<p>can someone please explain to me this whole placement exam thing for Wash U? Is it you take a placement exam for every course that ur gonna take to test out of it? Is it required? Also, when are they usually administered and is there a period to study, or are we supposed to have studied before arriving?</p>
<p>There aren't that many placement tests - the only ones I can think of are english, math, and foreign languages. They're given the week you arrive on campus, before classes begin, so that you know which courses to register for. None of them are required, but (especially with foreign language) if you've learned any of it in high school, it's recommended to take them. If you do want to study for them, I'd recommend doing it before you come to washu - in my opinion it would only be worth it for the math exam, but maybe foreign language review wouldn't hurt. </p>
<p>The math exam determines which level of calculus you should take (I, II, or III), if you haven't already placed from AP exams. The foreign language exam is the same, but if you've taken a language through most of high school, you could test out of a lot of the language courses, so I wouldn't skip the placement exam. 100-level language courses seem easy, but are a pain if you already know the material, and a waste of time. The english exam is important for engineers, because we can skip the course entirely. From what I remember, if you're in another school, passing the exam allows you to take a higher-level english course instead of ecomp. </p>
<p>Hope that helped... feel free to ask if you have more questions!</p>
<p>ohh ic...can u comment at all on the levels of difficulty of these exams in general? is it similar to SAT II's? How long are the exams?</p>
<p>I don't know how difficult the foreign language exams are (I was placed by my AP score), but it should cover people who have just started the language up to almost fluent - so I would assume it has the potential to be difficult, but you wouldn't be expected to know it all. </p>
<p>The math exam I found relatively easy. It's different from the SAT IIs, because it covers calculus. It was available to take online, before you go to campus, and took maybe an hour? I found that the questions on topics we had covered in calc class weren't that difficult, but the questions on material not taught weren't something I'd know how to do. It just ended up verifying the placement that I had been given from the AP (that I could skip I and II, because those are covered by BC). </p>
<p>From what I remember about the english exam, you're supposed to write an essay, and you're given a couple hours. So sorta similar to the SAT II writing. Not really hard, just time consuming.</p>