SHHS Practice Exam

What is the first step in the scientific method?

Ask a question or identify a problem Form a hypothesis Conduct an experiment Analyze data

Correct Answer:

Ask a question or identify a problem

Explanation:

Curiosity starts the process by turning an observation into a focused, testable question. This step defines what you’re trying to learn and guides how you’ll design experiments, what data you’ll collect, and how you’ll evaluate results. Without a clear question, the rest of the work—forming a hypothesis, designing tests, gathering data, and analyzing outcomes—has no direction. So the first move is to pose a question or identify a problem based on what you’ve noticed. The next steps build on that question: you’d propose a hypothesis, design and run experiments to test it, collect data, and analyze what the results mean. But all of those follow from having a specific question to answer in the first place.

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