A city plans to saw in two a steel piece that it bought from a living sculptor, to fit a new plaza. Which right does the Visual Artists Rights Act give the author of a work of visual art?17 U.S.C. 106A, Rights of certain authors to attribution and integrity, Legal Information Institute copy. Framework section: Competency 0001, Artistic Processes, performance indicator e
A printmaker signs and numbers each impression of an edition. Up to what size does a limited edition still count as a "work of visual art" under the Copyright Act?17 U.S.C. 101, definition of "work of visual art", Legal Information Institute copy. Framework section: Competency 0001, Artistic Processes, performance indicator e
A printmaker wants broad areas of tone, like a wash, in an intaglio print instead of lines alone. Which technique is made for that?Tate, Art Terms, "Aquatint". Framework section: Competency 0001, Artistic Processes, performance indicator b
A sculpture is designed for one riverside wall and draws on its light and its history. What does calling the work "site-specific" imply about moving it?Tate, Art Terms, "Site-specific". Framework section: Competency 0001, Artistic Processes, performance indicator c
Show all 48 questions (44 more)
Artistic processes, continued
A student wants water-based paint that covers flat and solid, so that the white of the paper does not show through. Which medium fits?Tate, Art Terms, "Gouache". Framework section: Competency 0001, Artistic Processes, performance indicator b
A teacher of grade 4 checks a new box of markers. Which label statement does the CPSC Art and Craft Safety Guide tell buyers to look for, with no cautionary warnings beside it?U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission, Art and Craft Safety Guide. Framework section: Competency 0001, Artistic Processes, performance indicator d
An artist bolts together a chair leg, bottle caps and a bicycle chain scavenged from the street into one three-dimensional work. What is this way of making art called?Tate, Art Terms, "Assemblage". Framework section: Competency 0001, Artistic Processes, performance indicator c
At which stage of drying is a clay pot still visibly damp, yet firm enough to be handled, incised and have a handle added?Wikipedia, "Leather-hard". Framework section: Competency 0001, Artistic Processes, performance indicator b
Federal law lets the Consumer Product Safety Commission go to court to stop the purchase of art materials that must carry a chronic hazard label when they are for use by which children?15 U.S.C. 1277(f), Labeling of art materials, Legal Information Institute copy. Framework section: Competency 0001, Artistic Processes, performance indicator d
New York's visual arts standards sort eleven anchor standards under four artistic processes. Which process holds Anchor Standards 1 to 3, with components such as Investigate, Plan, Make, Reflect and Refine?New York State Education Department, New York State Learning Standards for the Arts: Visual Arts At-A-Glance (2017). Framework section: Competency 0001, Artistic Processes, performance indicator a
Students lay leaves and keys on light-sensitive paper, expose it to light and develop a print with white silhouettes. What is this camera-less image called?Tate, Art Terms, "Photogram". Framework section: Competency 0001, Artistic Processes, performance indicator b
Why can the block for a linocut be cut more easily than a block of wood, and in any direction?Tate, Art Terms, "Linocut". Framework section: Competency 0001, Artistic Processes, performance indicator b
Visual literacy 12
A class studies souvenir figurines and greeting-card sunsets as visual culture. Which word, from the German for trash, is used for popular and commercial culture at its most cheap, vulgar and sentimental?Tate, Art Terms, "Kitsch". Framework section: Competency 0002, Visual Literacy, performance indicator d
A figure lying with its feet toward the viewer is drawn with huge soles and a short, compressed body, so that it seems to extend back into space. What is this technique?Tate, Art Terms, "Foreshortening". Framework section: Competency 0002, Visual Literacy, performance indicator b
A marble figure rests most of its weight on one foot, and the shoulders and arms turn away from the line of the hips and legs. What is this pose called?Wikipedia, "Contrapposto". Framework section: Competency 0002, Visual Literacy, performance indicator a
A painting of the 1960s uses nothing but black and white geometric forms, yet the surface seems to ripple and flicker. Which development in painting is this?Tate, Art Terms, "Op art". Framework section: Competency 0002, Visual Literacy, performance indicator b
A painting sets a lit face against a deep black room, and the pattern of light and shade carries the drama. Which Italian term names this balance of light and dark?Tate, Art Terms, "Chiaroscuro". Framework section: Competency 0002, Visual Literacy, performance indicator a
A student cuts photographs from magazines and joins them so that a banquet table sits beside an empty shelf. What is a collage constructed from photographs called?Tate, Art Terms, "Photomontage". Framework section: Competency 0002, Visual Literacy, performance indicator c
In an Egyptian tomb painting the tomb's owner is drawn several times larger than his servants. Which approach to visual organization is this?Wikipedia, "Hierarchical proportion". Framework section: Competency 0002, Visual Literacy, performance indicator b
In color theory, what is a tint?Wikipedia, "Tint, shade and tone". Framework section: Competency 0002, Visual Literacy, performance indicator a
In traditional illusionistic painting, the viewer seems to look through a window into a scene. What is the "glass" of that notional window, the actual physical surface of the painting, called?Tate, Art Terms, "Picture plane". Framework section: Competency 0002, Visual Literacy, performance indicator a
Marcel Duchamp took manufactured objects, a bicycle wheel, a snow shovel, and presented them as works of art. What did he call such works?Tate, Art Terms, "Readymade". Framework section: Competency 0002, Visual Literacy, performance indicator a
On a stage, red, green and blue spotlights overlap on a white wall, and the patch where all three meet looks white. Which kind of color mixing is this?Wikipedia, "Additive color". Framework section: Competency 0002, Visual Literacy, performance indicator a
Students redraw a well-known billboard so that its own slogan argues against buying the product. What is this form of protest, which subverts media culture and corporate advertising, called?Wikipedia, "Culture jamming". Framework section: Competency 0002, Visual Literacy, performance indicator d
Historical and cultural context 12
A poster of the 1890s is all sinuous line and flowing, organic shape, drawn from the forms of plants. Which international style is this?Tate, Art Terms, "Art nouveau". Framework section: Competency 0003, Historical and Cultural Context, performance indicator a
Adinkra are stamped on fabrics and worked into pottery, walls and carved stools. What are they?Wikipedia, "Adinkra symbols". Framework section: Competency 0003, Historical and Cultural Context, performance indicator e
African and Caribbean students in Paris founded an anti-colonial movement in the 1930s, influenced by the Harlem Renaissance, to reclaim the value of blackness and African culture. What was it called?Tate, Art Terms, "Négritude". Framework section: Competency 0003, Historical and Cultural Context, performance indicator c
Delftware is Dutch tin-glazed earthenware, most of it blue and white. Which imported ware did Dutch potters begin to imitate after 1620, when its supply to Europe was interrupted?Wikipedia, "Delftware". Framework section: Competency 0003, Historical and Cultural Context, performance indicator c
The International Exhibition of Modern Art opened at the 69th Regiment Armory in New York in February 1913. What place does this Armory Show hold in American art history?Wikipedia, "Armory Show". Framework section: Competency 0003, Historical and Cultural Context, performance indicator c
The Pantheon in Rome is roofed by a coffered dome with a central opening to the sky. What is the dome made of, and what is the opening called?Wikipedia, "Pantheon, Rome". Framework section: Competency 0003, Historical and Cultural Context, performance indicator a
Sculptures of the Buddha from the ancient region of Gandhara show wavy hair and draped robes. Which two traditions meet in this art?Wikipedia, "Greco-Buddhist art". Framework section: Competency 0003, Historical and Cultural Context, performance indicator c
The term "New York school" came into use in the 1940s. What did it describe?Tate, Art Terms, "New York school". Framework section: Competency 0003, Historical and Cultural Context, performance indicator b
Trade with Japan reopened in the 1850s, and Japanese art and design became a craze in the West. Which French term names that craze?Tate, Art Terms, "Japonisme". Framework section: Competency 0003, Historical and Cultural Context, performance indicator c
The Venus of Willendorf is a figurine about 11 centimetres tall, carved in limestone and tinted with red ochre. To which period does it belong?Wikipedia, "Venus of Willendorf". Framework section: Competency 0003, Historical and Cultural Context, performance indicator b
What did the painters of the Ashcan School, led by Robert Henri, set out to depict in the early twentieth century?Tate, Art Terms, "Ashcan School". Framework section: Competency 0003, Historical and Cultural Context, performance indicator b
Which name is given to the nineteenth-century North American landscape painters, Thomas Cole and Frederic Edwin Church among them, who painted scenes of natural beauty in places such as the Catskill Mountains?Tate, Art Terms, "Hudson River school". Framework section: Competency 0003, Historical and Cultural Context, performance indicator a
Art criticism, integration and community engagement 12
A painting shows a blindfolded woman holding scales, and the figure stands for justice. What is it called when an artwork's subject stands for a deeper moral or spiritual meaning?Tate, Art Terms, "Allegory". Framework section: Competency 0004, Art Criticism, Integration, and Community Engagement, performance indicator a
A student prepares prints for a juried show and labels each one 4/25, 5/25 and so on. What is the series of identical impressions made from the same printing surface called?Tate, Art Terms, "Edition". Framework section: Competency 0004, Art Criticism, Integration, and Community Engagement, performance indicator f
A teacher plans a trip to a large international art exhibition that is held every two years. What is such an exhibition called?Tate, Art Terms, "Biennial". Framework section: Competency 0004, Art Criticism, Integration, and Community Engagement, performance indicator e
A town requires that a share of the cost of each new public building, usually around one percent, be spent on commissioning art for it. What is this policy called?Wikipedia, "Percent for art". Framework section: Competency 0004, Art Criticism, Integration, and Community Engagement, performance indicator e
An art teacher and an English teacher plan a unit in which students write poems that describe a painting. What is a written description of an artwork, whether the work exists or is imagined, called?Wikipedia, "Ekphrasis". Framework section: Competency 0004, Art Criticism, Integration, and Community Engagement, performance indicator c
In a critique, a student writes: "The quilt was sewn in a farm community where worn work clothes were the only cloth to hand." Which stage of the critical process, as the test framework lists them, is this?NYSTCE Field 167: Visual Arts Test Design and Framework, June 2019. Framework section: Competency 0004, Art Criticism, Integration, and Community Engagement, performance indicator b
In New York's visual arts standards, students Select, Preserve, Curate, Share and Relate. To which artistic process do these components belong?New York State Education Department, New York State Learning Standards for the Arts: Visual Arts At-A-Glance (2017). Framework section: Competency 0004, Art Criticism, Integration, and Community Engagement, performance indicator f
Later the same student writes: "The empty chair at the table suggests that someone in the family has died." Which stage of the critical process is this?New York State Education Department, New York State Learning Standards for the Arts: Visual Arts At-A-Glance (2017). Framework section: Competency 0004, Art Criticism, Integration, and Community Engagement, performance indicator b
Students frame drawings for the hallway. What is the thin, flat piece of paper-based material placed between the picture and the frame, which protects the picture and changes how it looks?Wikipedia, "Mat (picture framing)". Framework section: Competency 0004, Art Criticism, Integration, and Community Engagement, performance indicator f
Which artistic process in New York's visual arts standards asks students to relate artistic ideas and works with societal, cultural and historical context?New York State Education Department, New York State Learning Standards for the Arts: Visual Arts At-A-Glance (2017). Framework section: Competency 0004, Art Criticism, Integration, and Community Engagement, performance indicator c
Which branch of philosophy asks what beauty is and what taste is?Tate, Art Terms, "Aesthetics". Framework section: Competency 0004, Art Criticism, Integration, and Community Engagement, performance indicator a
Which museum professional is responsible for carrying out the policies and procedures for the care of the collection, such as accessioning objects and keeping their records?Wikipedia, "Registrar (cultural property)". Framework section: Competency 0004, Art Criticism, Integration, and Community Engagement, performance indicator d
How this list was compiled: Our own questions, written to the four selected-response competencies of the NYSTCE Field 167: Visual Arts Test Design and Framework, June 2019 (https://www.nystce.nesinc.com/content/docs/NY167_OBJ_FINAL.pdf, read 2026-10-14): Artistic Processes; Visual Literacy; Historical and Cultural Context; and Art Criticism, Integration, and Community Engagement, each 22 or 23 of the 90 selected-response items. The bank holds 12 for each, 48 in all. Every fact was read on 2026-10-14 in the public page the question names: Tate's glossary of art terms, the New York State Learning Standards for the Arts, Visual Arts At-A-Glance (2017), the Copyright Act (17 U.S.C. 101 and 106A) and the art materials labeling law (15 U.S.C. 1277) in the Legal Information Institute's copies, the U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission's Art and Craft Safety Guide, and Wikipedia articles that carried no warning banner that day. Two questions on the stages of criticism rest on the framework's own list of the stages. Licence: Questions, choices and explanations are original work of this site.
How it works
This CST Visual Arts practice test online is free: 48 questions of our own for New York's test 167. It is unofficial and not affiliated with, endorsed by or sponsored by the New York State Education Department or Pearson.
Read the full guide
What the questions cover
The framework of June 2019 gives 22 or 23 of the 90 selected-response items to each of four competencies: artistic processes; visual literacy; historical and cultural context; art criticism, integration and community engagement. This bank gives each 12, from printmaking and studio safety law to the Hudson River school and the stages of criticism.
A study guide in the answers
Each answer names its source: Tate's glossary of art terms, New York's visual arts standards, the federal law on art materials and on artists' rights.
Timing
Timed, the 48 questions take 72 minutes, the pace of 90 in 135. A written response on teaching carries 20% of the real score and is not marked here.
Learn the framework's words for contemporary work too: juxtaposition, appropriation, re-contextualization, hybridity. It sets them beside the elements and principles.
Questions and answers
Is there a NYSTCE Visual Arts study guide?
The NYSTCE site has a study guide for the test with its framework and sample questions. This page is not that guide: it is separate, unofficial practice, and each answer links a public page to study from.
What score passes the Visual Arts CST?
New York's page for the test gives 520 as the passing score, on a scale and not as a number of questions. A count of right answers here does not convert to it.
Does the Visual Arts CST use a headset?
Yes. The test's own page says the test includes the use of a headset. Nothing on this page plays sound, so every question here is read.