Miller 1

Khiley Miller
Professor Watkins
T, Th 10:30 am
30 March 2019

Glen Johnson
CEO, Company Name
123 Address St
Anytown, ST 12345

30 March 2019

Dear Mr. Johnson,

My name is Khiley Miller, I am a freshman college student at Northern Oklahoma College in
Stillwater, Oklahoma. I’m writing you to speak my mind on college students having to take a
placement test. Personal, I feel like college students should not have to take a placement test,
because you're coming from high school where it known for all the test taking, it adds more
stress on the students, and students may get an even lower test score.
When it come to colleges, most schools use the placement test to basically check your academic
skill levels in subjects like: Mathematics, Reading, and Writing. But a lot of college students are
incoming freshman who are just coming from high school. And that is where students do most of
their testing just to actually into a college. There is all kinds of standardized test from elementary
school through high school. Students have to take an SAT, SAT Subject, ACT and AP test and
we can’t about the PSAT. High school freshman's don’t have to really worry about preparing for
any standardized test. Sophomores year students have to take the test PSAT in October, the any
AP exams in May, the SAT in June, and then turn to start your SAT and ACT prep during the
summer. Junior year is where you want to do extremely well on these tests, because colleges start
to look at those tests score. But juniors have to basically retake all of the same tests over again
that they've already taken. Then there's your senior year, where students take their last ACT/SAT
tests in october through December, and any AP exams they have in May. And also, all the tests
have about the same amount of time limit for the students to take it.
Coming out of high school, students think that all their stress is gone away. They think all the
testing they did just to get into college is over. As they relax after all the high school testing,
little do the students that didn’t get a high enough ACT or SAT score know, is that if you don’t
the average score then you have to take placement test. So stress the students thought was gone
away will return since they have to test to get placed into their courses.Students under stress
causes them to lose working memory, which effects their work in class. Becoming so stress over
getting the score they need, students can overthink the simplest question on the test. Most
students do a great job on class work, but, because of the stress put on them they fail the major
tests. A lot of students feels that these we take don’t really us any good in life. And also we feel
feel as if there should be another way to find out how good we are doing in school and a way
that’s less stressful.
As I stated in my other paragraphs, you have to take a placement test. Some students may get an
amazing score, on the ACT and/or SAT, but students that didn’t get an amazing score on the
placement test for your college courses. If your test results are where they need to be then you
skip some introductory courses. But these tests can also show that you need more construction
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before taking these college level courses. So therefore, they put in are classes called remedial
courses, numeral of four-year colleges and some community colleges offer these classes.
Remedial classes gives you the opportunity to improve your skills in a subject. A couple of cons
about remedial classes is that you have to delay taking college level courses until you are done
with the remedial courses. And on top of that you have to pay for these classes that don’t go
towards the students degree. I was likely aggravated by that when I find out that the classes I
worked really hard in don’t go towards my credit hours but I have to pay the money for the
classes.
I have never been a good test taking, and I've been taking test from elementary school through
high school and now I feel like college tests are all these tests in one. But in high school I have
taken the PSAT once, the SAT more than twice, and two times only for the ACT, which was
probably the most stressful test in any students high school career. When I took the ACT both
times I got the same exact score, and that’s why I only took twice. And because I took it twice
getting the same score coming to college I had to placement test a test to place me in my classes.
That test was just for the courses from August to December. Then at the end of December, I had
to take another accuplacer test just to see what my academic skill levels were, so that I could go
to the next courses that I needed for my major.
In conclusion, I’m writing just to speak little bit on how I feel about placement test. And how
placement tests cause more stress to students life, students may get lower test scores than usual,
and how if you are a incoming freshman you coming from high school where it’s known to have
all the test taking. As students we have a lot of tests and exams to through out our school career
in general. A placement is just one of man, it’s to check your academic skills levels, so you can
get your colleges classes or remedial classes
Sincerely,

Khiley Miller
615 N Monroe St
Stillwater, OK 74076
(580) 628-6900
KMill980@noc.edu

Forsythe, Holland. “Standardized Testing Leads to Student Stress.” Crossed Sabres, 22 Feb.
2017, www.crossedsabres.org/opinion-2/2017/02/23/standardized-testing-leads-to-student-
stress/.
Han, Dan Bi. “Standardized Test Timeline for High School Students: What to
Take and When?” CollegeXpress, www.collegexpress.com/articles-and-
advice/test-prep/articles/test-taking-tips/standardized-test-timeline-high-
school-students-what-take-and-when/.

Ruby, Molly. “The Complete Guide to MLA & Citations.” MLA Format
Citation Generator & Guide, 21 May 2018,
www.citationmachine.net/mla/cite-a-website.

Study.com, Study.com, study.com/blog/avoid-remedial-classes-in-community-

college-to-save-time-money.html.
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What Are College Placement Tests?, bigfuture.collegeboard.org/find-

colleges/academic-life/what-are-college-placement-tests.