Correct me if I'm wrong, but...

[Tasman]

no, it teaches you more about a particular subject which I am all about.
Plus I never rely on just one source, I go for multiple sources to learn from.

[irnbru]

I agree that mixing and matching source material to suit your own learning style is the best approach. That's why the specific exam feedback section is gold.

The free-clep-prep website is a nice site although as it's the majority result of one guy's work, who hasn't sat all the tests, it doesn't quite match up to the power and depth this forum has. I would definitely recommend that site to someone starting out or thinking about options it as it's almost a replacement for Lawrie's bain4weeks site with regards to the grading of tests. Just in case there's any doubt, that should be taken as a strong recommendation

Instantcert is massively focused on the tests it covers. The advantage here, is that what you learn has direct relevance to the test; you're unlikely to spend an hour or two getting side-tracked into reading and researching topics outside of the test syllabi. In my experience, for the Humanities CLEP, this was absolutely key. A dozen times so for the GRE Test. Coupled with the forum which helps keep people targeted, I'm under no illusions that I would have made the progress I have in absence of this forum and IC.

Scepticism is good in appropriate doses. Being able to draw from the experience of other people is extremely valuable. The capacity for interaction and feedback should make the journey smoother and getting as much information and relevant resources and material is common sense.

edit: free-clep-prep - Sorry che

[Maniac Craniac]

1) When Person A discovered Thing A in 1956, what was the result?

A. Something
B. Something
C. Something obviously untrue.
D. Something
E. Something obviously untrue.

2) In what year did Person A discover Thing A?

A. 1990
B. 1234
C. 1956
D. 2023
E. 54

3) What Thing did Person A discover?

A. A
B. B
C. C
D. D
E. E

4) Who discovered Thing A in 1956?

A. Person A
B. Person B
C. Person C
D. Person D
E. Person E

[MA2]

disregard

Edit: Take a test you know nothing about and then come back on here and let us know. Modern middle east as was mentioned or something harder like calc or chemistry.

MA2/USN

[MA2]

Now here's the tricky part:
If you randomly selected ALL of the answers on a clep test, you have exactly a 50/50 chance to pass or fail. Keeping that in mind, if you study a certain topic, and become knowledgeable of let's say 25% of the subject, and completely guess the rest, you can be reasonably assured that you will get more than 50% of the questions correct, right? Am I making any sense at all here?

Even assuming what you said could actually happen it still isn't true.

If you studied 25% percent of a subject, and somehow got 25% of the questions right without guessing, and then guess on the rest, you still wouldn't hit 50%, and even if you did, 50% correct isn't likely to pass.

100 question exam, you know 25 answers, leaves 75 left. By guessing on the rest, you would get roughly 1 in 5 right. That's 15 more correct answers, for a total of 40 right out of 100. Fail?

Yes, fail.

[irnbru]

Even assuming what you said could actually happen it still isn't true.

If you studied 25% percent of a subject, and somehow got 25% of the questions right without guessing, and then guess on the rest, you still wouldn't hit 50%, and even if you did, 50% correct isn't likely to pass.

100 question exam, you know 25 answers, leaves 75 left. By guessing on the rest, you would get roughly 1 in 5 right. That's 15 more correct answers, for a total of 40 right out of 100. Fail?

Yes, fail.

Hey MA2,

Good job on the approximation. You are right that the average (mean) of guessing on 75 questions rounds to 15 questions. What this means though, is that only just over half of the people who guessed on the 75 questions would correctly guess at least 15 right.

The probability for guessing at least 25 answers correctly out of 75 is just less than 1 in 200.

It's interesting because when people start thinking about multiple events by depth, they tend to estimate based on a probability of 0.5 - equivalent to a coin toss - repeated. The actual probability in this case is less than 0.005.

[Chebasaz]

I was dyslexic about the name for the first few months. Don't worry about it.

FCP's original purpose was to give some of the military on base a free place to study. I'm glad that people are getting a use out of it, but it's meant to be a supplement, not a single source of study. That actually makes me kinda nervous when someone does that. :willynilly: I'm a huge fan of multiple sources of study (as long as they don't cost $50 a piece).

Getting back to the original point of discussion - I've taken 25 of the CLEPs and 23 of the DSST's. Of those, I've taken a few cold (mostly CLEP) and passed. Then again, I've studied really hard for three (two DSST and one CLEP) and failed. I consider myself a good test taker. Maybe not as good as MC (his focus is scary), but pretty decent. There are good test-taking habits that you can use for these. Check out MC's great thread here: http://www.degreeforum.net/general-educa...olume.html, but good test taking habits will only take you so far. Luck may carry you a little further, but I don't think it'll always get you a pass.

Life experience really does come into play. If I'd have taken these at 18, there would have been a whole lot more study needed. We learn things every day we're alive. The rest we have to learn the old fashion way - by studying. banghead

Make no mistake though, these are challenging to a lot of people. There are usually four or five people in my local testing center every time I go. It's extremely rare that everyone passes. These are smart people. They just didn't have the targeted study resources.

The great thing about these forums is the community of people all dedicated to the same thing. We help each other out with study material, answers to oddball academic questions, and just plain old motivation. I'll always love IC for that.

Edit: Clarification and cleanup. Can't write a post this length without at least three edits!

[irnbru]

Okie, just for procrastination's sake:

The minimum number of questions required to be answered and the remainder guessed to achieve 50 in an ideal test of 100 questions if you are 50% 'lucky' is: 37 answered correctly, 13 guessed out of 63 remaining.

The minimum number of questions required to be answered and the remainder guessed to achieve 50 in an ideal test of 100 questions if you are 50% 'lucky' and can eliminate one incorrect answer from the remaining guessed questions is: 33 answered correctly, 17 guessed out of 67 remaining.

Hopefully, this can go some way to explain why what felt like a terrible test at the time actually resulted in a pass for you.

edit: Grammar all over the shop. Time for bed.

[Lindagerr]

Life experience along with recent related study can make a big difference in if you can pass a CLEP/DSST without study. I have been out of high school since before most here were born and out of B & M college over 20 years.
I would not dream of taking even the college math CLEP without Lots of study. On the other hand my 21 year old son could probably pass it tomorrow without any study.
I have not taken a history course since high school so the only history test I have done is the Vietnam War DSST ( I lived through that) I will take a history CLEP, but I will study first.

Yes maybe some people can pass without study, but I have studied for every single test I have taken and I can say I have scored in the range suggested for A on every single test. When I applied to WGU for my masters they wanted more info then if I passed they wanted my scores on the test. So I guess it depends on if you don't care if you just pass or you want to know you have learned the subject.

[Maniac Craniac]

Maybe not as good as MC (his focus is scary),

So is his face :nopity: