Math Proficiency Exam
Upcoming Exam Date
The next exam will take place on Monday, April 8, 2024, from 6:30 p.m. to 8:30 p.m. Please contact Pascale Larouche, plar@udel.edu, to register for the exam.
The deadline to register for this exam is Friday, April 5, by 4:30 p.m.
Math Proficiency Exam
The next exam will take place on Monday, November 4, 2024, from 7:00 p.m. to 9:00 p.m. Please contact Pascale Larouche, plar@udel.edu, to register for the exam. The deadline to register for this exam is Friday, November 1, by 4:30 p.m.
Prior to registration of the exam, students should check with their adviser or college advisement center to determine if this exam is appropriate for their particular program.
Materials – permitted and required
You are only permitted to use the following materials during the exam:
- Pen, pencil, eraser and scrap paper
- A scientific or graphing calculator
You will need a graphing calculator that can perform regression. A TI-84, TI-83 or TI-82 suffices.
No books or notes are allowed. NO ELECTRONIC DEVICES ARE ALLOWED, other than a scientific or graphing calculator.
You must present a photo ID for identification. Students who cannot present a photo ID will not be allowed to take the exam.
Preparing for the exam
This exam is designed to allow students with a good mathematical background to satisfy the College of Arts and Science BA math skills requirement without taking a mathematics course. (Other colleges may or may not allow this math waiver; you should check with your advisor or dean.) If you are interested, please check with your advisor that this test will apply to your program.
This test covers roughly the same content as Math 114 College Mathematics and Statistics. The test consists of 30 multiple-choice questions covering algebra, functions, linear systems, and statistics. (A more complete list is provided below.) Twenty or more questions correctly answered is considered passing. Students are given two hours to take the exam. The results are sent via email to the student and the Registrar's office. Only one attempt is allowed.
Past results suggest that some preparation is necessary to achieve a passing score. Reviewing a Precalculus or College Algebra text and a Statistics text would be helpful. The current Math 114 textbooks would work well. Intermediate algebra skills are assumed.
The concepts covered by the Math Proficiency Exam include:
- Solving linear equations and inequalities
- Finding equations of lines
- Solving word problems resulting in linear or quadratic equations and inequalities
- Definition of a function, domain, range, zeros, notation, composition, piecewise functions, inverse functions and reading graph
- Linear and quadratic functions and their characteristics
- Linear and quadratic regression
- Applications of linear and quadratic functions
- Exponential and logarithmic functions: definitions, equations, properties, and applications
- Measures of central tendency: mean, median, mode
- Measures of dispersion: variance, standard deviation, range
- Relative frequencies
- Basic probability
- Normal probability distributions
