Homeschool: How to prepare for CLEP tests – Psychology and Sociology

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.