Graduation: what you need to know…
Required: ILAS and CLAST are your tickets out of here!
Candace Tossas
Issue date: 4/21/09 Section: News
With graduation quickly app-roaching, many students cannot help but get excited about kicking off their summer with a diploma in hand; however, before you walk across that stage you must pass two assessment tests. Many students are unaware of these FCCJ graduation requirements, but before you hit the panic button; FCCJ provides various tools to prepare students for both the CLAST (the College-Level Academic Skills Test) and the ILAS (Information Literacy Assessment).
The CLAST is a statewide test of college-level communications and mathematics skills developed by the State of Florida. There are four key components in this test: math, reading, English language skills, and an essay. These sections are similar to the SAT and all of the questions, with exception to essay, are multiple choice.
Exemption is possible for the CLAST if you meet one of the following requirements: a student scores a 500 or higher on the verbal section of the SAT or they have attained a score of 21 or higher on the ACT, then you can be exempt from the CLAST.
If you have not fulfilled one of these two qualifications, then the completion of two English composition courses with a grade average of 2.5 will exempt you. The same criteria can be applied to the mathematics requirements, but courses such as MAT0024 and MAT1033 do not count as college math level courses and therefore they cannot count towards exemption.
If you do not meet any of the requirements for exemption, then you must take the CLAST. The test is administered once every semester and in order to take it you must register before the deadline. However, if you miss the deadline then there is an alternate administration date that is held every Tuesday following a regular administration of the CLAST.
According the Marie Peoples, a retention specialist and achievement coach for ILAS workshops and exit exams at downtown campus, the ILAS is a test required by FCCJ to ensure that students are information literacy literate. In other words, it is a test based solely on the need for students to display appropriate understanding of how to obtain information from a school library, whether it is through checking out books or looking through databases. This is like the CLAST because it also has multi-part test that contain six different sections:
The CLAST is a statewide test of college-level communications and mathematics skills developed by the State of Florida. There are four key components in this test: math, reading, English language skills, and an essay. These sections are similar to the SAT and all of the questions, with exception to essay, are multiple choice.
Exemption is possible for the CLAST if you meet one of the following requirements: a student scores a 500 or higher on the verbal section of the SAT or they have attained a score of 21 or higher on the ACT, then you can be exempt from the CLAST.
If you have not fulfilled one of these two qualifications, then the completion of two English composition courses with a grade average of 2.5 will exempt you. The same criteria can be applied to the mathematics requirements, but courses such as MAT0024 and MAT1033 do not count as college math level courses and therefore they cannot count towards exemption.
If you do not meet any of the requirements for exemption, then you must take the CLAST. The test is administered once every semester and in order to take it you must register before the deadline. However, if you miss the deadline then there is an alternate administration date that is held every Tuesday following a regular administration of the CLAST.
According the Marie Peoples, a retention specialist and achievement coach for ILAS workshops and exit exams at downtown campus, the ILAS is a test required by FCCJ to ensure that students are information literacy literate. In other words, it is a test based solely on the need for students to display appropriate understanding of how to obtain information from a school library, whether it is through checking out books or looking through databases. This is like the CLAST because it also has multi-part test that contain six different sections:
