Earth Science Regents Retired: What Replaced It in 2026

The Regents Examination in Physical Setting/Earth Science was administered for the last time in June 2026. From the next administration onward, the only Earth-science Regents exam New York offers is the Regents Examination in Earth and Space Sciences, which was first administered in June 2025 and is aligned to the New York State P-12 Science Learning Standards rather than the 1996 standards. NYSED ran the two exams side by side for four administrations — June 2025, August 2025, January 2026, and June 2026 — so that students could sit the exam matching the instruction they received. That overlap window is now closed.

If you are working from a review book, a teacher's shared drive, or a practice site that still says "Physical Setting/Earth Science," you are preparing for an exam that no longer exists.

What actually changed

Feature	Physical Setting/Earth Science (retired)	Earth and Space Sciences (current)
Standards	1996 MST standards	New York State P-12 Science Learning Standards
Question organization	Independent questions, plus short grouped sets	9-11 phenomenon-based clusters, each with an introduction and multiple stimuli
Question count	Fixed structure across parts	45-55 questions; varies by form because cluster length varies
Item types	Multiple choice plus short constructed response	About 60% multiple choice, about 40% constructed response, all 1 credit each
Time	Three hours	Three hours
Reference tables	Earth Science Reference Tables	2024 Edition Reference Tables for Earth and Space Sciences
Last / first administration	Last: June 2026	First: June 2025

The cluster format is the change that matters most

Every question on the new exam sits inside a cluster that follows an assessment storyline. A cluster opens with an introduction telling you how many questions belong to it, then gives several stimuli — a map, a data table, a graph, a photograph, a reading passage — and then asks questions that draw on one or more of them. Each answer can add to a developing explanation, model, or design solution, so the third question in a cluster often depends on reasoning you established in the first.

NYSED states plainly that the number of stimuli and the scale of real-world source material will likely be greater than what students experienced on prior science Regents exams. In practice that shifts where your time goes. On the retired exam you could skim a question, answer it, and move on. On this one, the reading at the top of a cluster is a fixed cost you pay once and recover across four or five questions — and skimming it is how students lose a whole cluster rather than a single item.

Human sustainability went from a closing unit to a third of the exam

The published blueprint gives percent ranges rather than fixed counts: Space Systems 20-31%, Earth's Systems 20-31%, Human Sustainability 20-31%, History of Earth 11-20%, Weather and Climate 11-20%, and Engineering, Technology, and the Applications of Science 3-9%.

Human Sustainability sitting level with Space Systems and Earth's Systems is the single largest content shift. Resource use, natural-hazard mitigation, climate response, groundwater depletion, and the trade-offs between engineered and nature-based solutions are now core assessed content, not a unit taught in June if there is time. Older review material built for the retired course systematically under-weights it.

The three-dimensional design is the other structural change. Every question draws on a science and engineering practice, a disciplinary core idea, and a crosscutting concept at once, which is why the items ask you to analyze data, construct an explanation, or evaluate a design rather than to recall a definition.

Scoring: the number that trips students up

The passing mark is a scale score of 65, which is Level 3 on a five-level scale — the level NYSED says meets the content area requirements for a Regents diploma. It is not 65 percent of the credits.

Administration	Raw credits for a scale score of 65	Out of
June 2025	23	50
August 2025	21	50
January 2026	24	50
June 2026	21	50

On the June 2026 form, 21 raw credits out of a maximum of 50 converted to a 65, and 37 converted to an 85. NYSED publishes a fresh conversion chart on the day of each administration and warns that a chart from a previous administration must never be used, because the raw-to-scale mapping changes from one form to the next. Every published form so far has required fewer than half the credits to pass, which is worth knowing before you decide a constructed-response question is not worth attempting.

What has not changed

Three hours, same as before. Each student is still provided a four-function or scientific calculator for exclusive use during the entire examination, and graphing calculators are still not permitted. A clean copy of the reference tables is still supplied by the school rather than bought or brought, though it is now the 2024 Edition Reference Tables for Earth and Space Sciences. The communications-device rule is unchanged and absolute: possession or use of any device, however briefly, invalidates the examination.

Admission requirements are unchanged too. A student must have met the 1,200-minute laboratory requirement, and a course aligned to the Earth and Space Sciences standards counts as a physical science course under the diploma regulations.

What to do about it

Stop practising with retired Physical Setting papers as if they were mock exams. The underlying science overlaps heavily and they are still useful for content drilling, but their format no longer matches the paper you will sit, and their weighting under-represents roughly a third of it.

Use the released Earth and Space Sciences forms instead. NYSED publishes the complete booklet, scoring key, rating guide, and conversion chart for every administration since June 2025, which is four authentic full-length exams with official marking guidance. Sit one under real conditions and score it against the rating guide — that is the fastest way to find out what a scorer actually accepts on a constructed-response item.