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Placement Exams

Student Orientation, Advising and Registration

Several Registration Days, called SOAR (Student Orientation, Advising and Registration), are offered for new incoming students throughout the year, where the students have the opportunity to schedule their semester I classes.

To ensure that you are placed in appropriate courses, all new freshmen and transfer students will be required to take two or three placement exams prior to scheduling classes for the fall semester. Math, English, and foreign language placement exams will be given on campus during your SOAR date. A speech communication exam option is administered online and can be completed after your SOAR day. Information for the speech exam will be given out at SOAR. More information on each of these exams is available at AccessAU.

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Placement Test Information:

ENGLISH Placement Exam: (taken during SOAR)
The purpose of the English placement exam is to assess your writing skills in order to enroll you in the writing course that best meets your needs. You will be given an essay question and will have 50 minutes to write a two to three-page response that includes a thesis (main idea) and reasons and examples to support it. Bring a blue or black ink pen and a dictionary. Paper will be provided. Your essay will be read and evaluated by the English department based on organization, paragraph and sentence structure, grammatical usage, spelling, and punctuation.

Click here for more information about English Placement Exams.

MATH Placement Exam: (taken during SOAR)
The math placement exam determines whether a student must enroll in a basic algebra course before pursuing a class in the Mathematical Sciences area of the Liberal Arts Program. This exam will be administered during your SOAR experience. You will have about 50 minutes to complete the 35-question, multiple-choice exam, comparable to the level of first-year high school algebra. Calculators are not permitted. It will be to your advantage to review your knowledge of algebra and arithmetic prior to the exam.

View sample Math placement exam questions.

FOREIGN LANGUAGE Placement Exam:
(taken during SOAR for those required to take a placement exam in French, Spanish, or German.)

The Liberal Arts Curriculum at Anderson University requires that all students reach proficiency in a foreign language at the 1020 level. Placement in foreign language is based on high school transcripts and/or a placement exam process, as follows:

• Students who have completed two years or less of French, German, or Spanish in high school will be placed at the 1010 level.
• Students who have completed three years of French, German, or Spanish in high school will be placed at the 1020 level.
• Students who have completed four or more years of French, German, or Spanish in high school must take the foreign language placement exam during SOAR.
• All placements will be evaluated by the Department of Modern Foreign Languages during the first two weeks of classes. Adjustments will be made if necessary.
  

Students who are native speakers of a language other than English may complete this requirement by taking a course in American History, in addition to the other required liberal arts history course. Students should consult with their advisers to determine which courses to take to fulfill the requirements of the Liberal Arts Curriculum.

Click here for information on the Foreign Language Placement Exams.

SPEECH COMMUNICATION Placement Exam: (taken after SOAR)
Anderson University requires all students to enroll in a general speech class, Introduction to Speech Communication (COMM 1000). This course is designed to give students the skills they need to be effective communicators. Some students may already have adequate experience and knowledge of speech communication to waive the required course.

The 50-question speech communication placement exam, which is administered online, is designed to identify whether a student has gained the knowledge necessary to waive the required course. Students who successfully complete this first step of the waiver process will be asked at a later date to complete step two, which consists of presenting a speech to Department of Communication faculty and participating in a brief interview.

You will be given information at SOAR on the process to take the on-line Speech placement exam at home after SOAR.

WEB PAGE INFORMATION for Online exams: Log onto https://accessau.anderson.edu/soar/ to get your ID# and links to placement exam information. AOL users: Establish your Internet connection with AOL, then minimize the AOL window and start Internet Explorer (5.0 or above) from the Windows desktop to be able to take the SPCH placement exam.