Should I Study for Praxis 5001 or 5205 and 5903? A Teacher’s Real Guide
Last Tuesday, my younger sister Lila showed up at my kitchen door at 7:30pm, half a blueberry muffin in one hand, a crumpled sticky note in the other, her 7 year old’s soccer cleats still slung over her shoulder. She’s been a paraeducator at our local elementary for four years, working with 2nd graders who need extra reading support, and she’s finally gearing up to finish her license and apply for a full-time classroom job this fall. The first hurdle? The Praxis. She’d spent three nights scrolling teacher Facebook groups and ended up more confused than when she started: should she study for 5001, study for 5205 and 5903, or even both?
I pulled my old junk drawer open, dug past rubber bands and expired coupons and found the faded manila folder I’d stuffed my own Praxis score reports in back when I got my license six years ago. There was a coffee stain blurring the bottom of my 5001 score sheet, and I tapped the math section where I’d missed passing by 8 points. I told her I’d been exactly where she was, so I walked her through what I’ve learned from my own experience and from the dozen or so student teachers I’ve mentored through this process over the last few years.
First thing I made her do right there at my kitchen table was pull up our state’s Department of Education licensure page. I’ve seen too many people waste weeks studying the wrong tests because they took a random stranger’s advice in a Facebook group instead of checking the source. Not every state accepts 5205 and 5903 as a replacement for the full combined 5001. Some require the full multiple subjects 5001 for elementary licensure, no exceptions. If your state doesn’t accept the split tests, your decision is made for you: study for 5001. That’s that.
Turns out our state does accept either option, so we got to talk through what fits her life. To break it down simply: 5001 is the combined Elementary Education Multiple Subjects test. It covers all the required core content (reading, writing, math, social studies, science) in one 4.5 hour sitting, costs around $130, and only requires one test appointment and one block of childcare. 5205 and 5903 are the split versions: 5205 covers just reading and language arts, 5903 covers just math. Each is a separate 2-hour test, costs about $80 apiece, so $160 total, and you take them on separate days.
Lila marked her calendar on her phone, counting the Saturdays she could get childcare between now and when she needs her scores back for her application. She can only get one Saturday off a month, because her husband works every other weekend, and she can’t leave three kids with a sitter for two separate test days. That alone pushed her toward 5001, but we talked about other factors too. If you get test fatigue easily, if you freeze up after a couple hours of sitting and answering multiple choice, or you can only focus on one big chunk of content at a time, the split tests are almost always the better call. I mentored a student teacher last semester who has ADHD, and she tried to study for 5001 first, got overwhelmed trying to juggle five content areas, switched to splitting them, passed 5205 first try in March, then 5903 in April, and walked into her first job in August no problem. For her, the extra $30 was worth it to not burn out halfway through a 4.5 hour test.
So when would you ever need to study for both? That’s the question everyone forgets to ask, but it comes up more often than you think. When I took 5001 the first time, I passed all the sections except math. Instead of signing up to retake the entire 5001 (and restudy all the content I’d already passed), I just studied for 5903, the standalone math test, and used that passing score to meet my state’s requirement. Most states let you mix and match passing scores from different Praxis tests, so if you fail one section of 5001, you don’t have to retake the whole thing. You just study for the standalone version of that section (5205 for reading/writing, 5903 for math) and you’re good. That’s the only common scenario where studying for both makes sense: you started with 5001, passed most of it, just need to make up one section with the split test.
I’ve had a few people ask if taking both gives you a better shot at passing, but that’s almost never necessary. It just costs more money and doubles your study load. If you’re starting from scratch, pick the option that fits your schedule, your budget, and how you test best, that’s all you need. If you end up failing a section, you can always pivot to the split test later, no harm done.
Lila left that night with my old 5001 study guide tucked under her arm, the sticky note with test numbers stuck to her phone case. She booked her test for mid-June, and she’s doing one full-length practice test every other Saturday to build up her stamina for the long sitting, instead of just studying one section at a time. She texts me a screenshot of her practice scores every week, and so far she’s hitting the passing mark on every section. It’s still a couple weeks out, and she’s still staying up until 10pm going over flashcards after the kids go to bed, but she picked the option that works for her life, not what some random person online said she should do. That’s already more than most people get right the first time around.
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