General Information about the COMET
COMET is the College of Micronesia-FSM’s Entrance Test. It is a three-section test given to high school seniors, high school graduates, and General Educational Development (GED) holders who want to enroll at COM-FSM and who have not attended college previously.
The COMET was designed as an entrance test for the internal use of the College of Micronesia-FSM. It is used to determine if a student has the potential to be successful at the college level. It was not designed to be used as a measure of performance nor was it designed to be compared to U.S. nationally standardized tests such as SAT and ACT.
The purpose of the COMET is to assist the college in making decisions about admitting students to the college and allow the college to gather some information about how well prepared and “college-ready” prospective students are in English writing and reading, and in mathematics. It is also used to place students who are admitted into an appropriate COM-FSM academic degree, developmental educational courses, and vocational and technical certificate programs.
Parts of the COMET
The COMET has three sections: (a) the essay, (b) the reading comprehension, and (c) the math sections.
The Essay Section
This section takes 40 minutes and the test is given a writing task and asked to write an essay of at least 250 words that includes an introduction, a body, and a conclusion.
The Reading Comprehension Section
The reading comprehension section of the COMET is the Nelson-Denny Reading Test (NDRT) which has a vocabulary section and a separate comprehension section.
The NDRT vocabulary section has 80 items, and students are given 24 minutes using the extended time for ESL students.
The NDRT reading comprehension section is seven reading passages with 38 questions. Students are given 32 minutes to complete the comprehension section using the extended time for ESL students.
The Math Section
The math section is one hour and includes 40 items with multiple-choice answers. The math section tests basic math, algebra, geometry, and problem solving.
