Bio Tool #8 · SOL Biology · All year
Seventy-two Challenge questions on the concepts students find hardest, and thirty Practice questions sorted by unit and learning target, all original and all written for the Virginia Biology SOL. Tap an answer and you get the reasoning and where to study. Nothing is submitted.
These practice questions were written from the Virginia 2018 Biology Standards of Learning and the Virginia Department of Education’s Biology Instructional Guide. None was written from a released SOL test item: the released sets stayed closed while these were drafted, and every question records the standard it was written from. The scenarios, organisms, data, figures and answer choices are original, and many use Virginia places students know. VDOE publishes its released items so that teachers and students can see the depth and rigor of the standards, and says the items are not meant to be mirrored in classroom instruction; these questions follow that guidance by practicing the same skills on new material rather than rehearsing the test’s wording. They are for practice and learning. They are not produced or endorsed by the Virginia Department of Education, and students who want to see real released items should open VDOE’s released set in TestNav. Original practice questions written to the Virginia 2018 Biology SOL. © J. R. Schwebach, CC BY-NC 4.0.
Every question on this page is original, written by me and my colleagues for this page. They come from two kinds of experience. The first is ours: the concepts our students miss most often on our unit tests, in the wording that trips them up. The second is Virginia's: each year the Department of Education releases test items along with the share of students statewide who answered each one correctly, and some concepts come in under 40 percent across the whole state. Both go into this bank, and it grows as the year goes on.
Each question carries two ratings. A Schwebach challenge is a concept I want my own students to practice because I have watched them struggle with it, or because I know it will come back later in the year. A Virginia challenge is a concept students across the state found hard on a recent released item, with the statewide result quoted. Many questions are both.
Questions keep their numbers for good, so Q14 on a feedback slip or in a Canvas assignment always means the same question. The address #q14 jumps to one question, and ?q=3,14,22 shows just those. Your answers stay on this device until you clear them.
Practice questions are filed by unit and learning target, so the set you open matches what you are learning now. Each one applies a skill to a new case: a graph, a table, a Virginia river or a lab you have not seen before. Some ask you to select every right answer, put steps in order, or match statements, the way the SOL does. A line under the controls keeps your count for the unit on this device.
Use any of these freely with a class. To assign a set, link to this page with the question numbers in the address, for example sol-challenge-questions.html?q=6,10,23, and students see only those. Print this set prints the questions showing, without answers. Every question names its SOL standard and the concept to study, so it works with any Virginia course, not only ours; the Canvas links are for Mr. Schwebach's own students and need a PWCS login.
Practice addresses work the same way. ?set=practice&unit=2 opens a unit, ?set=practice<=2.4 one learning target, and ?set=practice&q=OB-U02-03,OB-U02-11 chosen questions. For a warm-up, ?set=practice<=2.4&n=3&projector=1&seed=1006 shows three questions one at a time at projector size, with the answer hidden until you tap; the same seed draws the same three for every period that day. Practice question ids (OB-U02-07) are permanent, like the Challenge numbers.
New questions are added at the end with the next number. A question is never renumbered or reused; if one is retired, its number stays retired. Corrections and suggested questions: use the address on the home page.