I just got out of my Western Civ I CLEP test and…. I PASSED! By a very comfortable margin!
Although, let’s be real, if I hadn’t I’m not sure I would have been able to call myself a history major (it supposedly covers the content of a gen ed world history class), but some of those questions are awfully nit-picky. Not to mention that the test covers 4500+ years of history.
I still might not be able to distinguish Henry III from Henry IV (can we please get a little more creative with these names?), but I know enough. Which means I get to graduate in May!
If you’re curious, the REA CLEP Prep Book helped me raise by score by about 15 scaled points (the scores range from 20-80), so I definitely thought it was worth it. I’m not sure you could teach yourself everything you need to know from one of these books, but if you already have some knowledge that you just need to supplement to get a passing score, I’d highly recommend it. I took a practice test, read the explanations for ones I missed, identified my areas of weakness, read through all the review material over the weekend (about 150 pages) once and the chapter on the Middle Ages again the day of the test, took the second practice test, and read the explanations.
