Chart Your Success on the Compass Test

I used this guide to study the week before taking the COMPASS test. A little background: I took college-level calculus... 20 years ago. In the time since, I have not used any advanced math at all. As they say, use it or lose it! I needed to take the COMPASS placement test since I am going back to college. I would have failed the test outright without a guide such as this one to help. Let me be clear: This guide will NOT help you cram years of advanced math into a week of studying! This book is a refresher for those who have already learned the topics in a classroom setting. In a nutshell, I was the perfect target audience for this book. The book is not without issues. I found several errors in the mathematics throughout the book, not uncommon in textbooks. The section on the circular functions in trigonometry was trivialized and takes up barely a page... I was dismayed to discover a majority of the questions I encountered in the trigonometry section of the test related to circular functions! I was lucky enough to muddle through it. The book does a fantastic job of preparing you specifically with COMPASS-related strategies: for example, the test is untimed, use that to your advantage. Utilize the provided scientific calculator to check your answers and to work backwards through difficult problems. Several of their strategies came into play while I took the test... Including the calculator hint, which helped me deal with the unexpected quantity of circular functions I encountered. I passed the test with flying colors, and again, I would have flat-out failed without this guide. It does exactly what it promises to do, just don't expect it to teach you something you're completely unfamiliar with. And the price? To the person who gave this book one star because the guide is too expensive: Have you ever purchased a textbook in your life? In my snarkiest voice I say, "welcome to college!" If it helps you pass the test when you otherwise would have failed, it's most likely worth every stinkin' dime.

I teach Intermediate Algebra for a two year college in the North East Georgia Mountains. My students using this text have had great success in focusing their study time when preparing for the Compass Test. The book is laid out in short 2 - 6 page chapters and does an excellent job at keeping the information compact and precise. Students studying for the compass exam are sure to find the text's layout and design easy to read and understand. Each section gives students the opportunity to work sample exam problems and provides answers to these problems at the end of the text.