A total newb's experience with CLEP/DSST

[Pattie]

I am frequently guilty of viewing the process of testing out of a degree through my own limited perspective. I often forget that others are not attending one of the "big three" and that they may really have an interest in certain subjects and may need the foundational knowledge to succeed in the future.

A good post, Michael, but I take serious issue with the notion that those of us attending one of the "big three" might not have an interest in certain subjects or need foundational knowledge. As a TESC student since 1999, I have, obviously, not been in this to get a degree as quickly as possible without regard to actually mastering material. This was just the best way for me to go about getting my degree. I don't believe that I am alone. I take my education seriously and have used the opportunity presented by TESC to further it because it was the most flexible and cost effective way to do so.

[Lindagerr]

I have really enjoyed reading everyones opinions and methods. As I read I thought about what I have done to prepare for the exams I have taken. The first exam I took was Psychology of Women a TECEP, I had no idea what to expect and I bought the recommended book and scanned every chapter read and answered all the questions at the end of each chapter and generally stressed out. I ended up doing fine. That gave me the confidence to go on to my next test a DSST agin I bought books and studied a good deal. it was after this I found IC, I have been able to use it on some exams and not on others, as time goes on, life gets in my way I find unless I set myself deadlines I do not study. I have done fine on all of my exams, passing is always my minimum goal, but the better I do the better I feel about myself.

When it comes to which exams are harder all of us seem to have different opinions based on our own preferences. I have heard many people say A & I lit. was a breeze, they passed it cold or it was the easiest exam ever. Well for me it was Hell. I love to read and had just Aced a Children's Lit course, but old english and poetry are not my thing. I had to force myself to study I hated every minute of it. I did pass, just last week, but I did not find it easy by any means.

On the other hand how many people that said A & I lit was easy could get an A in Organic Chemistry with lab. Each of us has our strengths and weaknesses, but as I learned last week.

If we want something enough and are willing to work for it even an old dog can learn new tricks(or old English).

[lrgaul]

[SIZE="2"][COLOR="Navy"]This is an interesting thread we have going here. Based on my experience so far, InstantCert will usually give you enough information to pass an exam. I am not prepared to say that this will be a low-stress pass, but a pass indeed.

I can certainly admire the positions of those who are self proclaimed perfectionists. I think being excellent, rather than average, is a fantastic goal for everyone to work towards in life. On the other hand, I think it is so important for people to be careful that they do not become self-righteous in the process. Afterall, for some people, including me, perfection is the enemy of progress.

My pet peeve is when people post to the forum saying something similar to this, "I only got a 65, but I will take what I can get."

What? This is a little bit like saying, "Oh my God, I took an IQ test today and it was only 125!" A score of 60 is equivalent to an A ladies and gentlemen. I certainly understand that some colleges get particularly high and mighty about the scores they will take, but the majority of us are attending open enrollment institutions, which are not exactly known for being the ultimate in choosy. I apologize in advance if I offended anyone with this particular viewpoint, but the University of Minnesota is a very selective college and it will accept CLEP scores of 60.

My experience with CLEPs so far has been pretty different than many of the people who have described their experiences here. For example, I took the Principles of Management CLEP a few weeks back and I scored a 70. (By the way, this was my highest score yet and I am actually pretty darn proud of it.) Anyway, when I was taking this exam, I didn't run into a single question that I wasn't 100% confident about. I mean literally, there wasn't a single question that I was not rock solid positive that I knew the correct answer to, and I finished it in less than half of the allotted time. The result: A 70! Human Growth & Development and Introductory Sociology produced a similar experience.

Frankly speaking, if I was going to judge the experiences of others based on my own experiences, I would not be sure how someone would find a test particularly difficult at all when they managed to score higher than 60 on it. To be completely honest, every test that I have scored higher than 60 on, I felt like I could have aced if I had been drunk as a skunk! However, to a marked degree this is a pretty sensible reaction because according to the Raw Score Conversion Chart at my local testing center, the scaled scores of a CLEP can be effectively translated into an equivalent letter grade. Of course, this is a figure for statistical purposes because the majority of colleges do not offer letter grades for CLEP. The Raw Score Conversion Chart is as follows:

Scaled scores of 58 to 80 are equivalent to an A.
Scaled scores of 53 to 57 are equivalent to a B.
Scaled scores of 47 to 52 are equivalent to a C.
Scaled scores of 41 to 46 are equivalent to a D.
Scaled scores of 40 or under are equivalent to an F.

Looking at this a little deeper yet, I live in MN where we have some of the highest academic test scores in the country. My local testing center indicates that 88% of its passing scores on CLEP exams (meaning scores of 50 or higher) will fall in between 50 and 60. Having said that, it is not terribly common for CLEP scores to exceed 60 to begin with. Fun fact: approximately 64% of the CLEP exams taken at my testing center are scored high enough to qualify as passing.

In summary, any score higher than 60 is nothing to shake a stick at. Scores like this would put you in the upper 10 percentile, which should be pure bliss for the average perfectionist! [/COLOR][/SIZE]

[barcotta]

Originally Posted by barcotta
I am frequently guilty of viewing the process of testing out of a degree through my own limited perspective. I often forget that others are not attending one of the "big three" and that they may really have an interest in certain subjects and may need the foundational knowledge to succeed in the future.

A good post, Michael, but I take serious issue with the notion that those of us attending one of the "big three" might not have an interest in certain subjects or need foundational knowledge.

It wasn't my intention to make that connection and, just in case anyone else interpreted my somewhat inarticulate phrase the same way, I'll just quickly set the record straight.

You may have noticed that some of my posts can get a little...lengthy but I really do try to be as concise as possible. You should see them before I start chopping away! In any event, this thought would have been better expressed as separate sentences. I don't think that because a student selects one of the big three that they must not need foundational knowledge or have any interest in the material--any more than I think that those attending a traditional college need foundational knowledge and are interested in the material. The two concepts in my mind are completely unrelated. It really should have looked something like this:

I often forget that not everyone is going to one of the "big three" colleges like me and that they may just need to take a few exams which may be subject to completely different grade requirements. I also have to remind myself that not everyone has efficiency and low-cost as their primary goals and that some people are actually interested in the material and may need to understand and retain the information for future use.

As long as I'm clearing things up, I should probably note that I did find some of the material interesting (Org Behavior) and would like to retain it. That just wasn't my primary goal.

[Bushrunner]

Micheal,

You are correct about some people's focus not being low-cost/efficiency to get through dozens of tests... Forgive me for being ignorant, but I actually was unaware that there are college degree programs out there available solely through testing out (yeah, go ahead and laugh). I still have the time to be a full-time student but if I was already in the workforce, my only reasonable option was a distance program, and grades didn't really matter for my purposes, I would probably try to knock out my degree in a matter of weeks, one test after the other. My situation is that I was looking to test out of six classes; I'm done with three (ISCA, POM, OB), and there's three more to go (Macro, Stats, Marketing). And then I only have two more classes to take to graduate.

To be quite frank, my motives are also to graduate, retention is not a primary goal. My primary goal is to ensure that my CLEP/DSST scores will be accepted by my school. My second goal is to maintain my GPA because I want to graduate with honors. I guess my third goal is kind of personal and vague; probably to prove to myself that I don't need a classroom and somebody lecturing me and handing out assignments (and paying dearly for that privilege) in order for me to blow these classes out of the water. It's kind of a metaphor for something larger; a sort of discipline, intellectual independence that I might possibly need later, perhaps in a postgraduate environment... Time will tell.

Bmills, good luck on your organizational behavior test. The DSST version had me nervous the whole time.

Alix, I'm like you, I couldn't help but get sidetracked by related by probably not test-relevant subjects... Like for this marketing exam I'm studying for I started to research psychographics and I just got sucked into researching it for the better part of 2 hours. Fascinating stuff, really.. Irresponsible? We'll see. I think it really helps to sustain interest in the subject material.

Linda, "overpreparing" for my first test last week (ISCA) and then passing it with flying colors definitely gave me the confidence I needed to push full steam ahead on the rest of these tests. It was an "early win" and I've pretty much been on fire since then.

Okay guys well I'm off to the testing center. Sure hope I'm ready!

[Bushrunner]

Got a 76 on the principles of marketing exam... Whew! Only two more to go lol..

[bmills072200]

Way to go Bushrunner, awesome score...per this thread, the next thing you should say is: "It was the hardest exam that I have ever taken and you will fail for sure if you only use IC..."

Just kidding...hilarious

[ShotoJuku]

.....Bmills: It is comforting to know that it's relatively "difficult" to fail a test.....

[COLOR="Navy"].....Providing that you have sufficiently studied the proper material, tested your skills, and developed a high degree of exam level confidence.

NEVER UNDERESTIMATE ANY EXAM!!![/COLOR]