Homeschool: How to prepare for CLEP tests – Western Civilization part 1

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.

This exam, in terms of preparation, was very similar to the U.S. History exams. During the course of our homeschool we made three passes with increasingly more thorough coverage of the material. Susan Wise Bauer’s The Story of the World: History for the Classical Child: Volume 1: Ancient Times: From the Earliest Nomads to the Last Roman Emperor and The Story of the World: History for the Classical Child, Volume 2: The Middle Ages: From the Fall of Rome to the Rise of the Renaissance provided a quite good introduction. Our plan was to read her textbook, The History of the Ancient World: From the Earliest Accounts to the Fall of Rome and even The History of the Medieval World: From the Conversion of Constantine to the First Crusade, but due to timing, we were not able to get to the former and the latter, at this writing, has not yet been released (we are on the waiting list). The bulk of her study was from CLEP Western Civilization I (REA). The REA books have been very, very helpful when it comes to preparing for these CLEP tests. Surprisingly, Rodney Stark’s The Victory of Reason: How Christianity Led to Freedom, Capitalism, and Western Success, was also quite helpful in pulling some things together during the preparation. We recommend that book highly because it is so interesting, but it was nice that it helped with these tests, too.

Kelly has always made many, many note cards and a heavily annotated timeline to help her study. After she took this test yesterday, she commented that the timeline and its extensive annotations were particular helpful for this specific test. She felt like she could have done even better on the U.S. History tests if she would have done more extensive “timelining”.

Results:
Kelly took the Western Civilization I test when she was 15. According to the REA preparation book criteria, she would have gotten a grade of A in the class. She received college credit for a one semester course for her score on this test.