PERT, the Postsecondary Education Readiness Test, has become the most recent way to test whether or not students are prepared to go to college.

It has become the newest confusing acronym high school students are being bombarded with, and many just want to know why they have to take it and what’s expected of them. Students and teachers alike seem to be having difficulty understanding what the test is truly about.

Senior Adam Yacoub stated that his class “talked about it once but other than that [they] haven’t even discussed it.”

After adopting a modified curriculum this year, even some Standard English teachers are unsure exactly what the test means.

English teacher Ms. Karla Phelps said that her students “start in ninth grade” by learning “vocabulary lists.” Though she has heard that the test seems to be heavy in “vocabulary and grammar” as well as “reading and comprehension,” she, like other teachers, remains somewhat in the dark about what the test means exactly.

Luckily, a significant amount of information on Miami Dade College’s website  can be uncovered.

Their FAQ page states that PERT “assesses for college-level coursework in English and mathematics.” It also says that there are “30 questions per subject area,” and “one sitting is approximately 3 hours.”

The site also provides a chart that shows what score ranges place students in which subject area classes, as well as the scores’ equivalence to both SAT and ACT scores.

Lastly, the site features a practice test for each subject area (math, reading, and writing).

According to senior Khandoker Ahmed, who took the PERT last year in order to be placed in the appropriate dual enrollment courses at SSC, “the reading part was very similar to SAT.” Such similarity should be a comfort to those who have already taken the SAT or any other standardized English test that involves critical thinking.

A final source to consider looking at is the McCann Associates PERT study guide, a guide that tells students which skills will be tested on the PERT.