Placement exams

Colleges and Universities A-Z Pomona College
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<p>I was wondering if you could place out of the foreign language requirement through the placement exams. Since Pomona doesn't accept the SATII Chinese test, I was wondering if I could forgo taking more language classes if I pass the upper division Chinese placement test, or will I simply br eligible to take more advanced classes.</p>

<p>Also, are students allowed to use calculators for the Math placement exams? And what math placement do most students go for? I was checking out the course catalogs and many economic classes require Math 30 as a prerequisite. However, what if you place out of Math 30 and go directly for Math 31 or Math 32 (I took AP Calc this year)? Will that be a problem?</p>

<p>Last question, how popular is General chemistry? I don't see a point of taking the placement test if I'm not going to take the class. However, the new student guidebook recommends general chemistry as a means of completing the Breadth of Study requirements. I'm not sure if I want to take a two-semester course on a subject I'm not interested in though. As a person who has little interest at majoring in the natural sciences, what are some courses I could/should take to meet the Breadth of Study requirement for sciences? Thanks again.</p>

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<p>I believe the requirement is that you have an intermediate-level command of a foreign language in order to graduate, which corresponds to the 3rd course in Pomona terms, so yes, you can pass out of Chinese if you do well enough when you write the placement exam. To clarify, if you pass the appropriate exam with intermediate-level proficiency, I am reasonably sure that you DO NOT have to take foreign language classes.</p>

<p>I honestly don't remember if I used my calculator on the math exam. They're written in a way that they'll do you very little good anyways. All that will be covered at orientation, so don't fear.</p>

<p>You learned the contents of a MATH030 equivalent when you took your AP class--and presumably passed the exam--so no that is not a problem if you go on to 031/032.</p>

<p>General Chemistry is one of the largest classes at Pomona, I believe. I don't think you need to take both semesters to have it count--you can just take the first semester class and that'll be it for that PAC. gnatcire, can you clarify? As for other classes, there's good ol' "rocks for jocks" (Geology) and Astronomy but the latter is probably filled up by now.</p>

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<p>well I've taken maths A level - mech 1, stats 1 and 2 and pure 1-3, but I've no idea how that correlates to the american system and which placement exam I'd do! If anyone has any idea I'd be interested, but it's not that urgent.</p>

<p>In the pure maths, I've covered some but not all differentiation and integration inc trig functions and differentiating products, then parametric eq.s, binomial expansion, differential eq.s, integration by substitution, curves defined implicitly and scalar products of vectors (plus other simpler stuff before that). On the other hand I <em>didn't</em> take further maths so I haven't got as far as proof by induction, polar coordinates, summation series, maclaurin series, complex numbers, roots of polynomail eq.s, hyperbolic functions, matrices, groups etc, and generally both maths and further maths are required to take maths at university here - so I'm not sure where I'd stand!</p>

<p>On the applied stuff i got as far as: mechanics- equations of motion in a straight line, newton's laws of motion, linear momentum, force as a vector, then for statistcs and probability- discrete random variables, bivariate data - product moment correlation coefficient, spearman's, a little bit on regression lines, continuous random variables, normal, binomial and poisson dist.s and some approximations , sampling and hypothesis tests inc type I and II errors.</p>

<p>If anyone has any idea roughly where i might be equal to in the american school system I'd be very interested!</p>

<p>I might like to do some more pure, but I don't know whether I have enough background.</p>

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<p>skapixie--</p>

<p>I revised for the IB Higher Level Math, which might be the closest equivalent we have to the English A-levels system. Yours is a strange situation, though. Most of the topics you listed as part of Further Maths is traditional 2nd semester Calculus in the States--Math031 @ Pomona. Yet you've covered a little bit of the traditional 3rd semester track. I'd certainly try to schedule an appointment with math department professors to talk with them about your unorthodox preparation and ask their guidance on what placement exam to take.</p>

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<p>I'll do that.</p>

<p>Thanks very much!</p>

<p>better go to sleep now...
...going to a visa interview at the US embassy tomorrow (well, today!)... eek</p>