<p>Yardim, I think your problem is that you are fixated on the “remedial” requirement – that is not related to admission or your son’s ability to do well in college. </p>
<p>Your son can get accepted to a Cal State U. and can meet the requirement in a number of ways. See: [CSU</a> English Success: English Placement Test](<a href=“http://www.csumathsuccess.org/ept_requirement]CSU”>http://www.csumathsuccess.org/ept_requirement)</p>
<p>One way appears to be to answer 15 optional multiple choice questions on the STAR testing that will be given to all juniors this spring; see:
[CSU</a> English Success: Early Assessment Program](<a href=“http://www.csumathsuccess.org/eap_esw]CSU”>http://www.csumathsuccess.org/eap_esw)</p>
<p>Another would be for him to enroll in an appropriate English class in community college course and get a grade of C or better. With your son’s high grades, I’ll bet he could do this easily. Check the evening and summer classes at your local community college; also I know that there are some online community college classes that can be taken for transfer credit to the CSU’s. </p>
<p>Your son can also take an English Placement test at a CSU at any time during his senior year:
[CSU</a> English Success: English Placement Test](<a href=“http://www.csumathsuccess.org/ept]CSU”>http://www.csumathsuccess.org/ept)</p>
<p>This test can only be taken once, so he would want to use the links for test preparation materials first to practice and familiarize himself with the testing. </p>
<p>Keep in mind that the goal of this requirement is to ensure that your son can write well enough to meet expectations in other classes, so even though it is frustrating, overall it will benefit him to take the suggested community college course or to take the remedial courses offered at the CSU. I do think the fact that you do not speak English at home is probably a factor – your son probably does not have the intuitive understanding of English grammar that native English speakers have. Standardized tests have questions that are deliberately designed to trip people up over minor errors that might not be apparent or stand out in other contexts, so it is quite likely he will do just fine in a class that focuses on overall ability rather than a administration of a multiple-choice type test. </p>
<p>On the SAT or ACT, there will always be questions that ask the student to pick out the “best” choice of phrasing, where the test is set up so there is always at least one answer that is “wrong” but close enough to being right that it will lead many students to choose it. If they didn’t design the tests that way, the tests would be too easy – but the same sort of mistakes that bring your son’s test scores down may be so trivial in real life that teachers are likely to overlook them, or note a correction without grading down for the error.</p>