REA books for General Exams

[NAP]

REA has individual study guides for most of the CLEP tests.

They also have 1 study guide with review material for 5 of the CLEP General Exams:

English Composition
Humanities
College Mathematics
Natural Sciences
Social Sciences and History

It is called The Best REVIEW for the CLEP General Exams.

I’m sharing this because it took me awhile to figure out that they have a second book that has 17 full-length practice exams for these 5 CLEPs. (It seemed like a lot of people reviewing these at Amazon did not know this.)

English Composition – 4 (practice exams)
Humanities - 3
College Mathematics - 4
Natural Sciences - 3
Social Sciences and History - 3

It is called The Best Test PREPARATION for the CLEP General Exams.

Some things I don’t know:

Are REA study guides good resources for these exams in particular?

How do the stand-alone versions differ? Are they more updated? Do they have more info? One thing I did notice for some of these the stand-alone version has fewer full-length practice tests for the subject!

I spent more money and ordered directly from REA because I wanted to get the most recent version, which was printed in 2007. (2000 pages and 7 pounds of books) Amazon uses the same ISBN but lists them as 1998.

I hope this information is helpful to someone!

[bat21]

Great info on the study guides, I understand that REA is the best for the English Clep exam for preparation.

[bkbarden]

I have found every REA Study Guide I used to be outstanding with the exception of Humanities. That book felt it was necessary to outline every event since the beginning of time in the most boring terms possible. Seriously. IC was much better.

Oh... and PreCalc just confused me, but that could be because it was mostly new information.

Other than that, I purchased every REA book that matched a test I was taking and did excellent on all my exams. Some of the tests I used it for: US History I and II, Western Civ. I and II, Intro to Psychology, Educational Psych, Human Growth and Development, Intro to Sociology, Principles of Management, Principles of Marketing, Business Law (I think...), and Financial Accounting.

Regarding the two books mentioned: I bought and used the Test Prep book and used many of the tests. It was very helpful in gauging my ability before taking the test. I like to have a pretty good idea of whether or not I will pass before I go in to the actual test and REA is great for that.

In some cases (College Math, Natural Sciences) there is no stand alone version, so getting the General Exams books would definitely be helpful.

I ordered all of my books from Amazon. They were the latest edition and much less expensive.

I ordered one or two books with the CD, but didn't find it very helpful. It might be good if you are taking your first CLEP, but if you've done it before, the CD seems like a waste of money to me.

All in all... REA is amazing. The information tends to be very concise and specific and the practice exams are a great way to predict your actual test scores. I highly recommend them.

[Ruddigore]

I have the REA general book with the 17 exams, but not the other. The tests were very helpful. I thought they were just as difficult as the Peterson's test I took for Humanities.

[Levi]

I really do like the REA series for CLEP. However, every once in a while, the REA book is confusing and not clear for me (for example, Precalculus... and Macroeconomics somewhat).

I did purchase The Best Test Prep for the General Exams w/ the 17 practice exams and The Best REVIEW for the CLEP General Exams. They were very helpful and I do recommend them; I did not buy the stand-alone versions for each exam.

One drawback is that the practice tests are sometimes not very accurate (if anything, REA is harder, not easier). One time I took a REA practice test for A&I Literature and got a 57; the next day, with barely any extra study, I took the real exam and got a 75.

But, overall, REA has been very helpful.

[NAP]

Thank you all for your excellent input on this.

I wanted to add some information about the stand-alone versions of these study guides:

Humanities (2006) – 3 (practice exams)
College Mathematics (2008) – 2 (less than above)
Natural Sciences (June 2009) - 3 - I have seen the authors’ (David and Laurie) study materials recommended often for this exam.
Social Sciences and History (January 2010) - 3

I did not find one listed for English Composition at REA’s website.