One of the math sections on the ACCUPLACER exam is the arithmetic section. Here I have
an example of a type of problem that you might encounter when taking the ACCUPLACER exam.
"A box is thirty centimeters long, twenty centimeters wide and fifteen centimeters high.
What is the volume of the box?" On these types of problems you're going to have to know the
formula for volume. And, in this case, it's volume of a rectangular prism. The formula
is that the volume is the length times the width, times the height. So, volume is, here's
our length, thirty centimeters, times our width, twenty centimeters, times our height,
fifteen centimeters. Since we're just multiplying three numbers together, you can multiply in
any order you want. Remember though, that you may not get to use a calculator on this,
or this type of question on the ACCUPLACER exam. So, it's a good idea to practice without
a calculator. And then if you get to use one, bonus! So, I would start with multiplying
thirty times twenty, you can do that in your head. Three times two is six and then you
add the two zeroes. So, that's six hundred times fifteen. So, we have six hundred, centimeters
times centimeters is centimeters squared, times fifteen centimeters. And then we can
go off to the side and multiply those together. And I would actually put the fifteen on top.
I know it looks kind of weird. People don't normally multiply like that, they usually
like to put the bigger number on top. But, since six hundred just has these two zeroes,
that's all we're going to do with those, and then you just multiply six times five is thirty,
carry your three. Six times one is six, plus three is nine, and there we have our answer:
nine thousand. So, the volume is nine thousand, centimeters squared times centimeters is,
centimeters cubed. Nine thousand centimeters cubed. Here is an example of an arithmetic
question that you might see when you take the ACCUPLACER exam.
The ACCUPLACER exam has an entire arithmetic section. Arithmetic just means simple math.
Here is an example of one type of problem that you may encounter when you take the ACCUPLACER
exam. "Six and thirty-two hundredths minus three and five-tenths." You need to be prepared
to do these types of questions without a calculator. What's important when subtracting, or even
adding, decimals is that you line up the decimals. So, six and thirty-two hundredths minus three
and five-tenths. You can add a zero behind the five so that everything's all even. What
I like to do with decimals when I'm adding them or subtracting them is, just think about
money. So, we're taking six dollars and thirty-two cents and subtracting three dollars and fifty
cents. Sometimes, it's helpful to come up with an estimate in your head before you actually
subtract. We have six minus three and a half just rounding it, or even six minus four.
Your answer then should be somewhere around two. Which means that D, this answer, is way
too high. We already know that, just from estimating what the answer might be. Now we're
ready to subtract. Two minus zero is two. You can't take five from three, so you need
to borrow from the six, which makes it a five, and then you give ten to the three, so that's
thirteen now. Thirteen minus five is eight. Bring down your decimal and five minus three
is two. So, our answer was somewhere around two, two and eighty-two hundredths, and that
is almost three. And there is our answer: A. And there you have one example of an arithmetic
question that you could see on an ACCUPLACER exam.
One of the math sections on the ACCUPLACER exam is, the arithmetic section. On the arithmetic
section, you're going to be tested on basic math. So, you need to be prepared to answer these
questions without a calculator. One of the skills you're going to be tested on is being
able to multiply fractions, which is what this question addresses. It says, "What is
five-sixths of three-fourths?" The first thing you need to know is that word "of" means to
multiply. So we can re-write this as five-sixths times three-fourths. And there is more than
one way to do this problem. The first way is simply just to multiply straight across
and then simplify your answer. Five times three is fifteen. Six times four is twenty-four,
and then simplify that fraction, meaning divide your numerator and denominator by the same
number. Both of these numbers are divisible by three. Fifteen divided by three is five,
and twenty-four divided by three is eight. There is your answer for multiplying those
fractions. That's one way to multiply your fractions. Another way to multiply your fractions
is to cross-cancel before multiplying. It's really like simplifying before you multiply;
instead of, multiplying and then simplifying. So, let's see how that would work. In this
case, we can cross-cancel our three and our six, because they're both divisible by three.
Just like we simplified this fraction by dividing numerator and denominator by three, we're
going to divide this numerator and denominator by three. Three divided by three is one. Six
divided by three is two. And now, you multiply straight across, just like we did before.
Five times one is five, and two times four is eight. So, you see they yield the same
result. And it's really up to you to choose which method you prefer. Either way though,
we get five-eighths for our answer. And there you have an example of multiplying fractions,
which is a skill you'll need when you take the ACCUPLACER exam.
One of the sections on the ACCUPLACER exam is the arithmetic section. On this section
you'll need to use scratch paper and not a calculator. So, you got to have some basic
math skills. Here's one example of the type of problem you're going to see on the arithmetic
section of the ACCUPLACER exam. "Which of the following is equivalent to twenty-seven
eighths?" Twenty-seven eighths is an improper fraction. And when you look at the answer
choices, you can see that they're all mixed numbers. So, to turn an improper fraction
into a mixed number, all you have to do is divide. And I like to say, this is just like
a little way that I remember, and I know that sounds silly because right? We should know
how to divide. But, this is how I remember how to divide my numbers. I say top in, bottom
out. And what that means is, when you're dividing the top number goes inside and the bottom
number goes outside. It's just like a cute little way to remember where to put your numbers,
because you can't get the right answer if you're putting those in the wrong place to
begin with. So, first you need to figure out how many times eight goes into twenty-seven,
and that's three times. Eight times three is twenty-four. You subtract and you get three
as your remainder. Now, if we were trying to get a decimal, then we would keep going.
We'd add a decimal and a zero, we'd bring that down. We'd keep dividing until we got
a remainder of zero. But we're not trying to get a decimal, we're trying to get a mixed
number. And to write a mixed number, you stop at the remainder. You take that remainder
and use it to make your fraction. The remainder is your numerator, and the divisor is your
denominator. That's it. Three and three-eighths. So there you have one example of an arithmetic
problem that you might encounter on the ACCUPLACER exam.
One of the math sections on the ACCUPLACER exam is the arithmetic section. Here I have
an example of an arithmetic question that you might see when you're taking your ACCUPLACER
exam. It says, "Nine and a half percent of the people in a town voted for a certain proposition
in a municipal election. If the town's population is fifty-one thousand six hundred twenty-three,
about how many people in the town voted for the proposition?" This word "about" is really
helpful. It means that our problem just got a lot easier. Because we don't have to use
nine and a half percent. We can round nine and a half percent to ten percent. And we
don't have to use fifty-one thousand six hundred twenty-three. We can round that to fifty-thousand.
Makes our numbers a lot simpler. So, ten percent of the fifty thousand people in the town voted
for the proposition. And that's what we're trying to figure out; what's the ten percent?
You can use the percent equation, if equations are helpful to you. The percent equation is
the part equals the percent times the whole. And in this case, we know the percent and
we know the whole. We have the whole town's population and we know the percent that voted
for the proposition. What we're looking for is what was that part? How many people voted
for it? So, the part is equal to. Now, even though it says percent, you actually can't
use the percent there. Because we don't calculate with percents. You either have to write your
percent as a fraction, or as a decimal. And in this case, since I'm multiplying this percent
times my whole, the fifty thousand, it would be helpful to write the percent as a fraction.
Be a little bit easier and I'll show you why. Ten percent, and that word "percent" literally
means, the per is divided by and cent is the prefix for century or um, it means a hundred,
cent means a hundred. And you've heard it in words like century. So, it means per one
hundred. So, that's actually ten per cent, written as a fraction, times the whole, which
is fifty thousand. And then we put that over one since we're multiplying it times a fraction.
Now I told you I wanted to write it as a fraction because it'd be easier when multiplying by
fifty thousand. The reason for that is because you can cross-cancel these two zeroes in each
one of your numbers. So, then you just have ten times five hundred. Ten times five hundred,
multiplying by ten just moves that decimal one place to the right, so it adds another
zero in this case, gives you five thousand. Which, and this is like the real mathy way
to do it. But if you think about it, ten percent is just a tenth of fifty thousand. And a tenth
of fifty thousand would be five thousand. There you have one example of an arithmetic
type question that you might encounter on the ACCUPLACER exam.