<p>I was thinking about the initial post some more overnight, and I realize it reflects a fundamental misunderstanding of the purpose of the placement test.</p>
<p>Here’s an analogy. Suppose someone takes a heart stress test. They have to walk on a treadmill, or ride an exercise bike, and the machines measure how their heart is doing. If the test says the heart isn’t doing so well, the person wouldn’t respond, “But I was forced to WALK three miles. When I need to go three miles, I don’t walk! I drive! Why weren’t we allowed to use cars?!” That’s so beside the point.</p>
<p>And it’s the same for the placement test. If I wanted to know the square root of 95, I’d use a calculator. But I <em>can</em> figure out a pretty good estimate for the square root of 95 by hand-- actually with Newton’s method I can figure out a very good estimate-- if I need to, and that’s one indication that I know enough math to take college level math classes.</p>