Re: [MATHEDCC] student preparation

Tony Armstrong (alarms0@POP.UKY.EDU)
Fri, 20 Nov 1998 02:43:54 -0500

At 10:05 AM 11/19/98 -0600, you wrote:
>I'm interested in hearing if you are finding that students right out of high
>school and coming to the community college are unprepared to tackle college
>level math courses. Many of these students report that they have taken 3 or
>4 years of high school math, receiving B's or C's in these classes. Yet they
>take the COMPASS placement test and receive scores that place them in the
>lowest developmental class that we offer. Are you finding the same thing?
>I'm interested in your responses.

We also use the Compass for placement testing. We found that the cut scores
provided by ACT were too aggressive, placing students who had been through
calculus in high school into our arithmetic classes. As more colleges in
our system have begun using it I get plenty of information that they all
experience the same thing on their maiden voyages with Compass. We had to
adjust the cut scores several times to get placements that were a little
more consistent with student transcripts and ACT scores.

Tony Armstrong
--Somerset Community College
Somerset, Kentucky

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