CLEP Eng Comp w/essay bomb (???)

[Maniac Craniac]

Sorry to hear about your fail If you have the time to take it again, I'm sure you will nail it! Also, have no fear, it would be unfathomable if the fail ended up effecting your GPA. A pass doesn't help your GPA nor does a fail hurt. If you pass, your college will, in effect, waive credits off of your degree requirement because, in their opinion, you have successfully demonstrated that you do not need to take the course. Failing is not like failing a course, it just means that you still need to find a way to get your credits.

Here is something in your posts that I think may help us figure out the root of the issue:

I breezed through the multiple choice, typed my essay and was out of there in no more than 35 minutes.

I don't understand why you would jet out of there instead of double, triple and quadruple check everything with so much time left!!! You only failed by three points. Even if there was an issue with the essay, it looks like you could have passed anyway had you correctly answered just a handful more of questions.

grammar and spelling are a strong suit.

I'm not doing this to make fun of you, I want to demonstrate something. On an internet forum, posts are usually typed impromptu and rather speedily. The result, while not at all inappropriate for the setting, ends up looking like:

I had taken a couple of pretests prior

"Prior" is an adjective, not an adverb.

I had well better than

Both well and better are inflected forms of the word "good," (well as an adverb and better as a comparative) and can not be used together like this. "Much", an adjective, can be used here instead of "well," or "higher" another comparative can be used in place of "better."

I emailed collegeboard to see if there's anything

Maybe I'm a nit-picking traditionalist but this is in the present tense indicative mood, whereas it should be in the past subjunctive mood.

I'm sure that when you have adequate time to prepare a paper, your grammar is superb, but I can't help but to think that you rushed yourself too much and missed at least a few little details like you did in your posts (as I always do in mine, including this one :p). It makes no difference on an internet forum, but if even a few little things like that creeped into your essay, a college professor absolutely would notice it and it may have effected, oops I mean affected your score