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ASSET®

Year Introduced

1983

Intended Users

College and university students and course placement personnel

Purpose/Description

ASSET is a paper-and-pencil assessment that helps postsecondary institutions evaluate students' skills and place students into appropriate courses.

  • Provides institutions with an individual planning form to supplement test scores
  • Convenient paper-and-pencil format
  • Immediate score reports for students
  • A proven record of validity and reliability

Volume/Number of Users

Nearly 300 community and technical colleges in the United States currently use ASSET

Additional Facts

ASSET scores indicate areas in which students are already strong and areas in which students may need help. Thus, ASSET can identify problems in major subject areas before they disrupt a student’s educational progress.

Tests include:

  • The Writing Skills Test measures usage in grammar, punctuation, sentence structure, writing strategy, and writing style.
  • The Reading Skills Test measures a student’s ability to find specific information and to make logical inferences in text information.
  • The Numerical Skills Test assesses knowledge and skills in basic math. This test also measures pre-algebra.
  • The Elementary Algebra Test measures skills taught in a first-year high school algebra class, i.e., simple algebraic expressions and linear and quadratic equations.
  • The Intermediate Algebra Test measures skills taught in a second-year high school algebra class: factoring, graphing, calculating slope and distance.
  • The College Algebra Test measures skills taught in a first-year college algebra course: performing operations with complex numbers, exponential functions, factorials, and graphs of polynomials.
  • The Geometry Test measures skills taught in a high school geometry class: formulas and principles related to squares, triangles, circles, and other geometric figures.

There are three components of the basic ASSET test: Writing, Reading and Numerical Skills. These three components comprise a 75-minute timed assessment designed for group administration. It may be locally scored by hand or using a scanner.

Note: Whereas ASSET is a paper-and-pencil assessment, ACT’s COMPASS® is a computer or Internet-based adaptive assessment.