DeSSA Grade 8 Concepts and Procedures Practice

DeSSA Grade 8 Concepts and Procedures. Practice it free.

Students can explain and apply mathematical concepts and interpret and carry out mathematical procedures with precision and fluency. Content is drawn from the Grade 8 clusters listed as targets below, with a much greater proportion from clusters the blueprint designates as priority (major) clusters. This Grade 8 reporting domain maps to 26 practice skills and 8 representative questions from the playable bank.

Grade 8Claim 126 mapped skills

Concepts and Procedures skills

Target A: Know that there are numbers that are not rational, and approximate them by rational numbers

Target B: Work with radicals and integer exponents

Target C: Understand the connections between proportional relationships, lines, and linear equations

Target D: Analyze and solve linear equations and pairs of simultaneous linear equations

Target E: Define, evaluate, and compare functions

Target F: Use functions to model relationships between quantities

Target G: Understand congruence and similarity using physical models, transparencies, or geometry software

Target H: Understand and apply the Pythagorean theorem

Target I: Solve real-world and mathematical problems involving volume of cylinders, cones, and spheres

Target J: Investigate patterns of association in bivariate data

Standards basis

Common Core State Standards for Mathematics (CCSS-M) — Delaware

How the DeSSA reports it

DeSSA mathematics is Delaware's administration of the actual Smarter Balanced summative assessment (Delaware is a Smarter Balanced member state): per the Delaware DOE, the test provider for grades 3-8 is the Smarter Balanced consortium, administered each spring via the DeSSA portal. The math test is organized into four claims with published assessment targets (Smarter Balanced Mathematics Content Specifications). Claim 1 (Concepts and Procedures) publishes per-grade assessment targets, each a verbatim CCSS-M cluster heading (e.g. grade 3 Target A is cluster 3.OA.A); Claims 2-4 are cross-cutting process claims whose targets are constant across grades and draw on the same grade-level content. On score reports, Claims 2 and 4 are combined into a single reporting category, so three claim scores accompany the overall math score. Delaware administers the Smarter Balanced math summative in grades 3-8 only; the high-school accountability test is the School Day SAT (grade 11, since 2011), which sits outside the Smarter Balanced blueprint and is covered by the separate SAT coverage map, so this file carries no High School band. (DeSSA stands for Delaware System of Student Assessments, per the DOE's official DeSSA calendar.)

Blueprint & weighting

Content Specifications (Reporting Categories section): the total mathematics score is a weighted composite of the four claims — Claim 1 (Concepts and Procedures) contributes roughly 50%, Claim 3 (Communicating Reasoning) roughly 25%, and combined Claims 2 and 4 (Problem Solving / Modeling and Data Analysis) about 25%. The summative blueprint (as of 2018-19) publishes item counts per test event rather than percentages: Claim 1 is 17-20 items in grades 3-5 and 16-20 in grades 6-8; the Claim 2/4 and Claim 3 reporting categories are 8-10 items each, totaling 18-20 across the two.

Official sources

Delaware Department of Education – Delaware Mathematics Assessments (grades 3-8 test provider is the Smarter Balanced consortium; high school uses the School Day SAT)
Delaware System of Student Assessments (DeSSA): 2025-2026 Calendar (Delaware DOE)
Smarter Balanced – Delaware member page

8 free questions · 0/0 correct

Practice playeasy

A rectangular prism has length $2$ , width $3$ , and height $4$ . What is its volume?

$V = 2 \times 3 \times 4 = 24$ .

Practice playeasy

What is the $y$ -intercept of the graph of $y = -3x + 22$ in the coordinate plane?

In $y = mx + b$ , the $y$ -intercept is the point $(0, b)$ . Here $b = 22$ , so the $y$ -intercept is $(0, 22)\textsf{.}$

Practice playeasy

$\sqrt{40}$ is between two consecutive integers. Enter the smaller one.

$6^2 = 36 < 40 < 49 = 7^2$ , so $\sqrt{40}$ is between $6$ and $7$ ; the smaller is $6$ .

Practice playeasy

Simplify: $y^{6} \cdot y^{3}$ .

The Product of Powers Property says that powers with the same base are multiplied by adding the exponents, written $y^{m} \cdot y^{n} = y^{m+n}\textsf{.}$ Both factors have base $y$ , so $y^{6} \cdot y^{3} = y^{6+3} = y^{9}\textsf{.}$

Practice playhard

Let $f(t) = 6e^{2t}$ . Which of the following approximations, written as $a \times 10^n$ with one significant digit, is closest to the value of $f(5)$ ?

Substitute $t = 5$ : $f(5) = 6e^{10}$ . Since $e^{10} \approx 22{,}026$ , $f(5) \approx 6(22{,}026) = 132{,}156 \approx 1 \times 10^{5}$ .

Practice playeasy

What is the $y$ -intercept of the line $y = \dfrac{3}{4}x - 7$ ?

In $y = mx + b$ , the $y$ -intercept is $b = -7$ .

Practice playeasy

Which system below has no solution?

Both equations have slope $-1$ but different $y$ -intercepts ( $6$ and $-2$ ), so the lines are parallel and the system has no solution.

Practice playmedium

In $\triangle MNO$ , $\angle M$ and $\angle O$ are congruent. The measure of $\angle N$ is $105.2^{\circ}$ . What is the measure of $\angle M$ ?

Each congruent angle is $\dfrac{180^{\circ} - 105.2^{\circ}}{2} = 37.4^{\circ}$ .

DeSSA Grade 8 Concepts and Procedures. Practice it free.

Concepts and Procedures skills

Target A: Know that there are numbers that are not rational, and approximate them by rational numbers

Target B: Work with radicals and integer exponents

Target C: Understand the connections between proportional relationships, lines, and linear equations

Target D: Analyze and solve linear equations and pairs of simultaneous linear equations

Target E: Define, evaluate, and compare functions

Target F: Use functions to model relationships between quantities

Target G: Understand congruence and similarity using physical models, transparencies, or geometry software

Target H: Understand and apply the Pythagorean theorem

Target I: Solve real-world and mathematical problems involving volume of cylinders, cones, and spheres

Target J: Investigate patterns of association in bivariate data

Topics mapped to this domain

Volume of prisms and cylinders

Y-intercept as a point

Irrational number approximations

Exponent rules

Evaluating exponential functions

Graphing linear equations

Inconsistent linear systems (ACT/SAT/PSAT 8/9/10)

Isosceles triangle angles

Linear Algebra Basics: Systems

Linear functions with an unknown constant

Modeling linear situations (ACT/SAT/PSAT 8/9/10)

Multi-step linear equations

8 free questions · 0/0 correct

Turn concepts and procedures into game time.