Algebra placement test topics are related to identifying the students for an accelerated program and are not necessarily directly tied to their current curriculum.

The general topics might include:

• Order of operations
• Percent/Profit/Discount
• Algebraic Expressions
• Probability
• Mean/Median/Mode
• Area/perimeter for rectangles, circles, triangles
• Scientific Notation

Also there are several free websites that provide math contest style problems at varying grade levels.  These sites might be of interest.

Math Top 10’s 6th grade math challenges

The Mathematical Association of America that provides various websites that are fun for various levels and ages of students:

Math Association of America’s Fun Math

I encouraged my daughter to use Khan Academy to review these topics and become comfortable with theim in the 9 months beforehand.  I also encouraged her to complete their pre-algebra mission and to make sure that she mastered topics covered in 6th grade.  She found that she couldn’t work ahead on 6th grade materials or she would be too bored in class.  Her older brothers did nothing to prepare and probably placed where they should on their own.