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Tips for administering the Placement Exams

The placement test was created for the benefit of the teacher and the student to determine in which book to begin. As the student does a placement test, watch them to observe how confident they are about their math knowledge. If they aren't functioning at an acceptable level, then place them in the respective book where they had the difficulty. For example if they are having difficulty with division and some fraction problems then they should be in the Intermediate book since this is where those concepts are presented.

When giving the test, please watch the student as he/she works the problems. What you are looking for is mastery. For example - if a student gets the correct answer to an addition problem, but uses his fingers to count, then he/she needs to cover this material again. Or if a student uses addition to solve a multiplication problem, then this material must be taught again.

For the Foundation test, what we are looking for is proficiency in addition, subtraction, skip counting and single digit multiplication. The student should know how to add without counting on their fingers, for example. They should be able to multiply without skip counting or singing songs. This is up to you to determine. The best way seems to be to use the test as a guide and watch them as they solve the problems.

For Intermediate, the skills that need to have been mastered are all the basic operations, addition, subtraction, multiplication, and division as well as doing the same operations with fractions. Of course there are other concepts in the book, but these are the main ones.

For Advanced, the student should know all of the above mentioned basic operations plus be able to apply these operations to mixed numbers and decimals. The second half of the test is not quite as critical as these topics are covered again in Algebra and Geometry.


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