Principles of Management CLEP

[wfauchier]

Hi everybody,

I've never taken a CLEP test before and have been prepping intensely for the Principles of Management CLEP using this site and the book my university recommends. By now, I understand the concepts and score very high on the InstantCert tests (all at random order).

To be extra prepared, I took the official CLEP practice test the other night and was surprised at two things.
1. There were a number of concepts in the test that were not mentioned on the InstantCert site.
2. I've read that the CLEP tests are not designed with trick questions, but some of those official CLEP practice questions were definitely tricky, and the answers ambiguous. Still, I got 75% of the questions right on the CLEP practice test.

Has anybody out there taken the Principles of Management CLEP test, and if so, is the test as difficult as the practice test? My university requires a score of 65 (national is 50, I think), but nobody here seems to be real clear on how the percentile ranking works.

Personally, I feel like I've gone into preparation overkill. I also have to take the marketing CLEP exam. Is there an experienced CLEP-exam-taker out there who has feedback on any of this?

Thanks,

Wayne

[ShotoJuku]

Hi everybody,

I've never taken a CLEP test before and have been prepping intensely for the Principles of Management CLEP using this site and the book my university recommends. By now, I understand the concepts and score very high on the InstantCert tests (all at random order).

To be extra prepared, I took the official CLEP practice test the other night and was surprised at two things.
1. There were a number of concepts in the test that were not mentioned on the InstantCert site.
2. I've read that the CLEP tests are not designed with trick questions, but some of those official CLEP practice questions were definitely tricky, and the answers ambiguous. Still, I got 75% of the questions right on the CLEP practice test.

Has anybody out there taken the Principles of Management CLEP test, and if so, is the test as difficult as the practice test? My university requires a score of 65 (national is 50, I think), but nobody here seems to be real clear on how the percentile ranking works.

Personally, I feel like I've gone into preparation overkill. I also have to take the marketing CLEP exam. Is there an experienced CLEP-exam-taker out there who has feedback on any of this?

Thanks,

Wayne

[SIZE="3"]Hey Wayne![/SIZE]
[SIZE="3"][COLOR="Blue"]First - Welcome to the IC group!!

Second, If you can pass you are never "over prepared" but if you fail (trust me here) you realize how much "under prepared" you were. So, take whatever preparation steps necessary to give you the feeling of being ready to face the real thing. Have you considered other practice exams such as those from http://www.Petersons.com ? They are an excellent source of pre-test prep. When you feel comfortable and your pre-test scores are right "for you" then you will be ready.

As for your required goal of 65 versus the standard pass/fail score of 50, then you may wish to feel "over prepared" rather than "just enough prepared" in order to reach your minimum score of 65.

GOOD LUCK!!! [/COLOR][/SIZE]

[snazzlefrag]

Hi everybody,

I've never taken a CLEP test before and have been prepping intensely for the Principles of Management CLEP using this site and the book my university recommends. By now, I understand the concepts and score very high on the InstantCert tests (all at random order).

To be extra prepared, I took the official CLEP practice test the other night and was surprised at two things.
1. There were a number of concepts in the test that were not mentioned on the InstantCert site.
2. I've read that the CLEP tests are not designed with trick questions, but some of those official CLEP practice questions were definitely tricky, and the answers ambiguous. Still, I got 75% of the questions right on the CLEP practice test.

Has anybody out there taken the Principles of Management CLEP test, and if so, is the test as difficult as the practice test? My university requires a score of 65 (national is 50, I think), but nobody here seems to be real clear on how the percentile ranking works.

Personally, I feel like I've gone into preparation overkill. I also have to take the marketing CLEP exam. Is there an experienced CLEP-exam-taker out there who has feedback on any of this?

Thanks,

Wayne

Hi Wayne,

Welcome to the board.

The thing to remember with these exams, is that it's okay if you get some questions wrong. Nobody is expected to be able to answer every single question correctly. The key to passing is to make sure you master all the central concepts, theories, and terminology of the subject. This is why most people find Instantcert and/or one of the several concise "study guide" type books, to be sufficient to pass these exams. They narrow the subject down into its core material. In addition, many people research various important terms/topics in more detail by looking them up online (wikipedia.com is great for this).

You are not expected to know every single minute detail of the subject. To pass, you simply have to score higher than the AVERAGE college student who took the full college course.

I have taken 21 DANTES and CLEP exams so far. I can tell you that using some combination of Instantcert, and/or a Study Guide (REA/COMEX/Cliff's Notes), and doing some additional research online, has been sufficient to pass each and every one.

The danger with trying to study TOO MUCH information for a given subject, is that you may not be able to adequately FOCUS your learning on the CORE information. You may end up learning a lot of obscure and superficial facts that you simply will not need to pass the exam, instead of truly mastering the central themes. Granted, there may be an opportunity to pick up one or two extra points by knowing some obscure details. But the vast majority of available points will be earned by thoroughly knowing the CORE concepts. So it is GOOD to overstudy, but just make sure you are overstudying the right information.

I have taken both Principles of Management and Principles of Marketing. I found Marketing to be slightly more difficult than Management, but both were extremely passable using Instantcert.

If you have really nailed the Instantcert material, you should be good to go for these two exams. A bit of additional research on terms/concepts you want to understand better, will allow you an extra bit of leg room in the exam.

Also, if you are scoring 75% on the mocks, this is a VERY GOOD indicator that you will pass the real exam.

The score you receive for a CLEP exam is not a percentile score. It is also not a raw score. It is a scaled score. This is evidenced by the fact that the highest score you can receive is 80.

They give the exam to a whole bunch of college kids who have already taken the full college course. Roughly, the average score they achieve is 'scaled' to about 50 on the CLEP scoring system. If you do better than the average, you pass. If not, you fail. Even if you were to get 100% of the questions correct, and put yourself in the 100th percentile, your 'scaled' score would still only be 80.

Nobody knows the EXACT formula that CLEP uses to scale the scoring, and it varies for each exam (and each version of the same exam). But statistically, if you are able to answer more than half of the questions correctly, you should be in the passing range for the exam. This is why the mock exams are an important indicator of your readiness to sit the exam. If you are scoring higher than 50% on the mocks, you will very likely pass the real exam.

Since you need to aim for a scaled score of >65, you would always want to make sure you are scoring comfortably higher than 50% on the mocks....75% sounds about right to me.

Sorry for the long response, but I wanted to try and address all the questions you raised.

I hope you find this helpful,
Snazzlefrag

[upgray]

If you have to score a 65, not just pass, over-preparation is the order of the day. When i took principles of management, i thought the instantcert was good but i found myself making a lot of educated guesses based upon my newly found general knowledge, thanks to instantcert. By the way, i think that using a text book is too much information. You are better off with a second test prep book that includes explanations also. I used REA and instant cert. Good luck.

[Sammy]

I just took the test and scored a 70. I scored about a 72-75 on the practice exam so that will give you an idea of how well you should do. I highly recommend the Peterson's practice exams. I scored about 73-76 on them. I used instantcert and comex (which I highly recommend for this exam) but instantcert should be sufficient. The text book is totally UNnecessary. I wouldn't use it. Chances are you will score about 70 on your actual exam!

Do a search on instantcert for Princ of Management because there are some other informative threads done previously.

[wfauchier]

Thanks to everybody for the feedback. You've given me a lot of helpful info. I appreciate it!

wfauchier

[Kiwi Lover]

I just took the test and scored a 70. I scored about a 72-75 on the practice exam so that will give you an idea of how well you should do. I highly recommend the Peterson's practice exams. I scored about 73-76 on them. I used instantcert and comex (which I highly recommend for this exam) but instantcert should be sufficient. The text book is totally UNnecessary. I wouldn't use it. Chances are you will score about 70 on your actual exam!

Do a search on instantcert for Princ of Management because there are some other informative threads done previously.

Hi Dan,

I have this exam coming up in the next couple months. Could you tell me what "comex" is that you mentioned in your post? Anything that will help me to learn as much as possible would be great to know about!

Thanks for your help!

Cheers,

[wfauchier]

I myself just got Comex to complement InstantCert, because of the recommendations here. It's a book called "CLEP Principles of Management" by Comex Systems, Inc. It has text for review and tests. However, I am discovering that it is nearly identical to the InstantCert material, even in its order of presentation.

I'm now finding that the Peterson's online tests are excellent preparation. The questions offer detailed answers that add on to the InstantCert questions instead of just repeating almost the exact same material. If you do a search, there is a posting here where there is a free link to the Petersons online tests.

I'm taking the test next week and have reviewed just about everything there is. I have to score 65 instead of 50 to pass, so I have to prepare a little harder.

Good luck.

[Sammy]

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/custome...55&s=books
This is the comex book.

http://www.petersons.com/airforce/clepce...?sponsor=8
http://www.guidancenet.com/guidancenet/t...9&tab=clep
These are peterson practice. Yes, comex is almost identical to instantcert but I like the comex book because of some visuals and I like to see things in a different format, such as a real book. Plus it has some practice exams. The petersons are great and I highly recommend them.

[cbrchris]

This is my first post here. I have been reading the forums for about 2 weeks now. I have been following all the threads regarding the management clep as it was the first test I was preparing for.

I just wanted to thank everyone that has posted in the past regarding the Management CLEP as well as all the other threads. I have been learning a lot. I just took this test and it was my first CLEP test. I passed with a 68, far better than I was really expecting.

I have to agree with everyone that the peterson paractice tests along with IC is by far enough to pass this test. I also purchased the Comex book and it went into more detail about some of the info but the extra info was not really needed for the basis of the test. I was scoring about 65 on the peterson practice tests, so I think you should do fine with obtaining a 65.

Good luck to you!