US History II, taking it w/o studying

[jbhowser]

I have the REA US History II book next to me. I am planning to take it tomorrow. I haven't studied at all and am considering reading the book tonight (it's about 57 short pages of content) and doing some of the practices and/or some Peterson's. I generally breeze through practices in 30-40 mins each so I could get one or two in this evening.

Any specific hints/tips/advice you'd offer to taking this test somewhat blind?

[KyleH]

BE CAREFUL.

I studied this one for about a month with decent knowledge of US History and I only got a 57.

Also, I got a 74 on my second practice test, walked in the next day and got a 57. 17 point difference.

Part of the reason it was so difficult was because a lot of the content was about minuscule stuff like books nobody cares about.

Honestly, though, I kind of think you should just go in blind anyway. All the studying I did hardly did me any good. if you fail, you fail. Unless you're going for a History degree...then you might want to try really hard.

[clep3705]

I found that the REA tests prepared me well. The Peterson's tests depressed me. I finally decided that I knew the material no matter how stupid the Peterson's tests made me feel.

Easy test if you are old enough to remember a lot of the history covered.

[jbhowser]

Thanks for the feedback. I've never really studied much for most CLEP/DSST exams and have finished something like 22 of them. My study methods have included a bit of IC and sometimes an additional study book like REA or whatever I can find supplemented with google and wikipedia.

I'll try this exam tomorrow and not worry too much. I need to pass 3 of the 4 History CLEPs, so I can fail one and then study hard for the other three if that happens. My goal score is a 50 because I am focused on attaining the credit.

I'm also going to take American Government which I've heard differing opinions on. I've done a bit of studying for that and there is definitely a bit of overlap between the two.

[KyleH]

You could possibly take a history Dantes test if you really needed it.

[jbhowser]

Right, the DSST history exams would also work. So I'm basically taking this exam blind for it's option value. If I pass it, it saves me a ton of time. If I don't, my downside is very limited by the fact that I can take the other 3 CLEPs or any combination of the DSST History exams. I even looked into backup exams from other institutions and there are a few options although they are much pricier.

[KyleH]

Sounds like it'll work. Let me know how it goes.

[jbhowser]

I've noticed in the exam specific feedback forum that people talk about a specific "timeline" for this exam. Does anyone know where to find a timeline for this exam?

[jbhowser]

Well, quick update. Passed both Am Gov and US History 2 in succession. Neither of them were particularly difficult and I am not sure what all the hype about the difficulty of Am Gov is about, as I found it to be fairly straightforward.

The only studying I did for US History 2 was going through IC once last night and this morning and trying hard to remember where the pieces fit together in the sequence of events and presidents.

I did a little more studying for Am Gov having gone through the IC cards once or twice, did three Peterson's tests and did the CLEP Study Guide practice. I was averaging raw scores on those practices of mid 70s.

[KyleH]

Awesome, that's great. Congratulaions!