Students proceed directly from the Tutorial to their first assessment (See Chapter 4). The initial assessment is optional in Financial Accounting, unless the instructor chooses to require it. Students with prior knowledge of Accounting may wish to take the assessment in order to begin their work with appropriate material. To reiterate, no help of any kind should be given to students being assessed, not even rephrasing a problem.

The ALEKS assessment is adaptive and variable in length. Some students will have very short assessments, whereas others will have assessments that are longer. Consistency of effort and concentration are the factors most likely to influence the length of an assessment.