Music History TECEP

[TexasTink]

Has anybody taken this exam recently and can share about their experience?  I'm scheduled to take it on Tuesday and I'm trying to figure out what to study most the next couple of days.  The only reviews of it that I can find anywhere are pretty brutal so that's quite discouraging!  But they were also several years old so I was hoping to find some more recent information on what the test is like/the percentages of the info covered/etc...

[cookderosa]

Has anybody taken this exam recently and can share about their experience?  I'm scheduled to take it on Tuesday and I'm trying to figure out what to study most the next couple of days.  The only reviews of it that I can find anywhere are pretty brutal so that's quite discouraging!  But they were also several years old so I was hoping to find some more recent information on what the test is like/the percentages of the info covered/etc...

There is only 1 review of this exam on this forum- it's in the specific exam feedback folder from 2016 and she failed it. Yikes - good luck!

[dfrecore]

The best you can do is make sure that you have studied everything on the test description, spending more time on things with bigger coverage (so 19th/20th century).

[TexasTink]

Quick questions about TECEPS -

1. Do I have to install the ProctorU Chrome Extension? The confirmation email says to do so, but nothing on the website mentions it. I cleared the pre-check on the website as well.
2. Should I already be logged in to myEdison at the start of the test?
3. How do I find what I can have as materials during the TECEP? I can't find that information anywhere.

[TexasTink]

Since I've now taken the exam and received my results, I thought I would post a follow-up for anyone thinking about taking this test in the future.  I didn't know pretty much anything about the test when I registered for it.  My goal is to work in classical music and so I really wanted to have this one music class I could find for my degree. 

For background, I've been playing piano for 25 years, have sung in choirs off and on the same time, and taught piano for 7-8 years.  While I've never spent a lot of time on music history, I'm by no means a newbie to this subject.  One of the things that did hurt me with this test is it focuses a lot on opera and the late-Romantic and Modern eras.  I know very little about opera - just never cared about it.  And those time periods of classical music are overall by far my least favorite eras.

Generally, I would recommend just taking something else.  This test covers a massive amount of music history and covers it at a deep level.  And unlike the CLEP's that are both broad and deep, this one is only 3 credits.  That said, it does appear that I passed the test.  Literally by the skin of my teeth with a 71.  I would generally agree with the other two assessments I've seen of this test that called it brutal.  I will say though that I was surprised by the number of questions that I would consider easy - ones that I could answer right off the bat and be 90-100% sure they were correct.  With how brutal people called it, that part did catch me off guard.

Given that the test is so broad and deep, it's really hard to give specifics of what to study.  You basically have to know it all to get a high score.  There were questions on specific works (some by famous composers and some not) and questions on broad categories/styles.  But a lot of specifics on all range of topics.  Here's a couple things that stood out to me based on the test I took - 
~Opera is super important to know.  If you don't know anything about opera coming into the test, be prepared to spend a lot of time here.  I definitely could have used quite a bit more study on this portion. 
~The test is heavy on Romantic/Modern eras even though it covers Classical as well.  I noticed that I could have used more prep on late Modern - particularly the last 50-60 years of music.
~Terminology - this is something I think would be hard/impossible to study for.  I've had lots of music theory and terminology growing up and got gold medals in theory all through high school.  I hadn't heard of any of the music terms that were on my test.  Fortunately there were only a couple questions on music terms (as more relates to theory anyway) and one of them I happened to stumble across while studying.
~There are two music samples to listen to and then you are asked 1-3 questions about them.  The sample opened in another tab and it appeared you could listen to it as many times as you liked.
~Be sure that you know the why behind the music and also how it relates to shifts in culture at large.  This was important for me with the essay section.
~Know the names of pieces.  This came into play for me especially in the essays where they required that you list specific pieces by two different composers to fit a certain style they asked for.  I'm horrible with remembering names of pieces so that was a little challenging.

Here are the books I used to study.  The starred ones are the ones I think were/would be most helpful.  I also went over some quizzes on Quizlet (overall, not super helpful - a couple were pretty decent) and watched a few random videos on YouTube for particular topics.
-The Complete Classical Music Guide by John Burrows.  Only really helpful for a quick overview.  Way too many composers listed to actually keep track of.
-An Introduction to Music by Martin Berstein.  I would say this would be pretty helpful for Classical through Romantic.  It does seem to cover a decent amount of opera and quite a bit of the nationalist movement (also important). But very little modern.
-Language of the Spirit by Jan Swafford.  Biographies of composers.  While generally not a book I'd recommend for an overview of music, this book is pretty helpful for this test.  The majority of it covers Romantic-Modern and he does cover some of the late modern composers that are also important to know.
*A History of Western Music by Donald Grout.  This is the book they recommend.  I used the fifth edition as that's what my library had.  While it does go into far too much analytic detail of the scores themselves, it is an excellent resource.  I would say that the test and questions are drawn largely from the broad range of information presented inside.  It also covers the modern period very well.  I would say, without a doubt, use this book if you take this test.
*History of Music by Hugh Miller.  This is one of my mom's old college books I found lying around that I picked up on a whim.  My copy is from 1973.  It was very helpful.  It's very similar to the previous book only much smaller and very succinct thoughts.  It's a great overview but also has a good amount of detail in bite-size pieces.  I would also highly recommend this resource.