Mary Asked:
My son just completed your course Alg II & Trig. Is this enough preparation to pass the clep exams for Algebra or Pre-calculus? If not, do you have any suggestions to prepare for it? Same questions for your calculus program?
Dr. Callahan Answered:
Mary,
For CLEP credit after ALGEBRA II WITH TRIG, your options are:
- College Algebra – http://clep.collegeboard.org/exam/college-algebra
- Precalculus – http://clep.collegeboard.org/exam/precalculus
Either would work with a little prep. I might go after precalc first.
For Calculus there is only one exam, and our calculus course would be most of (if not all) the prep needed.
But here are some guidelines for all CLEP:
- Check with the university you plan to attend. How do they treat CLEP? Most will accept a lot of CLEP – so make sure. If they do not accept much, I might rethink the school unless they are offering scholarships to you.
- Then check the department of study. For instance, if going into engineering or a sciences field, they may prefer to see one over the other – or may not accept either. Ask. In many engineering schools they will not allow you to CLEP out of math. But remember, EVERYTHING IS NEGOTIABLE. A good student who is proven is hard to pass up. So if you get a no, ask “What will you need to see to accept my CLEP credit?”
- Then assuming you have a direction, prepare for the test. There is USUALLY something that was not covered in your course, so you might need to go cover it quickly. In our Algebra II with Trig course, you might want to get familiar with the other chapters (at least a few of them) that we did not cover. Almost every course is that way – so just make sure you know what you need. Also, make sure you pretest and brush up on what they need. Get the study guide and see what you are missing. Key is GET SAMPLE TESTS.
Then take the test. If you do not pass it on first try, see what you got wrong and then go try again. Do not consider not passing as failure, just instead as telling you where you were weak.
For almost every college, CLEP is well worth the trouble. Costs of CLEP is less than $200 (including study material) to save over $1000 – and you will have to learn the extra material anyway. Do it now, do it fast, and do it much cheaper.
Hope this helps.
