Plan
The 8-week plan
Tue Oct 20 to Sun Dec 13, 2026. Placement test in the week of Mon Dec 14. Step one is the diagnostic: every unit it says you can skim frees up time.
A flexible daily rhythm
You have up to about 40 hours a week. You don't need all of them. Steady short sessions beat long ones, especially with ADHD. Pick the kind of day you're having:
| Kind of day | What to do | Time |
|---|---|---|
| Minimum day (tired, busy, low focus) | 1 lesson, or retry 5 problems from your retry list. That still counts. | 25-45 min |
| Normal day | 2-3 lessons with 5-minute breaks, then retry yesterday's missed problems. | 2-3 h |
| Good day | 4-6 lessons, a checkpoint quiz, and extra practice from the OpenStax section linked in each lesson. | 4-6 h |
| Slack day (about 1 per week) | Rest, or catch up if a week ran long. Built into every week below. | 0-1 h |
Work in 25-minute focus blocks with 5-minute breaks (the Pomodoro method, explained in Lesson 1). After 4 blocks, take a longer break. Ahead of schedule? Great: use the time for extra practice in your weakest unit.
Week by week
Week 1 · Tue Oct 20 to Sun Oct 25: Get started + number skills
- How to use this course
- Diagnostic quiz
- Signed numbers
- Fractions: simplify, multiply, divide
- Fractions: add and subtract
- Exponents, square roots, and order of operations
- Evaluating expressions
- Like terms and the distributive property
- Unit 1 checkpoint: Number skills
- Solving linear equations
- Equations with fractions and decimals
Day 1 (Tue Oct 20): Lesson 1 and the diagnostic, nothing else. The diagnostic tells you which units you can skim. Sunday is a slack day.
Week 2 · Mon Oct 26 to Sun Nov 1: Equations, inequalities, lines
- Formulas: solving for a letter
- Word problems with linear equations
- Linear and compound inequalities, interval notation
- Absolute value equations and inequalities
- Unit 2 checkpoint: Linear equations & inequalities
- The coordinate plane and graphing lines
- Slope
- Slope-intercept form
- Writing equations of lines (incl. parallel and perpendicular)
- Graphing linear inequalities
- Unit 3 checkpoint: Lines & graphs
Two checkpoints this week. Keep one slack day.
Week 3 · Mon Nov 2 to Sun Nov 8: Systems, exponents, polynomials
- Systems of equations: what a solution is, and substitution
- Solving systems by elimination
- Systems word problems
- Systems with three variables
- Unit 4 checkpoint: Systems of linear equations
- Exponent rules
- Zero and negative exponents, scientific notation
- Adding, subtracting, and multiplying polynomials
- Special products
- Dividing polynomials
- Unit 5 checkpoint: Exponents & polynomials
Lesson 22 (three variables) is short and light. Keep one slack day.
Week 4 · Mon Nov 9 to Sun Nov 15: Factoring (the big one)
- Factoring out the GCF and factoring by grouping
- Factoring trinomials x² + bx + c
- Factoring trinomials ax² + bx + c
- Special factoring patterns
- A general factoring strategy
- Solving equations by factoring
- Unit 6 checkpoint: Factoring
- Simplifying rational expressions
- Multiplying and dividing rational expressions
Factoring powers Units 7 and 9, so this week is deliberately a little lighter. Redo missed factoring problems on your slack day.
Week 5 · Mon Nov 16 to Sun Nov 22: Rational expressions, radicals, complex numbers
- Adding and subtracting rational expressions
- Complex fractions
- Solving rational equations (and work/rate problems)
- Unit 7 checkpoint: Rational expressions
- Roots and simplifying radicals
- Rational exponents
- Adding, subtracting, and multiplying radicals
- Dividing radicals and rationalizing denominators
- Solving radical equations
- Complex numbers
- Unit 8 checkpoint: Radicals & complex numbers
Halfway point. Look at your missed-problems list on the course home and clear a few each day.
Week 6 · Mon Nov 23 to Sun Nov 29: Quadratics (Thanksgiving week, lighter)
- Solving quadratics with the square root property
- Completing the square
- The quadratic formula and the discriminant
- Graphing parabolas and max/min word problems
- Quadratic inequalities
- Unit 9 checkpoint: Quadratics
- Functions and function notation
- Domain and range
Thanksgiving is Thu Nov 26: take Thursday and Friday off guilt-free. Lessons 50-51 are for the weekend if you feel like it.
Week 7 · Mon Nov 30 to Sun Dec 6: Functions, exponentials, logs; then mixed review
- Basic graphs and transformations
- Composition and inverse functions
- Unit 10 checkpoint: Functions
- Exponential functions, growth, decay, and interest
- Logarithms
- Properties of logarithms
- Solving exponential equations
- Solving logarithmic equations
- Unit 11 checkpoint: Exponentials & logarithms
- Mock placement test 1
Mon-Wed: finish the new lessons. Thu-Fri: mixed review (redo missed problems, retake your two weakest checkpoints). Sat Dec 5: Mock test 1. Sun: rest.
Week 8 · Mon Dec 7 to Sun Dec 13: Targeted review and Mock test 2
Mon-Wed: review the topics Mock 1 flagged (its breakdown links the lessons). Thu Dec 10: Mock test 2. Fri-Sat: light review with the cheat sheets only. Sun Dec 13: rest, sleep well.
Test week · Mon Dec 14 onward
What SLCC says about the test (Welcome to the SLCC Placement Process): it is taken online on Möbius through MySLCC, in one sitting, with a 90-minute limit (SLCC estimates about 30 minutes). You cannot go back to earlier questions, and notes, books, websites, and outside help are not allowed. SLCC does not say whether a calculator is allowed, so this course trains you to work by hand.
- Take the placement early in the week (Mon Dec 14 or Tue Dec 15), in the morning if you can, after a normal night's sleep.
- The day before: 30 minutes with the cheat sheets only. No new material.
- During the test: since you can't go back, check each answer before you move on (plug it back in). Use scratch paper.
- The score shows up in your records in about 30-60 minutes. The FAQ explains how to email a screenshot to math@slcc.edu if you need to register right away.
If the score is under 400: the retake plan
The placement can be retaken. SLCC's FAQ says: after the first attempt, retakes are limited to 1 per semester, you must wait 3 weeks between attempts, and each retake costs a $20 non-refundable fee (SLCC Math Placement FAQ). Testing early in test week makes the earliest retake date about Mon Jan 4, 2027. Spring 2027 classes begin Mon Jan 11, 2027 and the last day to add is Jan 20 (SLCC academic calendar; dates can change), so a retake on Jan 4-5 can still count for spring.
- Write down your score and which kinds of questions felt hard, the same day.
- Retake Mock tests 1 and 2 and use their topic breakdowns to pick your 2-3 weakest units.
- For 2 weeks: one lesson + its checkpoint per day from those units, plus your retry list.
- Week 3: a full mock test every other day, light review in between.
- Schedule the retake as the FAQ describes (it lists the contact and fee), no sooner than 3 weeks after attempt 1.
- Spring registration opens in early-to-mid November. Ask an advisor how to handle the math class while a retake is pending (for example, register for MATH 1010 as a backup and switch to MATH 1050 if the retake reaches 400).