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Inver Grove Heights
Minnesota 55076-3224

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Tel: (651) 450-8500
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Assessment Sample Questions

General Information

Do your best!  The assessment is not timed, but plan to spend at least two hours. Take the assessment when you feel rested and well.  Take the assessment seriously and do your best since your initial course placements are based on your results.

Instructions:  Textbooks, notebooks, dictionaries, and calculators are not allowed in the assessment room. Scratch paper will be provided. If you have technical difficulty or have questions during the assessment, seek assistance from the assessment coordinator. Please do not talk with other students taking the assessment.

Confidentiality:  The information you provide and your assessment results will be used for counseling and placement purposes.  Special precautions are taken to ensure that your identity is kept confidential if assessment data is used for institutional and validation research.

Reading Comprehension

This test is designed to measure how well you understand what you read.  Some questions are of the sentence-relationship type in which you must decide how two sentences are related.  Other questions refer to reading passages of various lengths.  Some passages are 75 words in length, while others are longer.  Here are two sample questions.

Question 1 (Comprehension Question):

Read the statement or passage and then choose the best answer to the question.  Answer the question on the basis of what is stated or implied in the statement or passage.

There are two types of pottery that I do.  There is production pottery-mugs, tableware, the kinds of things that sell easily.  These pay for my time to do the other work, which is more creative and satisfies my needs as an artist. 

The author of the passage implies that:

(A)    artists have a tendency to waste valuable time

(B)    creativity and mass-production are incompatible

(C)    buyers of mugs never appreciate good art

(D)    pottery is not produced by creative artists

Questions 2:  (Sentence-Relationships Question)

Two underlined sentences are followed by a question or statement about them. Read each pair of sentences and then choose the best answer to the question or the best completion of the statement.

The Midwest is experiencing its worst drought in fifteen years.

Corn and soybean prices are expected to be very high this year.

What does the second sentence do?

(A)    It restates the idea found in the first

(B)     It states an effect

(C)    It gives an example

(D)    It analyzes the statement made in the first

Sentence Skills

Two kinds of questions are given in this test.  Sentence- correction questions ask you to choose a word or phrase to substitute for an underlined portion of a sentence.  Construction-shift questions ask that a sentence be rewritten in a specific way without changing the meaning.  A broad variety of topics is included here.  Here are two sample questions.

Question 1:  (Sentence-Correction Question)

Select the best version for the underlined part of the sentence.  The first choice is the same as the original sentence.  If you think the original sentence is best, choose the first answer.

Ms. Rose planning to teach a course in biology next summer.

(A)  planning

(B)  are planning

(C)  with a plan

(D)  plans

Question 2:  (Construction-Shift Question)

Rewrite the sentence in your head, following the directions given below.  Keep in mind that your new sentence should be well written and should have essentially the same meaning as the sentence given you.

Being a female jockey, she was often interviewed.

Rewrite, beginning with

She was often interviewed . . .

The next words will be

(A)    on account of she was

(B)    by her being

(C)    because she was

(D)    being as she was

  Answers: 
  Reading Comprehension: 1. B 2. B
  Sentence Skills: 1. D 2. C

Mathematics

To ensure proper placement, it is important for you to take the math assessment seriously by preparing for the assessment. 

There are three levels in this assessment that cover a full range of knowledge and skills in arithmetic, elementary algebra and college-level mathematics.

Math skills and concepts are quickly forgotten unless used on a regular basis.  Sample questions are provided to give you an indication of the type of questions corresponding to each assessment level.  Calculators are not allowed on the assessment, so try the sample questions by hand calculation. 

If you need additional practice problems, the Inver Hills Bookstore sells math assessment (practice) packets for a nominal fee.  The problems on the practice test are similar to those on the actual assessment.  Work these practice assessments without a calculator.  If you are dissatisfied with your math placement, it is highly recommended that you purchase these practice tests before re-testing.  After your initial assessment, you may re-test once within a two-year period. This must be done before you have enrolled in your first math class for more than a week.  Skipping courses in the math sequence is not allowed.

Arithmetic

Ø       Operations with Whole Numbers

Ø       Operations with Fractions

Ø       Operations with Decimals & Percents

Ø       Ratio and Proportions

Ø       Applications

Sample Questions:

1)                           2)   6.25 ¸ 0.25 =

3)   Sales tax in Minnesota is 6.5%.  How much tax is paid on a purchase of $7.60?

4)   In a math class there are 15 women and 18 men.  Women are what fraction of the whole class?

5)   A dessert recipe for 12 people calls for 1 cups of sugar.  If the same recipe was made for 30 people, how much sugar would be needed?

6)      Jesse scored 75, 85, 88, 92, & 85 on math quizzes.  What is Jesse’s quiz average?

7)   17 % of what number is 14?  

Answers:

1)                    2)   25              3)   $0.49              4)                

5)    cups      6)  85              7)  80

Elementary Algebra

Ø       Operations with Real numbers

Ø       Operations on Algebraic Expressions

Ø       Solving Equations & Inequalities

Ø      Applications

Sample Questions:

1) Solve:         2(3x – 5) – (3x – 2) = 1

2) Simplify: 

3) Simplify: 

4) A number is added to 6, then multiplied by 3 and the result is 8 less than 5 times the number.  Find the number.

5)   The length of a rectangle is 5 inches more than twice the width.  The perimeter of the rectangle is 70 inches, what are the dimensions?

6)   Factor:       36x² – 49y²

7)   Simplify:   

Answers: 

 1)   x = 3          2)               3)   18  

4)   13                5)    10 in. wide,  25 in. long

6)   (6x + 7y)(6x – 7y)                  7)

College Level Math

Ø       Algebraic Functions

Ø       Exponential Functions

Ø       Logarithmic Functions

Ø       Trigonometric Functions

Ø      Graphing

Sample Questions:

1)   Solve:      

2)   Solve:   

3)   Graph:  

4)   If  f(x) = x³ and g(x) = x + 5, then f(g(x)) = ?

5)   If f(x) = 2x - 5, then f ^-1(x) =?

6)   Find the domain: f(x) =

7)   Solve:    6x² – 3x > 0

Answers:   

1)            

 2)        

3) 

4)    (x + 5)³          5)           6)    x < 5       

7)    x < 0 or x >