How to Prepare for Placement Exams

Whether you’re currently in high school, or you’ve been away from school for a while, review is critical to get a sense of your academic strengths and weaknesses. Practicing before an exam helps relieve anxiety about what to expect, and reminds you of skills you may not have used in a while.

Here are some suggestions and resources you can use to review and prepare before the placement exam.

Practice before the exam - even if you normally do well in the subject

This is critical - students who take the exam cold usually do not do well and then have to take summer programs or non-credit courses to demonstrate their skills.

Use our topic listing and sample problems to get an idea of what will be covered in the exam - then take sample exams to see how much you remember

Practice math without a calculator! There are NO calculators allowed in the placement exam - if you have always done math with a calculator you will need to practice without it!

Use materials from high school to practice:

Math: topics include: Linear equations and inequalities, Linear equations and inequalities with two variables, Systems of linear equations and inequalities, Exponents and polynomials, Factoring, Rational Expressions, Roots and Radicals, Quadratic equations, order of operations, fractions - all without a calculator!

Reading Comprehension: critical reading skills, cause and effect, identifying main idea, theme, strategies for multiple choice exams

Use Ed Ready to estimate your score and improve math skills

Take practice exams and Study!

There is practice material available: 

  • Visit Edready by clicking here:  https://wpu.edready.org/home.  Create a free account and use the following code: wpu_practice18 to access math practice exams OR wpu_readingpractice to access reading practice exams.

Visit these other sites to practice specific skills:

http://www.saddleback.edu/faculty/lperez/algebra2go/begalgebra/index.html

www.ixl.com/math/algebra-1

www.math.com - algebra section

www.coolmath.com - use the algebra crunchers for algebra practice problems

http://ux.brookdalecc.edu/fac/reading/mhurley/my_TutorialHome.html

http://owl.english.purdue.edu/

www.khanacademy.com

Contact us with additional questions

If you have questions about specific topics on the exam, or would like more details about what to expect contact Salwa Zito via email at Zitos3@wpunj.edu