6 Steps to CLEP Exam Success: The Exhaustive Guide 

(AKA :The thorough 2000 word guide on how to quickly test out of a YEAR or more of college credits so you can save money and finish faster!)

Original posted on ZoeEHunter.com.com (inactive) in 2020

(Disclaimer: This post is not sponsored by the College Board, CLEP or any of its affiliates, nor by any of the study resources mentioned. I do not receive a commission or anything from you taking any CLEP tests, I just wanted to write this guide of everything I wish I knew before I took these exams to maybe help you as you work to save money in college!)

 

About CLEP:

In 2017, I took a semester to study for and take CLEP tests before taking a semester of college online. With this system I passed approximately two full-time years of General education requirements for only $425! This allowed me to pursue a double major and two minors and graduate in 4 years (not counting the gap year of online and CLEP).

 

While CLEP a fantastic program, let me say right now this method is not for the faint of heart, it takes a lot of effort and can be stressful. But if you are trying to save a lot of money in college, fast track your degree, or make room for multiple major or minor programs, you may not want easy, just possible. 🙂

 

The College Level Examination Program is a system designed by the College Board which gives you college credit (3-6 credits or more!) for knowledge you already have. You pay $87* (plus administrative fees), pass a test, and walk out with 3-6 college credits that transfer to most colleges, not a bad deal! The 33 CLEP subject tests cover Composition and Literature, three World Languages, History and Social Sciences, Science and Mathematics, and Business. With that many tests you could cover your general education requirements, and possibly some of your lower-level major-specific classes!

(*While this did not apply to me, the fee can be waived if you qualify by being in the military!)

 

Okay now for the 6 steps to CLEP success!

 

  1. Check your College’s policies.

What is your colleges policy about CLEP tests, CLEP scores and transfer credits? At Liberty University (which I attended the semester after CLEP) their policy required a higher than average point number to pass and their Analyzing and Interpreting Literature required the optional essay*. I did not know these things at first, so I had to retake one of my tests to reach the colleges specific point requirement and scramble to arrange for the optional essay on another. Don’t, make the same mistakes I did and check your colleges policies!

Check where do the CLEP credits transfer? Do they go to specific classes, class types, or somewhere else? This will be important in the next step and can usually be found in the student handbook or you could talk to your Student Service Counselor/transfer center.

Find out if or what is your college’s transfer cap policies are. Some colleges allow transfer up to 50-75% of the degree, while other have lower caps.. If you can only transfer in one year, do not spend your time doing more tests than are needed, but if you can transfer in more, go for as much as you can!

Additionally,  it would be helpful to check what the policies are regarding how many credits you get per exam at your school. Some colleges award more credits for the same exam than others. At one of my schools I could get 3 credits and at another school 6 credits for the same English exam.

If you are trying to go through school faster, cheaper, or you really need to get through a lot of credits for a double major or something, it may be an important consideration for you to find a school that awards more credits per exam and has a higher transfer cap policy so you can use CLEP as much to your advantage as possible.

(*Parenthetical insertion: if you do need to take the A&L writing, realize that you can’t really prepare for the topic by studying a specific literary piece, you will have to think of a work to match the prompt during the test as it describes a specific theme/literary tool/ character trait in instructions.  I would recommend just reading/reviewing a variety of classic literature so you have sources to pull from. Also note that the College Composition writing is on the computer while the A&L is paper and pencil, prepare accordingly.)

 

2.Check your General Education (and Major(s) Requirements)

Trust me, you do not want to take more tests (or spend more money) than you need to by taking the wrong tests or finding out you needed less credits than you spent the time to take. However, this can be avoided by comparing the available CLEP credits with your general education and major(s) requirements.

For your GenEd, does your school employ specific class system (“take Math 101”) or a “x number of credits in class type” (Critical Thinking, Communications, etc.). (Tip, it may help to look at how classes transfer, you should know this from step 1!).

Knowing which method your school uses for GenEd is an important component of deciding which test to take, do you need a specific Biology credit, or can you take Physical Science or an extra Math according to your preference/strengths instead to get the credit you need?

(If you just want to take tests in subjects you did in High School, or just your General Education credits, then you can go straight to step 3! But if you want to try to learn a subject specifically for an exam, you want to go through college really fast, or you want to do multiple degree/minor programs, read on!)

You can also check your degree program. Do you have any lower-level major-specific credits that taking a CLEP class could cover? For example if you are a Business Major, you can take 5 tests that are actually in your major, and for other degrees, I am sure there are a few other Major specific 100-level classes that you could do.

With these tests, it is helpful to have some context to the subject, I wouldn’t recommend waltzing into a test when you are unfamiliar with the topic (not that you would of course because you would study, right :D), but having taken one class in your subject before does help (i.e. take test you are familiar with like English or Algebra or something vs. Principles of Microeconomics if you haven’t studied the subject of economics at all. I would not recommend major-specific exams for Freshman unless you took an AP/Dual-Credit class in that subject or are very familiar with it.) That being said, it is still totally possible! You know yourself!

 

4. Plan

Now, studying for CLEP tests is not something I would recommend doing if you are already taking a full class-load, your grades may suffer and passing the tests will be harder due to mental fatigue. It is best to study for/take CLEP during a break, the summer, or like I did, take a “gap semester” where you study full time for the tests. Keep that in mind when you are planning. 🙂

At this point you should have a pretty solid of which CLEP test(s) you need to take, YAY!

When I took my CLEP semester, I needed to study for and take 6 CLEP tests (College Composition, Analyzing and Interpreting Lit, Biology, US History 1, and College Mathematics), I’ll use those as an example as we plan together. J

I studied for CC during the Summer and I took it in late August. This class was one that I was relatively comfortable with so I chose to take them first so I could work my way through the more difficult tests gradually. Its all about building confidence!

Then, I chose easy-moderate level classes (for me) Analyzing and Interpreting Literature and Biology (a language arts and a STEM or an easier and a harder/more technical one to avoid doing Math and Biology at the same time, because that wouldn’t work for me. You may work entirely different, know thyself! ). I studied those for about 2-3 months.

Lastly, I studied for College mathematics and US History 1, subjects I was least confident in. These worked on October through early January because I really need the time to study them ( not that I am awful in Math or History, I just needed to be  thorough and take my time).

This is system of studying for two at a time in contrasting subjects that works fairly well if you are trying to accomplish multiple tests relatively quickly without burning your brain out (too much).

 

However, what method you need may be entirely different from mine. Do what works best for YOU!

 

4. Purchase and Schedule

Next step is to purchase the exam(s) you wish to take on clep.collegeboard.org

As stated above, the exams are $87 each* I would recommend purchasing specific tests before you start studying them vs buying all of them at one time. There are a few reasons why this is beneficial:

  • First of all, not paying all of the money at one time. 😀 $87 or $174 sounds a lot better than $425 or more at one time. 😉
  • The exams expire after 6 months, so if some subjects take longer than expected, you will not worry about the exam times running out before you are ready.

(Remember fee can be waived if you qualify with Military service!)

Your exams are active for _____ months so call the college you are taking the exam at and schedule your date a time. I would recommend 2-3 months or more ahead of time to avoid stressing as you study and have time to prepare. This lead me to….

5. Study. 🙂

Yay! Now for the part you were most excited about: studying for your exams.

While these were not available when I took my exams, the College Board recently came out with free courses to prepare for their CLEP exams. I would highly suggest looking into them since:

  • They are free!
  • They are made by the test designers!

If you’d like additional study resources for CLEP, I’d recommend Study.com. free-clep-prep and/or DIVE programs.

Study.com is a subscription-based $40+/mo service  that has unlimited access to over 1,088 college courses in many majors (and more in High School and before), plus courses for all of the CLEP subjects. They have course videos with fun (not childish) animated characters, plus full video transcripts if you are like me and prefer to read. While its not exactly inexpensive, the courses are truly quality and in-depth for many subjects with practice quizzes and flashcards to help you study for your CLEP test and other college courses. .

(They also have options for quickly earning college credits from them in their Accelerator program if that is something you’d like to look into.)

Now if you are looking for really solid instruction for STEM from a Christian perspective, DiveIntoMath.com has DVD lessons for CLEP/AP prep which is what I used and I would recommend them!

While I am not sure how much it is updated free-clep-prep-.com has a list of topics to study for in each CLEP exam including a difficulty rating and how many credits it is per exam. It is a useful free study resource that could be helpful if saving money is the biggest goal for you. 

If you are someone who appreciates practice exams, the College Board also sells a complete book of practice exams for their test. If you are planning on taking more than 2-3 exams, I would recommend purchasing the complete guide for $25 vs. the individual guides for $10 each.

 

6. Take

Then the time comes to take your exam. Make sure to get plenty of sleep the night before your exam (s). Don’t pull an all nighter! Go over your notes before you sleep and your brain work on what you studied while you sleep and you’ll be rested plus remember more!

The day of, go into your college or a local community college 15-30 minutes before your exam and show your ID to sign in for your test. 

Then just take a breath and take your test.

I find it helpful to to answer every question on the test, whether it is easy or you are unsure (but remember/mark the questions you are unsure about to come back to later). That way you have them all answered if you run out of time!And you aren’t penalized for wrong answers, so guesses are better than nothing, you have a 25% chance of being right!

Then go back to the hard ones and make 1-2 passes narrowing choices down as much as possible through really reading the questions and answers. Usually you’ll find the right one, but at minimum you’ll have an educated guess and improve your odds of being right. If I have time I go through the whole exam 1-2 times to double check everything and make sure you didn’t miss a “which not correct” or other silly mistakes. Then you submit and are done!

For any written exams, take a breath and do the best you can. Use a 5 paragraph structure or basic essay structure, and try to think of what you want to write or outline before because its hard to cleanly erase things on that form. Take your time and be conscientious, but try to be efficient so you don’t run out of time. You’ve got this!

 

Concluding Thoughts

Wow! Congratulations you made it through the whole thing! I know it was long so thank you for bearing with me!

I hope this helped you in preparing for your CLEP exam and finding a way to complete the credits you need faster and less expensively. Keeping working towards your goals and dreams, whether that means accomplishing college faster, or in a less expensive way, or making room for multiple programs to prepare you for what you are wanting to do in life.

All things are possible through Christ who strengthens you! (Philippians 4:13) Keep pressing on!