Lady Grace of Pemberley Wrote:*Bump* I'm going to be taking all three of these TECEPs soon, but I'm currently working on News Reporting. I have all three of the recommended textbooks, but so far, I've only read the one by Carol Rich (I'm almost done with it). I searched the forums already and couldn't really find a lot of specifics on this test. Does anyone have any thoughts (which textbooks were the most helpful, if the time limit was really hard to meet, random tips and things to know, etc.) for this exam? I'm hoping to take it at the beginning of January.

EDIT: I have also found these Quizlet flashcards for this test ----> News tecep flashcard sets and study tools | Quizlet ; did anyone who had taken this exam find them to be accurate?

cooperalex2004 Wrote:-60% "Writing the Story", you write three news stories using facts they give you. Note the use of AP Style in the writing example, if you write it like an English Comp assignment you'll lose a bunch of points. I'm not sure of your background, but you want to focus on proper spellings, abbreviations, and capitalization used in the AP style of writing.

If you have further questions then send me a private message on here, News Reporting was the only TECEP exam I completed.

Lady Grace of Pemberley Wrote:I have a question about the news stories I will be required to write for the Introduction to News Reporting TECEP. When I write the stories, can I make up supporting facts/statistics or must I ONLY use the information provided? I know that for the College Composition CLEP or the Principles of Public Speaking DSST your information didn't have to be true, it just had to be presented in a smooth and interesting way. Is this the case for this TECEP, as well?

For example, I came across this site ----> Newswriting Exercises to practice writing news stories with. The first one I decided to work on was this one: Newswriting Exercise - School Board - Newswriting Exercise . Well, at the bottom of the page, it gave these instructions:

"Dig up some background online about attempts to teach creationism in other school districts around the country. Put some of that in your story."

Obviously, I'm not going to have a computer available at the testing center to Google random facts like these, but it got me thinking: can I make up facts like this to add substance, background, and context to my news stories? Could I add to my story something like the following:

"Schools in two neighboring counties have also been pressured within the past month to add Creationist teaching to each student's science classes. Our state is not alone in this battle regarding whether or not to teach Creationist philosophies to children's current classes; in fact, 35 other states are currently in the process of deciding whether or not to implement proposals similar to the one proposed at last evening's school board meeting."

Hope that made some sense. Any advice would be greatly appreciated!

cooperalex2004 Wrote:They should give you everything you need to write a quick story. This is not like that example where you have to research, they will give you "reporter's notes" for the content and the rest is about the way you format it.

AP style is the key, focus on how to turn the notes into text that matches the guidelines for things like datelines, state abbreviations, dates (look at the month abbreviations), and many other little things. The example in the study guide is a perfect example, they give notes and quotes and then show you the writing.

Using the first part of the example from the study guide:

[COLOR="#0000CD"]CLEVELAND BURIED IN SNOW
CLEVELAND, Jan. 12 – For the past three days it has been snowing here. The city is buried under 26 inches of snow.[/COLOR]

As AP style dictates, there is a title in all caps, city in all caps, the state is missing because CLEVELAND is on the list of exceptions to that rule, the month is abbreviated and has a period, and the numbers are written in a different way, three is spelled out while 26 isn't.

As far as exams go, I would say this one may be difficult to many people, it may be a lower level course but it requires a very specific style of writing. If you took the actual course they would most likely ask you to buy the AP Stylebook (https://www.apstylebook.com/apbookstore/invoice.php?pid=978-0-917360-56-5) to help you.

For me, when I took the test I had the stylebook from taking Media Writing, the textbook I previously mentioned, and I do work in the media (but not as a writer).

Here are a few links to a very small portion of AP style:
Associated Press - Using Associated Press Style
Associated Press (AP) Style Guide - the basics