Welcome to the Kaiser Math Review!

Thank you for taking a moment to allow me to introduce myself and this program.

My name is Nathan James and for the past year I have been the principal tutor hired by the SEIU to assist Kaiser employees taking math classes at PCC. The program has worked well, and many of them have been successful in achieving their career goals. Working with these students, I observed that many were starting at a point well behind where they last left off in school. As a result, the math was easy and boring, and their goals seemed very far away. It seemed to me that if they had a chance to review the material before they took the placement exam, perhaps with a little help, they could skip entire terms of math prerequisites.

It is with this in mind that I designed this program. The goal is to reacquaint you to the math you can expect to see on a community college placement test. We'll focus on the subjects you've seen before but probably haven't used in a while so that you can place into a level of math appropriate to your needs and abilities.

This class should differ from other classes you may have taken previously in three noteworthy ways:

1) Class size will be limited to 10 students, assuring plenty of 1 on 1 attention, and a more relaxed environment where you can feel comfortable asking those "easy" questions (you know, that one that everyone else is quietly wondering about).

2) The class will be restricted to Kaiser employees only, so you don't have to worry about that annoying 18-year-old know-it-all in the front row whom you'll surely find later at community college.

3) The course was designed for you! We have the freedom to continually restructure it to suit your needs, to spend more or less time on a certain subject, or skip subjects altogether. Comments, suggestions, and questions are encouraged in person, via email, or even posted on this blog!

For now, please take a moment to try out some of these problems below. This way, when you arrive on Monday the 23rd, you'll know what you want to work on, and we can adjust the class schedule as needed. Good luck, and congratulations on taking a major step towards a new career!

Nathan James
Math Teacher


Sample Pre-algebra Questions:

1. 54 – 6 ÷ 2 + 6 = ?

A. 6
B. 24
C. 27
D. 30
E. 57


2. The lowest temperature on a winter morning was –8°F. Later that same day the temperature reached a high of 24°F. By how many degrees Fahrenheit did the temperature increase?

A. 3°
B. 8°
C. 16°
D. 24°
E. 32°

3. If (3/4 - 2/3) + (1/2 + 1/3) is calculated and the answer reduced to simplest terms, what is the denominator of the resulting fraction?

A. 24
B. 12
C. 6
D. 4
E. 3

4. 1/2 + ( 2/3 ÷ 3/4) - (4/5 × 5/6) = ?

A. 1/16
B. 17/27
C. 13/18
D. 7/9
E. 5/6

5. Mr. Brown went grocery shopping to buy meat for his annual office picnic. He bought 7 ¾ pounds of hamburger, 17.85 pounds of chicken, and 6 ½ pounds of steak. How many pounds of meat did Mr. Brown buy?

A. 32.10
B. 31.31
C. 26.25
D. 22.10
E. 21.10

6. Four students about to purchase concert tickets for $18.50 for each ticket discover that they may purchase a block of 5 tickets for $80.00. How much would each of the 4 save if they can get a fifth person to join them and the 5 people equally divide the price of the 5-ticket block?

A. $ 1.50
B. $ 2.50
C. $ 3.13
D. $10.00
E. $12.50

7. In scientific notation, 20,000 + 3,400,000 = ?

A. 3.42 × 10⁶
B. 3.60 × 10⁶
C. 3.42 × 10⁷
D. 3.60 × 10⁷
E. 3.60 × 10¹²

8. Saying that 4 < √x < 9 is equivalent to saying what about x ?

A. 0 < x < 5
B. 0 < x < 65
C. 2 < x < 3
D. 4 < x < 9
E. 16 < x < 81


9. What value of x solves the following proportion?

9/6 = x/8

A. 5 1/3
B. 6 ¾
C. 10 ½
D. 11
E. 12

10. If the total cost of x apples is b cents, what is a general formula for the cost, in cents, of y apples?

A. b/xy
B. x/by
C. xy/b
D. by/x
E. bx/y

11. On a math test, 12 students earned an A. This number is exactly 25% of the total number of students in the class. How many students are in the class?

A. 15
B. 16
C. 21
D. 30
E. 48

12. This year, 75% of the graduating class of Harriet Tubman High School had taken at least 8 math courses. Of the remaining class members, 60% had taken 6 or 7 math courses. What percent of the graduating class had taken fewer than 6 math courses?

A. 0%
B. 10%
C. 15%
D. 30%
E. 45%


13. Adam tried to compute the average of his 7 test scores. He mistakenly divided the correct sum of all of his test scores by 6, which yielded 84. What is Adam’s correct average test score?

A. 70
B. 72
C. 84
D. 96
E. 98

14. A total of 50 juniors and seniors were given a mathematics test. The 35 juniors attained an average score of 80 while the 15 seniors attained an average of 70. What was the average score for all 50 students who took the test?

A. 73
B. 75
C. 76
D. 77
E. 78


Correct Answers for Sample Numerical Skills/Prealgebra Items

1. E (Operations with Integers)
2. E (Operations with Integers
3. B (Operations with Fractions)
4. C (Operations with Fractions)
5. A (Operations with Decimals)
6. B (Operations with Decimals)
7. A (Exponents)
8. E (Exponents)
9. E (Ratios and Proportions)
10. D (Ratios and Proportions)
11. E (Percentages)
12. B (Percentages)
13. B (Averages)
14. D (Averages)