Getting out of the math diagnostic

oasis
Fri, 28 Aug 2009 05:49:47 +0000

Why don’t you want to take it? Laziness or fear of the test?

If it’s the latter, let me assure you that the test is extremely simple. Mainly precalc stuff - nothing too advanced. I know people who got like a 20% on it and it’s not factored into anything, so don’t worry too much if you think your math is not up to par right now.

If it’s just laziness of not wanting to show up, I think the worse that will happen is that you’ll have no score for the math diagnostic in your advising folder and your adviser will have nothing to go on during course selection to “advise” you. I don’t think you’ll actually run into any solid consequences for missing the test - but personally, I thought it was just easier to show up and at least have some kind of score so you don’t get questions or potentially have to retake it (I doubt it) later.

I personally thought the math diagnostic was pretty meaningless. I think it’s just a way to have a “official” excuse to “weed out” overachievers who legitimately are not ready in math to take 8.012. I got a near perfect score on that math diagnostic and trust me, 8.012 would have totally killed me if I had stuck with it (I dropped after 3 weeks)…haha.