College Composition CLEP essay help

[Publius]

The Peterson’s practice examinations are on par with the real thing. Judging from your listed scores, you’re adequately prepared for the CLEPs multiple choice section. When doing this test myself, I was passing the Peterson’s with upper 70’s.

Being in pretty much the same situation as you are, my biggest challenge was the essays, without a doubt. If I could of done one thing different during my preparation it would of been to write a whole lot more practice essays. As it was I only did 1, maybe 2 at best, the week before.

On my CLEP I “finished” each essay with seconds to spare... literally seconds. The first one had 4 paragraphs, the second 5.
I ended up passing the CLEP with a total score of 58.

One the essay section of the College Composition they are looking to see if you’re capable of writing at a college level. They aren’t going to be looking for length as it would impossible to write up a multiple pages worth of information in the given time. I would concentrate rather on:

-Good Technique with Varied Style (sprinkle you’re essay with a proper formate, topic sentences, opening and concluding paragraphs, using different sentence openers, accompanied with some higher vocabulary, adverbs and adjectives, bringing in different phrases and clauses)
-Proper Mechanics (quite important! Make sure citing is perfect, spelling correct, and if possible try not to split infinitives, etc. )
-Persuasive Thesis (They want you to pick a side and support... doesn’t necessarily matter which side as long as you’re not on the fence)



What I’d recommend in preparation for the essay part:

You can’t write/type enough essays (timed of course) in preparation. (keep spell checker off during writing then turn it on when done)
Get familiar with a form of citing in your preparation. They want to see you cite, and cite properly, on your essays, so do it in you’re practice essays as well.


When taking the exam:
I’d recommend taking some scratch pieces of paper before the test (2-3). During the multiple choice section jot down some of the vocabulary, phrases, forms of citing etc..
You’re not given a lot of time for you’re essays so take a piece of scratch paper and either before the entire test, or right before your essay portion, take 30 seconds to jot down 2 outlines. i.e.
I. (first paragraph - topic)
1(first sentence)
2(second sentence)
3(third sentence)
(do that for 4-5 paragraphs)

Just writing down the numbers for your outline can save 30 seconds which if you’re like me, will use every last nanosecond, whether to write another sentence, proofread a paragraph etc.. But DON’T blow off using an outline... it may seem like a waste of time but it really does organize your thoughts, keep your plan in focus, and keep you on track.

Hope this helps some! Good luck!