A few years ago, I decided to go back to school and earn a degree in Art Education. I had always had a love of art history, drawing and photography. While pursuing my degree, I had many checkpoints that I had to meet. Among them were my Core Subjects Praxis test and the more specialized Art: Content Knowledge (5134) Praxis art exam.
While the Core Subject Praxis just made sure that I could read, write and add at an acceptable level, the Praxis Art Content Knowledge exam was much more involved. I spent my teen years in rural Alabama and did not have access to any type of art classes or art programs through my school. There was also no YouTube back in my high school days so self-taught art knowledge was hard to come by. Despite this, I did draw and paint on my own. I watched Bob Ross, purchased drawing books and did my best to draw the things that I saw around me. Fast-forward many years ahead and I found myself going back to school in my 30s with very little formal art education or training.
Knowing what I was up against, I came up with a plan that I thought would work well for me as a prepared for my Praxis art test. Below, I have listed four things that I did to get ready for my Praxis Art Content Knowledge exam.
I Learned What Topics Would Be on the Praxis Art Exam
As I began to study for the test, I honestly felt overwhelmed. Based on what my professors had told me I knew that I needed to know every kind of art medium and every major artist, from prehistoric times to the present. That is a lot of information to cover!
Thankfully, I found a list of specific topics to study on the Praxis website. This guide was a complete list of specific study topics that I could look at. This really helped me as I was floundering with information overload up to this point. The study guide was also helpful because it showed what percentage of the test each study category would represent on the exam.
You can find the study guide here: https://www.ets.org/praxis/prepare/materials/5134
I Found Out Where I Stood with My Art Knowledge
Shortly after finding the study guide, I stumbled across a couple of different practice test websites. These website are geared specifically towards prepping students for all sorts of certification testing. While I did use the practice test found on the ETS website, I wanted to make sure that had a bigger variety of practice questions. I chose to use the ExamEdge website to test myself. Over the course of my studying, I took several practice tests using their site (tests are available to be purchased in a bundle).
To begin, I gave myself a “pre-test” to see how I would fare on the exam. The results were not good, but it let me see where my weaknesses were. Once I knew where I stood, I began to study and I would periodically take more practice tests to gauge if my scores were improving.
ExamEdge’s art-related practice tests can be found here: https://www.examedge.com/praxis/art/
I Came Up with a Study Plan for the Praxis Art Exam
Through my scores on my “pre-test” and going through the study guide I mentioned above, I started to realize what topics were more urgent for me to study. Using the ETS-provided study guide, I went through it and highlighted topics that were urgent for me to learn with a pink highlighter. I went back and highlighted the less urgent topics with a yellow highlighter. This gave me a realistic list of topics to start studying.
At this point, I printed out the study companion for the Praxis art exam that I found on the ETS website. This study companion listed all study topics along with columns for filling in dates to study, resource listings and ratings for how well I knew the topics. Filling out this study companion gave me a legit skeleton for my study plans and really helped me to get organized.
The study companion can be found on the ETS website: https://www.ets.org/praxis/prepare/materials/5134
I Found Helpful Study Resources
I have already listed a few of the tools that I used to study: practice tests, the ETS study guide and the study companion. In addition to these tools, there were several more things that I used that I found to be incredibly helpful:
- The Annotated Mona Lisa – This is a book that I bought off of Amazon to help me cram for the art history portion of the test. If you get nothing else I list here, buy this book! Several questions that I had on my Praxis art exam appeared to have come directly out of this book.
- Otis College’s Art History Playlist – This is a YouTube playlist that covers all major art periods from prehistoric art to today’s art. The videos are concise which makes viewing all of them much easier to manage.
- Quizlet – I used the Quizlet website to make flashcards for myself. This is a neat site because you can easily click a few buttons and change your Quizlet around from flashcards to a fill-in-the-blank format.
- MoMA Learn – The Museum of Modern Art has a great part of their website where one can go and read about all types of art and artists. Basically, it is like an online art dictionary.
- College-Level Art History courses – I took Art History 1 and 2 in the semesters before taking my Praxis. This one takes planning because you must sign up at least 2 semester before your exam. However, if you have the time this will help you immensely with brushing up on all relevant art history topics before it is test time.
Conclusion
I hope that this article has helped you to feel less intimidated about taking your Praxis Art (5134) exam. Please feel free to add any helpful information that you may have by dropping in a comment, below. Be sure to get a good night’s sleep the night before your exam and then go out there and smash that Praxis art test!
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If you’ve passed your Praxis art test, you may want to begin thinking about what your first day teaching will look like. Click here for the article.
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