The CUNY Assessment Tests are used to determine admission to four-year colleges and to determine whether or not you can enroll in credit-bearing courses directly, or if you must first take non-credit courses to prepare.

The ACCUPLACER test is the current CAT Math exam.
The Accuplacer has two parts, M5 (Elementary Algebra) and M6 (College-level math), each with scores 20-120. Only students with M5 score of 57 or higher will have an M6 score as well.

Must take MTH 1 if M5 score is 20 to 39
Must take MTH 5 if M5 score is 40 to 56

Students are “CUNY Math Proficient” and exempt from MTH 5 if their Accuplacer M5 score is 57 or greater. These students should take MTH 6, MTH 21, or MTH 23, whichever is the next course in their major’s sequence, unless they place out via their Accuplacer M6 score. No Accuplacer scores place students out of MTH 21/MTH 23.

Students with high SATs, Regents, college math transfer credit, etc. could be exempt from MTH 5 despite low Accuplacer scores.

Permitted to take MTH 21/23 if M5 score is 57 to 120
Permitted to take MTH 6 if M6 score is 20 to 64 (and M5 is 57 or greater or exempt)
Permitted to take MTH 13/30 if M6 score is 65 to 94 (and M5 is 57 or greater or exempt)
Permitted to take MTH 31 if M6 score is 95 to 120 (and M5 is 57 or greater or exempt)

Information and review materials for ACCUPLACER (all three CATs) can be found on the CUNY assessment page.

Students who were admitted before January 2017 should use the Math Placement Tool below to determine their placement using COMPASS or CMAT scores.

Email MathAdvisement@bcc.cuny.edu for answers to your questions about registration, placement, etc.

Or contact the Department’s Success Coach Tonja Deleston at Tonja.Deleston@bcc.cuny.edu or visit her in Loew Hall 210 during her advisement hours.

• Mon: 11:30am-6:00pm
• Tues-Thurs: 9:30am-4:30pm
• Fri: 9:30am-12:30pm

See the BCC Catalog for the current sequence of Math courses needed for each major.

Use this online tool to help you determine what courses you should take next…

Math Placement Tool

If you have not previously taken a course, you may place out of it by taking the final exam for the course and scoring 70 or higher.

Here is the procedure:

1. Pick up a review sheet either in the department office in CPH 315 or online:
   Computer Science and Math Courses
2. Practice! The Learning Commons (ME SB-003) and the Math Tutorial Lab (CPH 303) are available to assist you. The lab also has online materials to help you.
3. When you are confident that you can pass the exam with a 70 or higher, make an appointment with the chairperson of the Mathematics Department by calling (718) 289-5411. Do not make the appointment until you are ready to take the exam!
4. When you meet with the chairperson, you will be asked to demonstrate your knowledge by answering a few questions from the review sheet.
5. If you successfully demonstrate your ability to pass the exam, the chairperson will arrange for you to sit for the exam—possibly as soon as your appointment date. When you make your appointment, be sure you are ready to take the exam! If you do not successfully demonstrate your ability to pass the exam, you will be asked to keep studying and make a new appointment, or to register for the class.
6. If you score 70 or higher on the exam, you will be given a placement slip to register for the next math course in your sequence. The chairperson may have to help you register.
7. You may only attempt the final exam ONE TIME. If you do not score 70 or higher, you must take the appropriate class.

By Richard A. Miller, Bronx Community College

Studying Mathematics requires thought, effort and time. Expect to do roughly one hour of homework for each class hour.

TAKE NOTES IN CLASS. Highlight the important methods and concepts by drawing a box around them or drawing arrows or underlining. Add any comments of your own that help to clarify.

ASK QUESTIONS IN CLASS when something is not clear. Don’t be embarrassed to ask. Whatever your question is there will be others who are glad you asked it.

Make a SUMMARY SHEET OF IMPORTANT RESULTS separate from your class notes. Add to it, after each class, whatever you think was the main part of the day’s lesson. In this way, before each exam, and especially before the final exam, you will have the important results of the course in a convenient form, for review, without having to look for them in pages filled with examples. Use the examples to illustrate how the main results apply to the problems.

CONCENTRATE ON THE METHODS AND IDEAS FOR SOLVING PARTICULAR TYPES OF PROBLEMS. Do not try to memorize individual problems.

In learning a rule, LEARN WHEN THE RULE APPLIES and not only what the rule says to do. Using the right rule for the wrong operation leads to wrong results. Two negatives MULTIPLIED give a positive. Two negatives added give a negative.

DON’T FALL TOO FAR BEHIND THE CLASS.If you have trouble with a topic, don’t wait too long before getting help (See the section “HELP” below). One topic often leads to the next and failure to understand it can prevent you from understanding the next topic also. Further, when the exams come you will find you have a whole course to learn anew rather than reviewing what you once knew.

After class, REVIEW YOUR NOTES. Try a problem done in class for yourself. Compare your solution with the instructor’s. They don’t need to match exactly, but the answers should be the same. If not, try to see where you went wrong.

USE THE TEXTBOOK for clarification or further explanation.

TRY THE HOMEWORK. No matter how well you understand the classwork you must do the homework for the experience with the problems, the practice and the self-testing. After doing several problems look for the answers in the back of the book. If most of your answers are correct, congratulate yourself on knowing that topic.If not:

1. See if your answer can be transformed into the book’s by reducing a fraction, simplifying a radical, etc.;
2. Briefly check your work for errors;
3. Note the page and problem numbers and ask your instructor at the start of the next class to go over the problem. If you have trouble with many problems, study your notes and/or the book. Get help if needed.

COME TO CLASS WITH A LIST OF HOMEWORK PROBLEMS YOU WANT TO SEE. After seeing these problems in class, try them again for yourself.

HELP. The best source of help is your instructor. He or she will have two office hours per week for seeing students. Try to use these hours to get extra explanations and help. If you are busy during the office hours, ask your instructor if you can meet at some other time. However, this may not be possible.

In addition to, or instead of, seeing your instructor, tutoring is available free of charge and without an appointment in the Mathematics Tutorial Laboratory, CPH 123. Ask in the Math Department office CPH 315 (289-5411) for hours; regular weekly tutoring can be obtained by signing up in the Learning Resources Center, Sage Hall Room 100 (289-5329).

MISSED CLASSES. Regular attendance is very important in understanding a math class. If you miss a class, try to copy the notes from another student. Ask the instructor which sections in the book were covered and what the homework was.

EXAMS. Go over your summary sheet. Make sure you know the important concepts for each topic. THE BEST WAY TO MEMORIZE SOMETHING IS TO WRITE IT. Write it several times on scrap paper. Wait a while and see if you can write it down from memory. If not, write it several times again.

If you tend to panic in an exam, remind yourself at the start that the problems are just like the homework you’ve been doing well on. If the length of the test bothers you, cover the test with a blank sheet of paper and look only at problem number 1.

Even if you are not nervous, look for problems that you feel good about to do first. Skip those that you’re not sure of or those that will take a long time to do. Come back to the skipped problems later. DON’T RUSH. TAKE THE TIME TO THINK ABOUT THE TIME YOUR START TO SOLVE IT.

Conduct a mental dialogue with yourself. “What does the problem ask me to do? What operations are involved? What are the rules for those operations?”

Once the exam papers are handed out, you may write down anything you want, such as formulas or results that are hard for you to remember. This way, you need to only keep these results in your head for two minutes after the exam starts.

After the graded exam is returned, review any problems that you got wrong. Learn from the exam where your troubles are and get help if needed.

GOOD LUCK WITH YOUR STUDIES!
Revised 4/08