Tag: CLEP

Note: This post is one in a series on how we prepared our homeschooled children to take various College Level Examination Program tests. The introductory post for this series explains why we take these tests, what parts of the preparation worked for us, and what parts of the preparation did not work.

Other posts: Homeschool: How to prepare for CLEP tests – US History part 1

This post is about our struggle with how to prepare well for the CLEP US History I and II tests. Kelly took the first test when she was fourteen and received a score that was high enough for us to be pleased, but not high enough to be excited. She took the second test when she was fifteen and received a score that was high enough to receive credit for the course, but not high enough to be particularly pleased. She probably studied harder for the second test than the first test. In addition, she had refined her study methods to help her to better learn and remember the material. There is a description of those preparations here. After the second test, we decided it might be good to read a more serious and in-depth treatment of US History than what was provided in our homeschool curriculum. Kelly read A History of the USA by Joy Hakim, but we were very disappointed both with the depth and the quality of the content. Last night, we read the introduction to A Patriot’s History of the United States. We read the preface, an interview between Rush Limbaugh and one of the authors last week. We like the book very much. Unless we run into problems that we will only be able to identify as we read through the book, we plan to use this book as base for Christian’s one year survey of US history. We will talk more about how his preparations for the CLEP test and his results on this blog post as they happen.

Note: This post is one in a series on how we prepared our homeschooled children to take various College Level Examination Program tests. The introductory post for this series explains why we take these tests, what parts of the preparation worked for us, and what parts of the preparation did not work.

The CLEP tests: Psychology and Sociology

Primary study materials:

• CLEP Introductory Psychology – includes two full length practice tests on CD
• CLEP Introductory Sociology – includes three full length practice tests on CD

Secondary study materials:

• None

Tertiary influences:

• Understanding the Times – Kelly, Christian, and I read the main text of this study program on worldviews aloud together. Here is some of what Sonlight’s page says about it:

“Examine each of the four dominant Western worldviews (Secular/Cosmic Humanism, Marxism/Leninism, Islam, and Biblical Christianity). Learn how each of these four worldviews uniquely interprets reality in ten different areas: theology, philosophy, ethics, biology, psychology, sociology, law, politics, economics, and history.”

Discussion:

Our reason for taking the Psychology and Sociology CLEP tests is less for the credit the kids will receive when they go to college than for the hard secular humanist worldview from which they are taught in most state and non-Christian universities. At the time of this writing, Kelly has only taken the Psychology test. It was not a particularly difficult test. The only material she used to prepare for the test was the REA Clep Introductory Psychology book and CD. This is the first test for which Kelly did most of her studying through the preparation and review of flashcards. She read the book all the way through two times, then wrote out flash cards with special emphasis on historical figures, systems of psychology, etc. She took the first practice test to identify areas of weakness. She reviewed those areas of weakness in both the flashcards and the study book, then took the second test to identify additional areas of weakness. She repeated the process with each of the tests a second time. She spent the week before the test just reviewing the flashcards and reading through the study book in its entirety one more time.

The material in this test assumes a strong secular humanist worldview. For people who hold such a worldview, that is not a problem. We are very glad we spent the time to study and have detailed discussions of the different worldviews described in Understanding the Times. That helped Kelly to identify the elements of the Introductory Psychology materials that are inconsistent with our worldview. The same holds true for the Introductory Sociology materials. We talked about how the purpose of the test is to measure a student’s understanding of Psychology and Sociology from a secular humanist worldview. We talked about why the “correct” answers for some of the questions on the tests are actually incorrect when considered from a Christian worldview. Nevertheless, they must be answered the way a secular humanist would answer them because that is what the test is designed to measure.

Results:

Kelly took the Psychology test when she was 14. She received a scaled score that, according to the REA book, would give her an A if the course were graded for a college semester long course on Introductory Psychology. She took the Sociology test when she was 15 with the same A result.

Note: This post is one in a series on how we prepared our homeschooled children to take various College Level Examination Program tests. The introductory post for this series explains why we take these tests, what parts of the preparation worked for us, and what parts of the preparation did not work.

The CLEP test: Spanish

SPECIAL NOTE: Unlike the other entries in this series of posts, the explanation we provide here will probably not be valid for most homeschool students who plan to take the Spanish CLEP test. We speak Spanish at least half the time in our home as my wife was born and raised in Mexico. We plan for the kids to study a third language using Rosetta Stone. If we chose to go with French or German, for which there are available CLEP tests, we will post our results here.

Primary study materials:

• Best Test Preparation for the CLEP Spanish includes two audio CD’s for practice on the listening section of the test

Secondary study materials:

• Rosetta Stone Spanish Levels 1 & 2 (Homeschool edition)

Tertiary influences:

• We speak Spanish at home at least half of the time with a native speaker of the language.

Discussion:

Both Rosetta Stone and the REA materials served Kelly very well in preparation for the test. Again, because we have a native speaker in the home, this is probably the least valuable of the explanations on how to prepare for a CLEP examination. We plan to use a similar method for our next language, but with the addition of some grammar workbooks. We do not yet know which language we will chose, but we will add a page for that language if it is either French or German for which there are available CLEP tests.

Results:

Kelly took the test in the ninth grade. She received a scaled score that, according to the REA book, would give her an A if the course were graded for two years of college level Spanish. Christian will not take the test until he is in the ninth grade. Christian ended up taking this test as an eighth grader and got an A on the test for two years of college level Spanish.

What we would do differently: Nothing.

Note: This post is one in a series on how we prepared our homeschooled children to take various College Level Examination Program tests. The introductory post for this series explains why we take these tests, what parts of the preparation worked for us, and what parts of the preparation did not work.

The CLEP test: History of the United States I (Early Colonization to 1877)

Other posts: Homeschool: How to prepare for CLEP tests – US History part 2

Primary study materials:

• CLEP History of the United States I which includes three full length practice tests (not on CD).
• CLEP History of the United States II which includes three full length practice tests (not on CD).

Secondary study materials:

• A History of the USA by Joy Hakim (not recommended – this is what Kelly used)
• US History text (something to replace the Joy Hakim materials for Christian – we will put it here when we find it). We have found what we believe is an excellent text A Patriot’s History of the United States by Schweikart and Allen.

Tertiary influences:

• The Landmark History of the American People (highly recommended)
• Sonlight Core Curricula: Core 3, Core 4, Core 5, Core 6, and Core 7

Discussion:

The Sonlight Core 3 and Core 4 programs instilled a wonderful love for American History. We were very disappointed with the selection of Joy Hakim’s A History of the USA as the central texts for the Sonlight History Program 120 as it provided what we felt was very weak preparation for future study of American History. We believe kids who have been in a solid homeschool program can handle texts that provide much more depth and much less political correctness than that provided by A History of the USA. Because of that, Kelly’s preparation for the CLEP US History I test was based almost entirely on the REA CLEP History of the United States test preparation book. That made it a lot drier than it needed to be.

Results:

Kelly took the US History I test when she was 14. She easily got a high enough score to get the college credit for the class, butB on it, but felt she could have done better as, according to the REA preparation book criteria, she would have gotten a grade of B in the class, one point away from an A.

What we would do differently:

When Kelly prepared for this test she used the study methods described in the previous CLEP preparation post on the Freshman College Composition test. That included taking notes from the text on one day, typing those notes in on the second day, and reviewing the typed in notes on the third day. Everything required to do well on the test was in the book, but Kelly felt she might have been better prepared, if she had made and studied more flashcards with dates, events, and people on them. The REA US History I CLEP study book had a glossary at the back. She believes if she could have included the glossary definitions in her flash cards, she might have improved here score. She also felt that if she would have augmented her base set of flash cards by using the boldface words, historical figures, dates, and definitions in the REA book, that would have helped her, too. She is scheduled to take the US History II test this month, so we will see if those new techniques work for her.

Kelly prepared for these tests as a standalone effort–not as part of her History studies. The big difference between the way we will approach the way Christian prepares for these tests from the way Kelly prepared for them is that Christian’s preparation will be an integral part of the normal seventh grade survey of US History that we had planned for him all along. Another change is that we will try to find a solid history text to replace the A History of the USA texts in the Sonlight curriculum even though we will still use their literature books. Christian will work his way through the REA book and whatever history text we find, making flash cards and taking notes from both. We will have him take the US History I test half way through next year followed by the US History II test at the end of the year. We will both describe the new methods and report the results on this page when we have them.

Note: This post is one in a series on how we prepared our homeschooled children to take various College Level Examination Program tests. The introductory post for this series explains why we take these tests, what parts of the preparation worked for us, and what parts of the preparation did not work.

The CLEP test: Freshman College Composition without the optional essay.

Primary study materials:

• CLEP Freshman College Composition by REA which includes three full length practice tests on an accompanying CD.

Secondary study materials:

• Easy Grammar: Grade 5
• Easy Grammar: Grade 6
• Easy Grammar Plus
• Spelling Power
• Wordly Wise Books 2-7

Tertiary influences:

• Massive amounts of reading aloud, both parent and student performing the reading
• Sonlight Core Curricula: Core 3, Core 4, Core 5, Core 6, and Core 7

Discussion:

I think the kids performance on this test was more a reflection of their learning over the whole course of their home and school experience than any targeted study they performed to prepare for it. We were fairly systematic in the way we taught grammar, composition, and vocabulary during primary school. As part of those studies, the kids performed many formal and informal writing exercises. That meant that the preparation for this test was more a matter of a review than new learning. Notice that virtually all the secondary and tertiary materials listed above are common elements of many homeschool programs. These are the specific materials Kelly and Christian completed before starting test preparation with the REA book, but I am confident that Abeka, Bob Jones, Calvert, and many other programs would provide more than a sufficient base from which to excel on this test, too.

The REA book was a great tool to help coordinate the test preparation. REA recommends that students first take a practice test to understand where they need to concentrate their studies. Both of the kids passed their first test with scores high enough to get college credit, but with a less than comfortable margin for error. As this was the first test for each of them, we gave them a specific procedure to follow in their first pass through the book. That procedure was the following:

• Step 1 – Read two to four pages of the book (depending on their other homeschool workload) and hand write notes on each item that might appear on a test.
• Step 2 – Type the notes from the previous day into the computer.
• Step 3 – Study the notes that were typed the previous day.

After they worked their way through the book, they took a second practice test. The second test identified weak areas that they then reviewed for a week using their notes. They repeated that procedure with the third test and for a repeat ofall three practice tests. After that they took the test.

Results:

Both the kids took this test when they were thirteen years old. Kelly was in the eighth grade when she took it and had a scaled score that, according to the REA book, would give her an A if the course were graded. Christian was in the seventh grade when he took the test and also received an A score according to the scaled score in the REA book.

What we would do differently:

After studying for several tests, Kelly has begun to use 3×5 cards both to take notes and to create flash cards. She got good results on her recent CLEP Introduction to Psychology test using this method. The REA US History I CLEP study book had a glossary at the back. She believes if she could have included the glossary definitions in her flash cards, she might have improved here score. Because many of the other REA books do not feature a glossary she builds her base set of flash cards by using the boldface words, historical figures, dates, and definitions she can find in the REA book. She is scheduled to take the US History II test next month and the Sociology test the month after that, so we will report both her thoughts on how this method helped her study and the effect it had on her scores.

One of our readers, Ruthie, and I have had some discussion in the comment section of this blog about what we do to prepare for the College Level Examination Program (CLEP) tests. Most homeschoolers do not have access to the Advanced Placement (AP) and International Baccalaureate (IP) programs available at many high schools. Kids in those programs have a leg up on other students when they go to college. We wanted something like that for our own children. The CLEP tests provide us with a mechanism to meet the testing part of that goal. College Board, the same company that makes the tests for the AP program and the SAT, make the CLEP tests. All the military branches provide the CLEP tests to their personnel for free. They are well established tests recognized by a broad spectrum of the higher education community. any colleges give credits to students who score 50 or above on the CLEP subject tests. Based on discussions with Ruthie and others, I have decided to write about how our kids prepare for the tests.

There are a number of reasons why we chose to include the CLEP tests in our homeschool activities. I will go into those reasons in more detail when I write the sections on the different subject tests because they vary. That being said, there are three reasons that hold true for us for all of the tests:

• The tests do a pretty good job of demonstrating mastery of materials often presented in freshman level college classes. Knowledge that the student has a grasp of the material is valuable to both the student and the teacher.
• The student receives credit for the material which advances them toward a degree more rapidly and less expensively than if they took the class in a conventional college setting.
• The textbooks and other study materials and the time to learn the material can be varied based on the needs of the student. In a conventional setting it is not possible to postpone the test for a month or switch textbooks midstream. We have done both.

Am I qualified to write about this? Maybe. Our daughter Kelly passed her first CLEP test, Freshman College Composition, when she was thirteen. That was almost exactly one year ago. Since then she has gone on to pass the Spanish, US History I, and Psychology tests. She plans to take the US History II, Sociology, and Biology tests before the end of our school year this June. Our thirteen year old son Christian passed the Freshman College Composition CLEP test last week. He plans to take Western Civilization I and either Psychology or Spanish this school year. Even though Kelly and Christian have passed all the tests they have taken so far, they did better on some than others. There were a couple very high scores, a couple mid-range scores, and a couple of squeakers.

While every parent rightly believes their children have exceptional qualities, this is not Lake Wobegon. All children are not above average. We have no illusions that our children have the raw intelligence of Newton or Einstein, but they have performed well on nationally normed standardized tests, read and write well, and enjoy studying. I think many homeschool students can do very well, even at an early age on these tests. I also have no illusion that the methods we used to prepare are the best way to prepare for the CLEP tests. The reality is that we did not do such a good job of preparation on a couple of tests so far. Maybe we learned something though. We will certainly try to prepare Christian differently for those tests where our preparation was not so great when Kelly took the test. This is made all the more challenging by the fact that Kelly and Christian have very different learning styles. What was not so good for Kelly might be great for Christian and vice versa. I will try to report on what we did, how we did it, and our results in a way that could help other homeschoolers who want to use the CLEP tests as part of their homeschool program.

CLEP Exam Links

The following is a preliminary list of the topics I will try to cover in this series of posts. I am sure it will change some as we go forward, but I will try to keep this page updated as an index to all the Homeschool CLEP preparation. My plan is to write three or four more posts on Wednesdays until I have covered everything we have done so far. I will write subsequent posts as we get to them. I will update this page with links and any modifications that make sense as I think of new things that might be helpful. I will make a standalone page with this index and a link on our ?Pages? list as soon as I have enough posts for that to make sense.

• Introduction
• Freshman English Composition
• Spanish
• US History I
• US History II
• Psychology and Sociology
• Biology
• Precalculus
• Western Civilization I
• Western Civilization II
• Microeconomics and Macroeconomics
• American Literature
• American Government
• French