Has anyone taken college CLEP tests recently?
This summer, I am taking College Algebra plus Macro and Micro Economics.
How hard are these tests? Do you need to be Alan Greenspan to pass or Joe Blow?
Also, any suggestions on study guides or web sites that help?
Thanks…
I’ve taken the German, French and Intro to Psychology tests. My background in them was 4 years of German, an exchange trip and a 5 on the AP test that my university wouldn’t accept, so I breezed through it; having had two years of French in high school, then two years later took the test and did well enough for 12 hours of credit; and for Psychology checking out a CLEP review book from the library and doing the practice test the night before and Wikipediaing a couple of concepts that seemed important that I didn’t know before. I passed the Psychology test having never studied the subject before, but I also tend to do freakishly well on standardized tests. If only there were any correlation between my standardized test scores and class performance…
Missed edit window, meant to add: I took these tests 4 years, 2 years and one semester ago, respectively.
Thanks, chaotic…I also do very well on standardized tests. To follow up: You had 4 years of German. How knowledgeable would a person have had to be to pass that CLEP?
Would he have to be a genius in German language, or would he have to have possibly ate sauerkraut once in his life? Or at what point in between?
The written part probably wouldn’t be too hard, but someone without prior experience probably would have had problems with the listening. At least here, they had two different score thresholds for 6 vs 12 hours of credit.
I took the micro and Macro Eco CLEPS on a whim in 2003. I never had a single eco class in my life. I figured if I passed them I saved a semester of school (they were just filler) and about $2K in course fees. If I didn’t pass them I would have been out like $75 or something like that. I decided on Monday to take a stab at both, went to Barnes and Noble that night and grabbed the Mac and Mic cliff notes books just to familiarize myself with the terminology. I passed both tests very easily the very next day. Best $150 I ever spent. I ended up returning the Cliff books too and got that money back!
Over the years leading up to my undergrad I took, I think, 6 clep tests and never studied for any of them (beyond what I told you) and passed them all very easily and I’m not a genius. FYI though while you are taking the exams you will FEEL like you are doing very poorly. Don’t get psyched out. They are adaptive tests and on both tests I felt like there was no way in the world I had passed and when the score came up I passed by a large margin.
Same thing when I took the GRE for grad school. Adaptive and I felt like I was doing horribley but I ended up doing just fine.
I think this is more suited for IMHO.
Colibri
General Questions Moderator
That sounds cool. What were the Cliff notes books your bought? Were they specific to the CLEP test or something else?
For Og’s sake, people, it’s CLIFF’S notes!! They’re the notes belonging to a guy named Cliff!! You know, like a guy sitting next to you in class that you can cheat off of?
Why do people say “cliff notes”? Do they study on the sharp drop of terrain? Is it that altitude that helps with memorization? I just don’t get it.
It seems like you’d want to be a little careful about placing too far forward in a foreign language sequence: if your degree requires 12 hours, say, and you test out of six, having to start in the third course of the sequence might be difficult.
I can’t tell if this is directed toward me or not, but I didn’t have any problems because my university only offers 12 hours of French (elementary I and II, and intermediate I and II), and I just CLEPed out of them all.