CLEP Test Prep

CLEP Test Prep is fairly straight forward, but will require a fair amount of dedication, hard work, and perseverance. The rewards of college credit, and reduced time and tuition costs, make the hard work worth while. To prepare for a CLEP exam, you should:

• Familiarize yourself with the content of the test or tests that you intend to take. The College Board Web site includes in-depth descriptions of each test's content.
• Create a CLEP test prep plan. Your test prep plan should include specific goals, completion dates for the goals, and time periods that you will set aside to study.
• Get a college level textbook for the test subjects of interest. You can do this by contacting local college book stores and identifying text books that are being used for the undergraduate courses in the subjects of interest. Be sure to check the table of contents to make sure that it reasonably matches the test content as outlined on the College Board web site.
• Do additional study. It may be helpful, especially for some of the Composition and Literature exams, to do additional reading to be more familiar with subject content.
• Practice with sample questions. The College Board publishes test taking guides for each of the CLEP exams that contain sample questions.
• Familiarize yourself with the software for taking the test. The College board makes available the "CLEP Sampler", a free demo to practice taking the CLEP test on a computer. This will help you to become familiar with the test taking software and the format of the tests.

Remember that the CLEP exams are supposed to be for individuals who believe that they already have extensive knowledge of content covered in undergraduate courses from the first two years of college. CLEP test prep should be review, and familiarization. Trying to undertake a crash program to learn all of the content for a particular test from scratch is probably not a good use of time and an undertaking unlikely to result in success.