a big game. Which sentence best achieves this? → She kept bouncing her knee and checking the clock every few seconds.
2. A teacher describes a student's essay as 'verbose.' Based on the root 'verb-' (word), what does verbose most likely mean? → using too many words
3. Sarah earns $12 per hour and works 8 hours on weekdays and 10 hours on weekends. In one week (5 weekdays, 2 weekend days), how much does she earn in total? → $720
4. When an NJSLA prompt asks students to 'continue the story' from a stimulus, what is the most important thing to maintain? → Consistency with the tone, characters, and events already established in the stimulus.
5. What does domain-specific vocabulary mean in the context of informational writing? → Technical terms related to the specific subject being discussed
6. In which season are NJSLA assessments typically administered? → Spring
7. In dance education, 'effort actions' describe qualities of movement developed by which theorist? → Rudolf Laban
8. When an NJSLA prompt says 'use details from BOTH texts,' what happens to a response that only cites one text? → It will likely lose points because the task requirement was not fully met
9. The temperature dropped from 14°F to −8°F overnight, then rose 5°F by noon. What was the temperature at noon? → −3°F
10. A scale drawing uses a scale of 1 inch : 15 feet. If a room measures 3.5 inches on the drawing, what is its actual length? → 52.5 feet
11. What does the New Jersey Student Learning Assessment Test serve to measure? → To help students determine their strengths and weaknesses across the subjects
12. What is the value of the expression 3a² - (b + 4) when a = 3 and b = 5? → 18
13. Which of the following best describes 'pacing' in a narrative? → The speed at which events unfold and how time is controlled throughout the story.
14. A cone has a radius of 3 cm and a height of 8 cm. Which expression correctly represents its volume? → (1/3)π(3)²(8)
15. Why should everyone have equal access to high-quality arts education? → Lead to artistic literacy and fluency
16. What does a student's 'Student Growth Percentile' (SGP) on the NJSLA measure? → How much a student grew academically compared to peers with similar prior scores
17. Which graph best represents the function y = −x² + 4? → A parabola opening downward with vertex at (0, 4)
18. An athlete runs at 8 mph for 30 minutes, walks at 3 mph for 20 minutes, then sprints at 12 mph for 10 minutes. What is the total distance covered? → 7 miles
19. In the sentence 'Her sanguine outlook helped her recover quickly from disappointment,' what does sanguine most likely mean? → optimistic
20. What is the degree of the polynomial 5x³ - 2x⁴ + x - 7? → 4
21. On a dot plot, several dots are stacked at the value 7, and the rest are spread between 1 and 5. What does the cluster at 7 suggest? → 7 is the most frequent value in the data set.
22. Which property is illustrated by: 5 × (3 + 2) = 5 × 3 + 5 × 2? → Distributive Property
23. Evaluate: -2(3 - x) + 4x when x = 1 → 2
24. The equation 2x + y = 8 and y = 3x − 2 are graphed on the same coordinate plane. Where do they intersect? → (2, 4)
25. A writer ends every paragraph with the same character 'learning a lesson.' What is the main weakness of this approach? → It feels repetitive and makes the narrative's theme too heavy-handed.
26. Which color scheme uses colors that are directly across from each other on the color wheel? → Complementary
27. Which of the following is an example of a ratio relationship? → For every 2 red marbles there are 5 blue marbles
28. A student writes a body paragraph with five direct quotes in a row and no analysis. What is the PRIMARY problem? → The student failed to analyze or connect the evidence to the thesis
29. A formula for simple interest is I = prt. Which expression gives p in terms of I, r, and t? → I/(rt)
30. A data set has a mean of 50 and a standard deviation of 5. A value of 65 is how many standard deviations above the mean? → 3