The first skill to master is not a calculation. It is choosing the correct booklet. New York now has two 20-page editions of the Reference Tables for Earth and Space Sciences (ESSRT) in circulation, while many search results and old review videos still teach the retired 16-page Earth Science Reference Tables (ESRT). Those booklets are not interchangeable.
Which reference tables should you use?
| Exam or purpose | Correct booklet | What the cover says |
|---|---|---|
| August 2026 Regents Examination in Earth and Space Sciences | 2024 Edition | 2024 EDITION |
| Classroom instruction beginning in the 2026-27 school year | 2026 Revised Edition | 2026 Revised EDITION |
| January 2027 and later Earth and Space Sciences Regents exams | 2026 Revised Edition | 2026 Revised EDITION |
| Archived Physical Setting/Earth Science practice only | 2011 Edition ESRT | Legacy 16-page packet |
NYSED's current reference-tables page is explicit: students taking the August 2026 Regents Examination in Earth and Space Sciences must use the 2024 Edition. The 2026 Revised Edition enters classrooms during 2026-27 and is first used on the January 2027 Regents exam.
The separate Physical Setting/Earth Science course used the 2011 ESRT. NYSED's June 2026 administration directions identify June 2026 as that exam's last administration. Use the 2011 packet only when working an archived legacy question that was written for it.
Download the exact booklet you need from NYSED: the 2024 Edition ESSRT for August 2026 or the 2026 Revised Edition ESSRT for January 2027 onward. Check the cover before every practice session.
What is in the current 20-page ESSRT?
The two current editions share the same major topics. The most important numbering change occurs in the middle of the booklet.
| Pages | Topic | What to practice |
|---|---|---|
| 2 | Solar-system data and massive-star nucleosynthesis | Match the requested object and property; read units before comparing values |
| 3 | Electromagnetic spectrum and stellar emission spectra | Follow the energy, frequency, and wavelength arrows; match line positions, not colors alone |
| 4 | H-R diagram | Read surface temperature, luminosity, spectral class, star group, and lifetime guides |
| 5 | Life cycles of stars | Trace the correct branch for Sun-like or massive stars |
| 6-7 | Geologic history of New York State | Align ages, periods, fossils, rock record, events, and inferred landmass positions |
| 8 | New York surface bedrock geology | Use the title, map key, rock pattern, and location together |
| 9 | New York energy and mineral resources | Separate resource symbols from bedrock or landscape information |
| 10 | New York geographic provinces and landscape regions | Distinguish province boundaries, landscape boundaries, and named regions |
| 11 | Earth's interior and surface-interior cross section | Identify depth, density, state, layers, and modeled tectonic features |
| 12 in 2024; 13 in 2026 | Global tectonic activity | Read the boundary key, arrows, plate names, volcanoes, earthquakes, and spreading rates |
| 15 in 2024; 12 in 2026 | Radiometric dating | Match isotope, daughter product, half-life, useful range, and datable material |
| 13-14 in 2024; 14-15 in 2026 | Igneous rocks and the rock cycle | Connect composition or process evidence to the correct chart path |
| 16-17 | Mineral identification flowchart and Mohs scale | Start at luster and follow only the branch supported by observations |
| 18 | Weather-map symbols | Decode station-model symbols, wind, clouds, weather, pressure trend, and fronts |
| 19 | Planetary wind belts and lower atmosphere | Use latitude, pressure belts, circulation cells, jet streams, and the seasonal-shift note |
| 20 | Surface ocean currents | Follow arrow direction and distinguish warm from cool currents using the key |
The 2026 revision also adds a selected-hotspots map on page 12. NYSED's guide to the 2026 revisions says the changes reflect educator feedback, scientific accuracy, and readability. That is why memorizing page numbers without checking the edition is a bad strategy.
The five-step method for any ESSRT question
Use the same routine whether the prompt asks about a star, a fossil, a mineral, a tectonic boundary, or a current.
- Underline the requested quantity or relationship. Is the question asking for a value, category, location, trend, process, or comparison?
- Choose the chart by its title. The table of contents is page 1. Do not flip randomly or trust an old memorized page number.
- Read the key, labels, and units. Check whether the scale is years or billions of years, kilometers or feet, wavelength or frequency, warm or cool, and 2024 or 2026.
- Trace one row, column, axis, branch, or map symbol at a time. Keep a finger or straightedge on the evidence so you do not drift into an adjacent entry.
- Answer in the prompt's terms. Include the requested unit and, for an explanation, connect a specific table value or diagram feature to the scientific claim.
This matters because the ESS Regents uses clustered storylines and evidence-based questions. NYSED describes the tables as tools for synthesizing maps, tables, graphs, and models to support claims and arguments—not as a booklet of direct answers to copy.
Astronomy: pages 2-5
Solar-system data
Read across one object's row and stop at the exact property named in the question. The table mixes several units: distance is in millions of kilometers, revolution may be in Earth days or Earth years, rotation may use days or hours, diameter is in kilometers, and axial tilt is in degrees.
A common trap is confusing rotation with revolution. Rotation is spin on an axis; revolution is motion around the Sun. Another trap is using the eccentricity column as if the formula were printed nearby. The current booklet provides orbital eccentricity values, but it does not contain the retired 2011 equations page.
Electromagnetic spectrum and emission lines
On page 3, frequency and energy increase in the same direction; wavelength increases in the opposite direction. For an emission-spectrum question, compare the horizontal positions of the lines. A matching element must reproduce the relevant line pattern, not merely one line or a general color.
H-R diagram
The H-R diagram's axes run in directions students often miss: luminosity rises upward, while surface temperature decreases from left to right. First place the star by both coordinates. Then read its region—main sequence, giant, supergiant, or white dwarf—and any nearby lifetime or radius guide. Do not classify from color alone.
On the 2026 revision, page 4 includes approximate temperature ranges for spectral classes beneath the diagram. Use the labels printed on your edition rather than importing values from a legacy chart.
Geologic time and New York maps: pages 6-10
Pages 6-7 are dense because several columns share one time axis. Begin with the age or interval in the question, draw an imaginary horizontal line across the page, and read only the columns that the prompt names. If the question asks for a New York event, do not answer from the worldwide life-history column. If it asks for an index fossil, use the fossil range and the chart key.
Pages 8, 9, and 10 are three different New York maps: bedrock geology, energy and mineral resources, and geographic provinces/landscape regions. A place can appear on all three maps but answer three different questions. Read the map title first, then its key, boundary styles, and scale.
Earth's interior, tectonics, and hotspots
Page 11 contains two models. The interior-structure model supplies layer depths, density ranges, and physical state. The generalized cross section shows relationships among plates, ridges, faults, trenches, volcanoes, hotspots, lithosphere, asthenosphere, mantle, and core. Choose the model that contains the evidence the question requests.
The global tectonic map is page 12 in the 2024 Edition and page 13 in the 2026 revision. Use the legend before interpreting any line or arrow: plate boundaries, spreading rates, volcanoes, and earthquake patterns are different marks. The selected-hotspots map appears only in the 2026 revision, on page 12 beneath the radiometric-dating table.
Radiometric dating: values depend on the edition
The workflow is always the same: select an isotope appropriate for the material and likely age, read its daughter product and half-life, and confirm that the sample falls within the listed useful dating range.
Some official values changed between editions:
| Isotope | 2024 Edition | 2026 Revised Edition |
|---|---|---|
| Carbon-14 | 5,730 years | 5,730 years |
| Potassium-40 | 1.3 billion years | 1.3 billion years |
| Uranium-235 | 713 million years | 703 million years |
| Uranium-238 | 4.5 billion years | 4.5 billion years |
| Rubidium-87 | 48.8 billion years | 49.7 billion years |
| Samarium-147 | 106 billion years | 106 billion years |
For example, one-quarter of the original parent isotope remaining means two half-lives have passed: 1 becomes 1/2, then 1/4. Multiply the half-life printed in your booklet by two. The reasoning is stable; the source value can be edition-specific.
Igneous rocks, the rock cycle, and minerals
The igneous page combines Bowen's reaction series with a composition chart. Read it vertically for crystallization sequence and horizontally for the felsic-to-ultramafic composition trend. Use the labeled minerals, rock types, and temperature direction; do not guess a rock name from color alone.
On the rock-cycle infographic, follow arrowheads before reading process labels. A process such as melting, crystallization, weathering and erosion, deposition, lithification, heat and pressure, uplift, or burial tells you how material changes or moves. The arrow direction is part of the answer.
For mineral identification, start at luster. Then follow the branch supported by the specimen's properties: hardness, cleavage or fracture, streak, acid reaction, magnetism, taste, color, or other listed observations. The Mohs scale is a comparison tool: a harder mineral scratches a softer one. Never jump directly to a mineral name after one property when the flowchart requires another test.
Weather and ocean circulation: pages 18-20
Page 18 is a symbol key. Match the exact symbol for wind speed and direction, cloud cover, visibility, present weather, pressure trend, fronts, or precipitation. The station model shows where each value belongs, and the pressure examples show how coded sea-level pressure is expanded.
Page 19 joins a global wind-belt model with a cross section of the lower atmosphere. Track latitude first, then pressure belts, prevailing winds, circulation cells, the intertropical convergence zone, and jet streams. The page warns that the patterns shift seasonally, so treat the diagram as a generalized model.
Page 20 maps surface ocean currents. Follow the arrows and the warm/cool-current key. A current's name alone does not establish its direction, and nearby currents can flow opposite ways.
Retired 2011 tools that are not in the current ESSRT
The 20-page 2024 and 2026 booklets do not contain the old equations page, P-wave and S-wave travel-time graph, stream particle-size/velocity graph, dewpoint table, or relative-humidity table. They also reorganize rock, mineral, weather, astronomy, and geologic-history references.
Those concepts may still appear in instruction or in a question's own stimulus, but do not waste exam time searching the current booklet for a chart that is not there. When an archived question explicitly refers to the 2011 ESRT, solve it with the 2011 packet and label it as legacy practice.
For a broader explanation of the course and exam change, read our Earth and Space Sciences transition guide.
A 30-minute ESSRT drill
- Five minutes: read page 1 and name the page for each major topic.
- Ten minutes: choose five prompts and locate the correct chart, key, and units without answering yet.
- Ten minutes: answer five chart-based questions, writing the exact evidence used.
- Five minutes: log errors as wrong edition, wrong chart, wrong row or axis, missed key, missed unit, or reasoning error.
Official sources
Use NYSED's Earth and Space Sciences assessment page for current exam materials, the reference-tables page for edition rules, the 2024 ESSRT page for August 2026, and NYSED's explanation of the 2026 revision for January 2027 onward.
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