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EXAM SCHEDULE
This week you are going to take the following exams:
MONDAY
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CLEP Humanities
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CLEP Social Sciences and History
TUESDAY
· ECE English Composition
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CLEP College Algebra
WEDNESDAY
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ECE Ethics Theory and practice
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ECE Statistics
CLEP
GENERAL EXAMS
There are three CLEP general exams applicable to
thisdegree. Each is worth 6 semester hours credit. Each is 90 minutes in
length, split into two 45 minute sections. Successful completion of the
three exams along with English Composition, College Algebra, Statistics,
and Ethics, will fulfill freshman year requirements at Excelsior College.
The
three CLEP General exams can be completed in one day of testing. The exams are:
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CLEP Humanities
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CLEP Natural Sciences
·
CLEP Social Sciences and History
These are general exams and as such cover a very wide area of, for want of
a better term, "general knowledge".I do not know that your
chances of passing these exams would be significantly improved by any sort
of cramming, precisely because the tests are so wide ranging.
I think the best strategy is to try the mock exams and
use the results to guide your study efforts. The shallowness of the tests
mean that much of the knowledge deficit exposed by the mock exams may be
filled by quick reference to information on the world wide web via a
search engine like Google.
OTHER EXAMS
The remaining four exams con be completed over the following two days of
testing. They are:
MONDAY
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ECE English Composition
·
CLEP College Algebra
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ECE Ethics: Theory and Practice
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ECE Statistics
TUESDAY
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ECE English Composition (3)
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CLEP College Algebra (3)
ENGLISH
COMPOSITION
The ECE English Composition exam is three hours in
length and consists of three one-hour essays. As I remember it, essays are
a "contrast and compare", an advocacy letter/report, and an
article critique. There is no "English interpretation" section in
the ECE exam.
For the ECE English Composition exam, you might want to
consider purchasing Excelsior College's proprietary English exam package.
Certainly, you must download and study the mock exam PDF file, available
free from the Excelsior web site.
MATHEMATICS
CLEP College Algebra is the simplest math exam allowable that will meet the
Business degree math requirement, and that's is why we've chosen it. The
Exam consists of 70 questions in 90 minutes split into two 45 minute
sections. I comprises questions covering factoring, powers, roots linear
equations, inequalitiesquadratic equations, exponential and log functions,
graphs. If you'd prefer to attempt something a little more complex, please
feel free to do so. The are two other CLEP exams that will meet Business
degree math requirements: College Algebra and Trigonometry; Calculus
and Elementary Functions. The CLEP College Algebra, I believe to be
the easiest of the three.
WEDNESDAY
·
ECE Ethics Theory and practice (3)
·
ECE Statistics (3)
ETHICS
ECE Ethics Theory and Practice is a three hour exam. Expect to complete it
in about two hours or less. It will be one of the more time consuming ECE
exams to wrap up. Not because it is difficult but rather that the scenario
questions can take a while to read and digest. As with all ECE objective
exams, when you have reviewed your answers and indicate you're happy, your
score and grade will appear on the screen. That's a buzz: immediate
gratification. Download the free practice exam from the Excelsior College
web site, and buy the Harper Collins primer, "Ethics". There is
also an Excelsior official study guide for this exam, if you feel need of
it.
STATISTICS
ECE Statistics exam is three hours in length. There are 100 multiple choice
questions on *basic* statistical methods. Questions on regression and
correlation, distributions, sampling methods, estimation and
hypothesis testing. There is an Excelsior official study guide for this
exam, if you feel you need the help. Otherwise, download the free practice
exam, and if necessary, use any general purpose elementary statistics
primer.
CLEP REQUIRED MATERIALS
First off , get hold of the "CLEP official study
guide" from The College Board. You can buy this at many bookstores,
from amazon.com on the Web, or it can be ordered from College Board
Publications at 1-800-323-7155. This book has sample questions covering all
CLEP general and subject exams. The questions in this book mirror those you
will encounter in the exams in degree of difficulty and in focus. Alas,
most of the other guides do not.
However, as in the case of the GRE subject exams, there
is one exception. The Princeton Review "Cracking the CLEP".
This book covers all five general examinations with a full
complement of questions for each. There are detailed notes in the answer
section. Most importantly, the difficulty and scope of the tests match
(pretty nearly) the genuine article. You will need this book for the three
GENERAL exams, Humanities, Natural Science, and Social Science/History,
required for this degree program.
The REA offering only serves to mislead. The questions
do not match the difficulty level found in the actual CLEP exams. As with
some of their GRE guides, the questions are a higher order of difficulty
than those found in the CLEP exams proper. This is not simply a matter of
opinion. I have old score sheets of the mock tests taken within a day or so
of each other using the REA tests, the Princeton tests, and the results of
the actual exams. Where REA predicted 50%ile (a fail or a bare pass) in
Humanities, Princeton indicated 93%ile; actual was 89%ile. REA prediction
for Social Science/History 62%ile, Princeton 99%ile, actual 99%ile; Natural
Sciences REA 68%ile, Princeton 99%ile, actual 96% and the pattern continues
for all the other exams taken. These are empirical data. The results speak
volumes about the relative utility of the guides.
Note that you don't have to score high in absolute terms
to do well in percentile or scaled-score terms in these exams. For
instance, a raw score of 50 out of 120 will get you a pass in the Natural
Science exam (=500 scaled). That's under 42%. So don't fear that a
pass is unattainable, it is likely comfortably within your reach. Remember
that the passing scores in these exams are meant to reflect the average performance
of a freshman student 18 years old. Cannot speak for others, but at 18 my
main interests and goals in life were sex, booze and getting into show
business. You bring many advantages of experience, maturity and focus to
the fray. You have managed to hold down a responsible job and perhaps have
raised or are raising a family. Most freshman can't keep their room clean!
Get the Official CLEP Guide and the Princeton Review.
Try out the mock exams. If you're scoring greater than 500 scaled score, sit
the exams without further ado. Remember, a pass at 500 yields exactly the
same credit as a pass at 800. There are no grades attached to the general
exams. In the unlikely event you do fail, you can resit the exam and
suppress the failure..... no one will know, or care.
Note that the passing score at Excelsior College is 420
for the CLEP general exams. At TESC, I believe the passing score is 500. At
COSC, 500 and 470.
The exam guide for ECE English Composition can be found
at Excelsior.edu.
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Note that with the move to computer based
testing (CBT) in the U.S., the standard score ranges for the CLEP general
exams has been changed from 200-800 to 20-80. Passing scores at Excelsior
College are now 50 for the CLEP general exams. At TESC, the paper
test passing standard score for the generals was 500. At COSC, 500 and
470. The pass requirements at these institutions under the new scoring
system is 50.
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EXAMS TAKEN AND CREDIT AWARDED
CLEP Humanities (6)
CLEP Natural Sciences (6)
CLEP Social Sciences and History (6)
ECE English Composition (6)
CLEP College Algebra (3)
ECE Ethics Theory and practice (3)
ECE Statistics (3)
BOOKS
CLEP Official Study Guide, The College Board - $20
Cracking the CLEP, Princeton Review - $20
The Best Test preparation for the CLEP, REA - $20
Course Guide for English Composition, Excelsior College - $25
Course Guide for Ethics: Theory and Practice, Excelsior College - $25
Course Guide for Statistics, Excelsior College - $25
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