What’s on the Tests
ACCUPLACER tests were redesigned in 2016 to better align with the content on the SAT Suite of Assessments and the skills that research shows students need to be ready for college.
The tests include texts and tasks students will likely encounter in first-year college courses, and the math content is more aligned to state college and career readiness standards.
Inside the Tests
Reading Test
The Reading test assesses the test taker’s ability to derive meaning from a range of texts and to determine the meaning of words and phrases in short and extended contexts. Passages on the test cover a range of content areas, writing modes, and complexities. Both single and paired passages are included. The Reading test assesses four broad knowledge and skills categories:
- Information and Ideas
- Rhetoric
- Synthesis
- Vocabulary
Writing Test
The Writing test evaluates a test taker’s ability to revise and edit multiparagraph text. Questions cover two broad knowledge and skills categories, each containing three subcategories:
- The Expression of Ideas category covers development, organization, and effective language use.
- The Standard English Conventions category covers sentence structure, usage, and punctuation.
Math Tests
The Arithmetic test focuses on computation, order of operations, estimation and rounding, comparing and ordering values in different formats, and recognizing equivalent values across formats. This test assesses the following knowledge and skills categories:
- Whole Number Operations
- Fraction Operations
- Decimal Operations
- Percent
- Number Comparisons and Equivalents
The Quantitative Reasoning, Algebra, and Statistics (QAS) test assesses the following knowledge and skills:
- Rational numbers
- Ratio and Proportional Relationships
- Exponents
- Algebraic Expressions
- Linear Equations
- Linear Applications and Graphs
- Probability Sets
- Descriptive Statistics
- Geometry Concepts
The Advanced Algebra and Functions (AAF) test assesses the following knowledge and skills:
- Linear Equations
- Linear Applications and Graphs
- Factoring
- Quadratics
- Functions
- Radical and Rational Equations
- Polynomial Equations
- Exponential and Logarithmic Equations
- Trigonometry
WritePlacer Essay
In addition to the multiple-choice tests, ACCUPLACER offers WritePlacer®. You can use WritePlacer and WritePlacer ESL scores in conjunction with other ACCUPLACER test scores to assist with the placement of test takers into college-level, developmental, and/or English as a second language courses. WritePlacer automatically evaluates test takers’ essays written to one of several prompts provided in the ACCUPLACER system. Students enter their essays into an onscreen text box and submit for a score.
Tests for English Language Learners
ACCUPLACER ESL helps place English learners in appropriate language courses. Developed as an assessment tool for ESL students and English as a foreign language (EFL) students, it consists of five components: Sentence Meaning, Language Use, Reading Skills, Listening, and WritePlacer ESL.