3 Part Strategy for CLEP Success
If it sounds too good to be true, it probably is.
We’re saying this: You can earn gobs of college credit my merely taking and passing inexpensive CLEP exams.
You might be saying: What’s the catch?
Great question. The CLEP process is an almost miraculous solution to paying outrageous college tuition.
But college is tough. Can CLEP exams possibly be easy?
Most likely not. They may save you time, tons of money, and the hassle of going to class. But you still have to know the material and pass the exam.
After all, they test for college-level knowledge. If they have any chance of being credible, they’ve got to be pretty challenging. That, in itself, can seem intimidating.
That’s where most people go wrong. They get all caught up in confusing prep courses, text anxiety and apprehension about their knowledge.
Or they let the uncertainty keep them from even checking out CLEP options.
Your 3-Part CLEP Success Strategies
Let’s make this simple. If you have a handle on 3 things, you can knock any CLEP exam out of the ballpark.
1. Your Brain State
2. Test taking strategies
3. Subject matter knowledge
See the big secret? Only one of our “big 3” is related to the subject matter. Most people ignore the other two. Big mistake.
Brain State
Your brain state just refers to the “place” your brain is in when you study for the exam, and while you are taking it.
What kind of “place” could your brain possibly be in when studying for or taking an intimidating exam? Let’s explore:
- A nervous state
- An uncertain state
- A limited state
Believe it or not, your brain state has a big influence on whether or not you learn well. Especially with fact-heavy material like English, math, history, etc., if your brain isn’t in the right “place” you won’t be your best.
So, how do you get your brain into the right place?
Banish fear
Fear is an insidious enemy when it comes to learning. You might not even consciously feel like you’re scared of taking a CLEP exam, but if you find yourself procrastinating when you should be studying? Maybe you’re a little bit afraid.
Relax
Anxiety can sneak into your world at any step along the CLEP process: Before you enroll; as you study; while you’re traveling to the test site; and certainly while you’re taking an exam. You can learn relaxation techniques. In fact, the best relaxer of all? The confidence that you know the material, cold!
Clear limiting beliefs
Just like the name suggests, “limiting beliefs” are those ideas in your head that limit your success. What, you say? You don’t have any limiting beliefs? You lucky bird, you! A few examples of limiting beliefs as they relate to CLEP exams:
- “I’m not good at math.”
- “I’ve never been a good writer.”
- “I’m not into history.”
There are dozens and dozens more. Any resistance you feel creeping up on you as you consider using CLEP study to guide your college experience may very well be coming from a limiting belief.
Improve memory
Check out our article about memorization and CLEP for more detail about this. For now, let’s just say: CLEP is a standardized test. Standardized tests are all about memorization. Improve your memory and you improve your CLEP performance. It’s slightly more complex than that, but the basic point stands.
Test Taking Strategies
The second leg of your 3-legged CLEP test taking strategy is knowledge about the testing process itself. If you are mainly in the student role, you might not have ever learned about some of the hidden strategies of test writing. It’s a fascinating topic; but we’re not interesting in writing tests, we’re interested in hacking them.
For hacking the CLEP, you need to keep several key test writing points in mind:
Secrets of standardization
The CLEP is a standardized test. We mention this a lot, and not only to bore you to tears. Standardization is a big deal for a major testing outfit like the College Board. Get it wrong, and their entire testing regime collapses (at $70 a pop).
A few things you should know about standardization:
1.) Every student taking a standardized exam must have the same experience as every other student taking that exam. Huh? Your experience with the CLEP must be just like the person who took it last spring, or last month, or last year. Otherwise, it’s not a fair test.
What does that mean? Take practice exams! The questions won’t be the same, but they will be very similar. Most important, they will be similar in “tone.” So take exams as close to the College Board originals as possible.
2.) Every student must have an equal opportunity to pass a standardized exam. The questions may not place a member of a social, cultural or gender group at a disadvantage.
What does this mean? Well, beyond the social implications, it means the question pool is relatively small. The test writers have only a limited variety of subjects from which to draw problems and examples. The implication? Take the practice exams! They’ll give you an incredible insight into the scope of the questions you’ll face.
3.) Questions on a standardized test must be mostly bland and straightforward. The test writers cannot risk that you will find their questions obtuse or jumbled. For the most part, the questions on standardized tests will be easy to comprehend.
What does this mean? Most likely, the questions on your CLEP exam will come “straight from the book.” That is, if you read a good resource book or textbook about your CLEP subject, pay close attention to the highlighted topics. The more emphasis the book or resource pays to the topic, the more likely it will be prominent on your exam.
In fact, if you go through a textbook for any CLEP subject and try to create your own exam (by asking what you believe to be the “most prominent” questions), I’ll bet you will be surprised at how many of them will be on the CLEP exam. That’s actually a pretty big study hint, right there.
Put the numbers on your side
Especially with multiple-choice questions, you need to play the odds. One of the best ways to do this is by using the process of elimination.
Let’s say you are facing a multiple-choice question with four possible answers. You read the question and have not a clue about the answer. CLEPMaven is shocked!
But, can you identify any answers that are obviously false? Each incorrect answer you can identify increases your chance at finding the correct one – even if you have to guess.
If you cannot identify any incorrect answers, your chances of guessing the correct answer: 1 in 4 or 25%.
If you can identify 1 incorrect answer: 1 in 3 or 33% (an 8 point bump, just for one wrong answer)
If you can identify 2 incorrect answer, it’s like playing the 50/50 lifeline on Who Wants to Be a Millionaire®. Watch those two incorrect answers disappear and your chances jump all the way up to 1 in 2, or 50/50. Very nice.
The point: Even if you don’t know the question based on the topic, look for ways to figure out the correct answer based on logic embedded in the test itself. Finding the wrong answers can be almost as good as finding the right ones sometimes.
Why not guess?
Never leave an answer blank on a CLEP exam. If you do, CLEPMaven will come looking for you!
There is no penalty for making a guess on a CLEP exam question if you have no idea about the answer. First, use the elimination method, but if that doesn’t help, just make your best guess!
If you leave the answer blank, what are the chances of getting it right? Zero. If you make a guess, will you get less than zero? I don’t think so, either.
Subject Matter Knowledge
Finally, the third and final piece of your CLEP guide study puzzle: subject matter knowledge.
Yes, to pass the CLEP you do have to learn the material. We haven’t quite figured a way around that one yet, and that’s probably for the best.
A couple important things for you to understand about subject matter knowledge. One of them, you already know: Subject matter knowledge is only one component of a great CLEP study plan.
A few more keys for you to understand:
It’s not just what you know; it’s how you learned it.
I make a big deal about memory. It’s crucial to your success on CLEP exams. More important, it’s open to many, many strategies that help your CLEP performance.
Here’s just one: When it comes to recalling something, how you learned that thing can be as important as the thing itself. What? Let’s take an example.
Think about something really profound one of your teachers has said. Oh, come on, there must be something! It might have been about ancient history or civic pride or algebra. Or remember something one of your parents taught you, or a sibling, or a friend. Doesn’t matter. Point is, you remember not only the fact, but also the context –the event or person surrounding the fact.
Here’s a big study hint for you: The more you can create context for an idea or fact –a story, a framework, a memory trick—the more likely you’ll be able to recall it when the question comes up on your CLEP exam.
Reinforcements arrive (exposure through more than one modality)
Reinforcement is one of the most powerful strategies ever for learning. Reinforcement occurs when you learn something, then have it confirmed in another way or by a different source. The more you have something reinforced, the deeper it seeps into your memory.
We know memory’s important in CLEP testing, right?
As much as you can, find ways to reinforce your CLEP studies. Learn the same materials in several ways: textbooks, audio, video, stories. There are dozens more.
Are you getting an idea about how I put the CLEPMaven Academy together? Focus on all 3 of the keys to CLEP success; present materials in more than one mode; and reinforce whenever possible.
It’s really simple, and it’s all designed to build your knowledge muscle as quickly and efficiently as possible.
You see: Knowledge really is power. Once you know something, it doesn’t matter how you learned it: By reading, hearing, watching or having it tattooed on your brain. Once the knowledge is there, it’s yours to use.
That’s why we love CLEP testing so much. If you can figure out the formula for passing standardized exams, you not only get college credit, you get to keep the knowledge you gained. It’s yours. Do with it what you will.
Our purpose isn’t just to help you pass CLEP exams; it’s to help you gain the confidence that comes with knowing that you can do it. And you most certainly can.
