COMPASS – Computer-adaptive Placement, Assessment, and Support System. The COMPASS is actually a group of exams created by the American College Test Program (ACT) that are organized to evaluate a particular individual’s math, reading, and writing skills. There are two purposes of the COMPASS. The first reason is checking whether students have the skills to succeed in college-level courses. The second is helping to place students in whatever courses they are ready for, either college-level courses or courses to prepare them for college-level courses. 

COMPASS consists of computer-adaptive exams and the questions that the individual receives are therefore based on whether or not the preceding question was answered correctly. In case the preceding question is answered correctly and the student is not already at the hardest level of questions, the next question will be harder. But if the student answers incorrectly and the student is not already at the lowest level of difficulty, the next question will be easier. Every question is multiple-choice, but the exact number of questions varies from student to student depending upon how skilled the student is in a particular area. The COMPASS includes three main exam groups known as measures, which includes a mathematics measure, a reading placement measure, and a writing skills placement measure. There is also another exam included in the COMPASS which has a measure for English as a second language designed to test a student’s ability to understand written and spoken English. You should know that these exams are separate and an individual may be required to take an individual exam rather than all of the exams or any combination of these exams.

Five areas are included in the mathematics measure, among them numerical skills and pre-algebra, algebra, college-level algebra, geometry, and trigonometry. As for the reading placement measure, it includes passages and questions related to those passages regarding topics such as the humanities, practical reading, prose fiction, natural sciences, and social sciences. The writing skills exam tends to determine the student’s ability to correct errors in basic grammar, usage, punctuation, and sentence structure as well as the student’s ability to improve the style, organization, and content of a particular piece of writing. The exams are scored based on the percentage of questions answered correctly. The weighting of the percentage is based on how many responses are answered at each difficulty level. Usually the COMPASS measures are administered at the university or institution that requires them. The registration procedure, course placement, and fee, if any, depends on the specific university or institution.