How to Prepare

The Placement Assessment is used to determine the mathematics course in which you will have the greatest success. Upon completion of the Placement Assessments, your scores are sent to your academic advisor. Your advisor will review your scores and help make appropriate recommendations for course registration.

Optimal times for taking ALEKS are listed below.

Southeastern Louisiana University will only accept scores from proctored assessments for placement into math courses. 

1. You have a working webcam and it is functioning during your entire ALEKS assessment attempt.
2. No one else is in the room with you while you are testing.  Choose a testing environment to ensure this result. 
3. Your face is visible by the webcam for the duration of the assessment.  Set your camera to capture your face (and not the top of your head) when working problems.

The Mathematics Department will review videos of ALEKS assessments; any irregularities may invalidate your ALEKS scores. In the event of irregularities, we reserve the right to require students to have their future ALEKS attempts proctored by our staff. 

You will pay for ALEKS with a credit card before you begin. This includes the initial, unproctored placement assessment, the Prep and Learning Module, and four proctored assessments. The current fee is $25. 

1. One unproctored practice attempt at the ALEKS placement - You should take this practice assessment seriously as your responses determine the learning modules that will help prepare you for the real, proctored attempts.
2. Practice modules – Before taking the first proctored attempt at the ALEKS assessment, students must spend a minimum of 3 hours working math problems in the ALEKS system. These modules are individualized based upon your unproctored attempt. This process will help to refresh your memory on this material.
3. Four proctored attempts at the ALEKS assessment – These are proctored using Respondus software, which requires the use of a webcam. Between each proctored attempt, you'll need to spend a minimum of 5 hours working on the learning modules. 

No. There are no required plug-ins or applets required with your use of ALEKS PPL. As long as you have access to the internet and are using an updated browser, you should not experience difficulties in taking your Placement Assessment. For a list of preferred browsers, please review the ALEKS system requirements on their support site: http://www.aleks.com/support/system_requirements

ALEKS PPL is an online, adaptive system that covers a broad spectrum of mathematics topics. The length of the Placement Assessment will vary, but can be up to 30 questions. You will see some, but not all, of the math you have learned in high school. It is a Placement Assessment, not a preview of math courses at Southeastern Louisiana University. It is designed to identify if you are prepared for a particular course. After you take your first Placement Assessment, you will have the opportunity to review and master additional topics to reassess and improve your placement.

Topics covered:

• Real numbers (including fractions, integers, and percentages)

• Equations and inequalities (including linear equations, linear inequalities, systems of linear equations, and quadratic equations)

• Linear and quadratic functions (including graphs and functions, linear functions, and parabolas), exponents and polynomials (including integer exponents, polynomial arithmetic, factoring, and polynomial equations), rational expressions (including rational equations and rational functions

• Radical expressions (including higher roots and rational exponents)

• Exponentials and logarithms (including function compositions and inverse functions, properties of logarithms, and logarithmic equations)

• Geometry and trigonometry (including perimeter, area, and volume, coordinate geometry, trigonometric functions, and identities and equations)

ALEKS will begin with a brief tutorial to make sure you are comfortable with the math palette tools before your Placement Assessment begins. The tutorial shows you how to enter different types of answers, how to use the ALEKS calculator, and how to graph. If you aren’t sure how to input an answer, or need help while you are taking the ALEKS Placement Assessment, select the Help button below the answer pallet tools. Going to the tutorial during your Placement Assessment will NOT impact your Placement Assessment results.