Placement tests

<p>I know it can't hurt to take them and do poorly.. but I'm not the strongest in math and science. I'm definitely not interested in taking the biology one, but I was considering the chemistry one and the calculus one. Chem might be hard for me to remember because it has been a year and a half, but I'm in AP Calculus right now. Still, I'm bad at math tests. Besides, I currently intend on double majoring in English and theatre.</p>

<p>anyway, basically I'm interested in knowing how long these take, how difficult they are, and if they're useful for non-majors.</p>

<p>Thanks!</p>

<p>Ditto I signed up for the Calc test. I am in AP Calc now so I would *assume I would hopefully know what the heck I AM TALKING about.</p>

<p>My understanding is that they are primarily to make sure the first classes you take in these areas are appropriate for you--and to determine when you should possibly try to "test out" of certain courses. </p>

<p>I think each test is 1 hour only--but it takes about 1 1/2 hours since they have to do all the administrative stuff also.</p>

<p>calcruzer, are you by any chance aware of what material is found in the mandatory math exam that is taken during the orientation session?</p>

<p>There's a long 45 page manual they send you before you go to Orientation that lists all the majors and what courses you need to take for each one, and in there they have a sample 10 question test on one of the pages.</p>

<p>As I recall my son said there were 30 questions total, and it had a wide variety of questions which got progressively tougher. It started with simple arithmetic, then moved on to algebra, then geometry, then trigonometry, then logarithms, then differentiation and integrals. </p>

<p>He did quite well on the test (top 2-3% according to his guidance counselor--although I think he said he only got 26 or 27 correct), but it didn't really change anything for him, since he's still taking the same courses as all the other business students--and while they said he might want to try to test out of his "Survey of Calculus course" since he did well, he decided that it was important for him to know exactly what kind of math they expect you to know for the other business courses. </p>

<p>I looked at the Math book for the Survey of Calculus course--and I'm glad he didn't try to "test out". The book focuses on how math can be used not only for lots of business uses, but also explains Microeconomics math in great detail--which is a course he will be taking soon.</p>