Friday, February 11, 2011

American Government CLEP

This was my fourth exam. I passed with a score of 72. I studied for 4 weeks.  I have earned 12 credits in just over 4 months with CLEP/DANTES exams!

I wasn’t planning to take this exam, but after taking both US History CLEPs, I thought what I had learned for those would be helpful in continuing on to study for the Civil War exam and this exam. It did make studying much easier, but it really only helped on a few actual questions.

Thank you all for recommending excellent study materials. I used:

CliffsQuickReview book
(New) REA study guide with 2 practice tests
InstantCert – I liked it for this test for review and because it had different words and meanings than other resources. The other study guides help me put things into context better.
Friend’s notes from high school class
Read the Constitution (see link below)

Reviewed REA for US History I which has excellent coverage of Articles of Confederation and Constitution in about 15 pages.
Peterson’s practice exams – I actually took these this time and didn’t just read through them. I thought they were helpful.
I also had the Official CLEP Guide to make sure I was learning the correct material.

I liked all of these websites, but I didn’t get to spend much time at them:

U.S. Senate: Reference Home > Constitution of the United States – with explanation

Quia - 27 Amendments – games

We the People | 5th Edition - lots of quizzes

Court Cases Menu

TheCapitol.Net > Glossary of Congressional and Legislative Terms

I was well prepared and didn’t find the questions to be tricky. I didn’t even have very many that I had to narrow down to 2 possibilities and then guess, but I did have a couple that I had no idea what the answer was. I took 7 practice tests and some of the questions were actually on the exam. I felt really good about this exam all the way through. I think it is harder to get a higher score with fewer questions (100 vs. 120 on US History). This exam was much closer to the fact-based exam I had been hoping for with all of the previous history exams which weren’t. Knowing definitions was very helpful. It is intro level and a broad test that is not too deep.

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