American Govt - ready?

[zippy99]

I sat this one earlier this week and passed with a 65.
I didn't spend a great deal of time studying for this and passed easily.
Your mileage may vary of course.

I used the questions on IC, the free Petersons exam, the CollegeBoard Sample exam and some research with Wikipedia. I spent maybe 15 hours total studying and was comfortable taking the test.

Things to know:

The Constitution.. Especially the Bill of Rights, but a
better than passing familiarity with all of it
is essential.

Historical govermental issues. Things like the continental
congress, the articles of confederation etc.

The roles of the branchs of government. The constitution
covers most of this,but be sure you know the roles (and
limitations) of the President, Congress, the Senate and
the Supreme court decisions.

Big Supreme court decisions. The sample tests cover this pretty
well.

Governmental concepts and vocabulary. There is alot of unique
vocabulary and a number of concepts such as Federalism that
must be understood. The study materials above cover alot of
this, but this is probably where I spent the most time looking
things up in the wiki and other online references.


Make sure you can comfortably read and interpret a variety of types of graphs and charts. The CB Sample exam provides some nice examples. These types of questions seem to focus more on your ability to interpret provided data than on an actual knowledge of the data.

This was my first clep exam so I don't have a frame of reference, but I didn't find it difficult, so I wouldn't sweat it too much.

Next Week, College Math. I'llbe sure to report in once I knock that one off