October 7, 2015

The Sections of the CPAt

The CPAt, or Career Programs Assessment Test, has three sections. There is a language usage section, a reading section, and a numerical skills section. The test is designed to help career colleges and schools assess the skill level of their students or prospective students. Some career colleges use the CPAt as an admissions test, while others use it to place already admitted students into classes that are at the best skill level for each student.

The entire exam only takes sixty minutes. The language usage section of the CPAt is the shortest section of the test. It only takes fifteen minutes to complete. However, there are sixty questions you must answer on this section of the exam, so that means that you should answer four questions every minute, or spend about fifteen seconds on each question.
The language usage section of the CPAt tests your knowledge of proper grammar, capitalization, punctuation, spelling, sentence structure, and organization of ideas in a written format. You should know how to use different parts of speech such as nouns, verbs, conjunctions, adjectives, adverbs, pronouns, and prepositions. You should also know how to ensure that the correct verb format is used with each subject.

Punctuation marks that you should know include punctuation that ends sentences such as periods, exclamation marks, and question marks. You should also know how to use commas appropriately and the function of commas within a sentence. Some more sophisticated punctuation may appear on the exam as well, such as colons and semicolons, hyphens, quotation marks, and parenthesis. You should understand the correct order of punctuation used in American English, such as including end of sentence punctuation such as question marks inside of quotation marks and parenthesis rather than outside.

You will be tested on when to use capitalization, such as at the beginning of a sentence, in titles, or for proper nouns. Remember that some nouns, such as mom or dad, need to be capitalized in some situations but not in others. If a noun is being used to refer to a person in place of a person’s name, it should be capitalized, but if the noun is used generally, it should be in lower case. With regard to sentence structure on the CPAt, you should be able to recognize run-on sentences or sentence fragments. You should also know how to correctly use clauses, the purpose of modifiers, and how commas can clarify the meaning of a particular sentence.

Language usage questions on the CPAt that relate to organization may be the most subjective questions on the language usage section. You will need to understand how to convey cause and effect in written language and how sentence structure can affect and enhance the meaning of the content. You should understand how to portray the main idea and details of a passage in written language so that the intent of the content is clear to its audience.

When you take the CPAt, the language usage section will contain between eighteen and twenty sentences. The content of the sentences may cover a variety of subject areas, and each sentence will not necessarily relate to the one that proceeds it. Each sentence will have some portions underlined, and each underlined portion will be numbered. The underlined portions may include a word, a few letters within a word, a piece of punctuation, or an entire phrase or sentence. You will need to decide whether each underlined portion is correct or incorrect. The only answer choices for the language usage section of the exam are correct or incorrect, and you will only need to mark a C or an I to designate “correct,” or “incorrect.” Do not concern yourself about the portions of text that are not underlined. The only purpose of portions of the text that are not underlined is to provide context in which to determine if the underlined portions are correct or incorrect.

The Numerical Skills Section of the CPAt

There are three sections of assessment in the Career Programs Assessment Test (CPAt). These sections cover the subject matter of language usage, reading skills, and numerical skills. The three distinct sections allow career colleges to judge their applicants’ or newly enrolled students’ skills in each of these areas in order to determine each students’ academic strengths and weaknesses, thus allowing the career college to cater educational programs to each student or set a minimum performance standard for acceptance.

The entire CPAt is only an hour long, and the numerical skills section takes up exactly one third of the test’s time frame; you will have twenty minutes to complete the numerical skills section. There are twenty-five questions on this part of the exam, so you will have a little less than a minute to answer each question.

You should expect some numerical skills questions on the CPAt to directly ask you to perform a mathematic operation, and others to present you with a contextual word problem in which you must assess which mathematical operations to use to solve the word problem as well as how to use them. The content on the numerical skills section of the CPAt includes basic arithmetic operations, solving problems using arithmetic, and using more than one arithmetic operation in order to solve more complex problems.

The basic arithmetic operations you will need to know for the CPAt include addition, subtraction, multiplication, and division. You should also understand the order of operations. When solving arithmetic problems, you should do any operations enclosed in parenthesis first, then any multiplication or division, followed by addition or subtraction. You should know how to add, subtract, divide, and multiply numbers with more than one digit, as well as how to add, subtract, divide, and multiply fractions and decimals.

To multiply fractions, you should multiply the numerator of the first fraction with the numerator of the other and the denominator of the first fraction with the denominator of the other. Simply put, the numerator is the number on top of the fraction, and the denominator is the number on the bottom. When you divide one fraction by another fraction, you should multiply the first fraction by the reciprocal of the second fraction. The reciprocal is the opposite of a fraction; to find the reciprocal, all you do is transpose the numerator and denominator.

You multiply decimals the same way you should multiple any other number with more than one digit. After you have completed the multiplication, count how many digits there are on the right side of the decimal point in both numbers that you multiplied. That is how many digits should appear to the right of the decimal point in your answer. For example, if you multiply .54 and .639, you will have five digits after the decimal point in your answer.

Arithmetic problem solving questions on the CPAt will require that you read a math problem that is written in a short narrative format. In order to answer these questions, you will need to figure out what a question is asking, decide which arithmetic operations you will need to use in order to solve the problem, then carry out the arithmetic operations correctly. On many exams you may have taken in school with similar problems, you might have gotten credit for showing your work, even if the final answer was incorrect. Unfortunately, because the CPAt numerical skills section is multiple choice, you will only receive credit for finding the correct answer, even if you used some problem solving strategies correctly.

For questions on the CPAt that require you to use more than one arithmetic operation, you will need to follow the order of operations. Some questions requiring multiple arithmetic operations may appear as arithmetic problems, and others may appear as word problems. For word problems, you will need to deduce which operations are needed and the order to use them.

The Reading Skills Section of the CPAt

The Reading Skills Section of the CPAtThere are three sections to the Career Programs Assessment Test (CPAt). These sections are numerical skills, language usage, and reading skills. Career colleges use the CPAt to assess the skill levels of their applicants or recently admitted students in these subjects. Some career colleges use the CPAt in order to set the bar for admission, whereas others use it as a means to ensure that admitted students are placed into classes commensurate with their skill levels.

The reading skills section of the CPAt is the longest section of the exam. It takes twenty-five minutes to complete, whereas the numerical skills and language usage sections of the exam only take twenty and fifteen minutes respectively. You must answer thirty questions on the reading skills section of the CPAt, so you will have slightly under one minute to complete each question. You will likely find that some questions come easily to you and that you can answer those quickly, whereas other questions might require deeper thought and take more time to answer.

During the reading skills section of the CPAt, you will have to read five short passages. After each passage, you will have to answer five, six, or seven questions about the content you just read. All of the questions will be multiple choice. The questions on the reading skills section of the CPAt are based on three main reading skills. These skills are interpretation, comprehension, and generalization.

You will likely find the comprehension questions on the exam to be the most straight forward to answer. Comprehension questions will ask you about information that you can find directly in the text. You may be asked to recall something that the author states or facts that appear in the text.

Questions that fall under the interpretation category will require you to use higher thinking skills than questions that fall under the comprehension category. The answers to these questions may not be located directly in the text, but will require you to infer extended meaning from something that does appear in the text. For example, you might be asked to compare and contrast several aspects of the text or to pick out the passage’s main idea and details. Interpretation questions may ask you to apply something in the text to another situation or to analyze the text within a particular context. There is slightly more subjectivity to interpretation questions than to comprehension questions; however, there will still be only one best answer to each question out of the multiple choice options.

Questions on the reading skills section of the CPAt that fall under the generalization category will require even higher levels of thinking than questions that fall under the interpretation category. You will need to draw conclusions about what you have read and use information found in the passage to make inferences about seemingly unrelated issues. You may be asked to interpret the author’s intention in writing the passage and describe hidden meanings in the text or the relationship between different parts of the text. Generalization questions might require you to evaluate the validity or usefulness of the passages you read or to determine external situations to which the passages might apply. These questions also may provide you with a description of another situation and ask you to infer how it relates to the text passage you have just read.

Since you only have twenty-five minutes to complete this section of the CPAt, you will need to read the passages quickly. Some people find it helpful to glance over the questions about a particular passage and then read the passage afterwards, so that they know what specifically to look for in the passage. Others skim the reading passages first, then go back over the passage in greater detail as they answer the questions. Whatever strategy you choose, just be sure you pace yourself so that you can finish the reading skills section.

Local Interest Questions on the CPAt

Local Interest Questions on the CPAtThe CPAt has three content areas, which are language usage, reading skills, and numerical skills. However, it also has two sections with questions that are not scored. These sections are the demographic section and a local interest section. These are both designed to give career colleges a better idea of their students’ and prospective students’ needs and backgrounds. The demographic section may ask questions about your socioeconomic background. Usually these questions are used for research purposes only, are not associated with your name but rather combined into a pool of data that represents everyone taking the exam, and are optional to answer.

The local interest section of the CPAt gives your career college a change to write its own questions. These questions are usually based on student needs; their purpose is to gain a greater understanding of issues affecting current or prospective students so that the college can put itself in a good position to accommodate all of its students and make their education as attainable as possible.

Career colleges can add up to a total of ten local interest questions to the CPAt. These questions will be in a multiple choice format. Some questions may only have two possible responses, while others may have up to five possible responses. It all depends on the nature of each question. If your career college has decided to utilize the local interest questions on the CPAt, you will receive these questions either right before you take the exam or right after you finish. Your answer sheet will have a “local items” section where you can enter your responses to these questions. The person administering your exam will pass out a sheet with the local options questions to each student or prospective student taking the exam.

Colleges use data gathered from the local interest questions on the CPAt for a variety of purposes. Sometimes they use this data to better market their programs, because the data gives colleges a better idea of what the students who are interested in attending are like and what their particular needs may be. There are no right or wrong answers to the questions on the local interest section.

For example, some schools may ask questions about transportation. If the local interest question responses indicate that many students have trouble finding transportation to or from school, the school can implement programs to make transportation more accessible for its students. A school may choose to implement a ride sharing or carpooling program, or it may decide to offer a shuttle for students who need transportation to their classes. Schools also may ask about housing issues, and if they discover that many students have difficulty securing housing near the school, they can help provide students with information on how to obtain suitable housing once they have learned that housing is a problem.

Other questions on the local interest section may relate to students’ personal goals, habits, and preferences. You may encounter questions asking you about your long-term career goals and how your education at this particular college fits into your long-term goals. You may be asked questions that require you to assess your own study habits. Remember, there are no right or wrong answers, so you should be honest in your responses. If you have difficulty studying, answer accordingly. It is possible that many other students will have similar responses, and this could prompt your school to implement tutoring programs or other helpful resources to aid students in bettering their study skills.

You may also encounter questions on this section of the CPAt that ask about you knowledge of the college. For example, there may be questions relating to services offered by the college or extracurricular activities. These questions are designed to help colleges understand how they can better present their services to their students and what services students use the most.