- What does CLEP stand for?
- College-Level Examination Program — College Board's credit-by-exam program.
- CLEP credit-granting score
- 50 on the 20–80 scale (ACE-recommended; ≈ a grade of C).
- CLEP score scale
- 20 (lowest) to 80 (highest), scaled from your number of correct answers.
- How many CLEP exams are there?
- 34 single-subject exams across 5 subject areas.
- CLEP subject areas
- Composition & Literature; History & Social Sciences; Science & Mathematics; Business; World Languages.
- Who owns CLEP?
- College Board (delivered by ETS).
- CLEP exam fee
- About $97 to College Board, plus a separate test-center administration fee (verify — prices change).
- Remote proctoring fee (CLEP)
- An extra $30 at registration.
- CLEP retake rule
- Wait 3 months before retaking the same exam title.
- How long is a typical CLEP exam?
- About 90 minutes; College Composition is 125 minutes with two essays.
- CLEP scoring method
- Rights-only — a point per correct answer, no penalty for guessing, so answer every question.
- How many colleges accept CLEP?
- Nearly 3,000 (about 2,900); each sets its own policy.
- Does CLEP affect GPA?
- No — it's credit by exam, not a graded course; credit hours post without a letter grade.
- Credit value of most CLEP exams
- 3 to 6 semester hours per exam.
- What is ACE (for CLEP)?
- The American Council on Education — it recommends the credit a qualifying CLEP score should earn.
- Raw score vs. scaled score
- Raw score = number correct; it's converted to the reported 20–80 scaled score.
- Which CLEP exams take longest to score?
- College Composition and Spanish with Writing — essays take ~2–3 weeks.
- Most popular CLEP subject area
- Composition and Literature (includes the very popular College Composition).
- Largest CLEP subject area
- History and Social Sciences — 12 exams.
- Who funds CLEP for the military?
- DANTES funds first attempts for eligible service members.
- Can you bring your own calculator to CLEP?
- No — an on-screen calculator is provided where allowed.
- Where are CLEP exams taken?
- Internet-based at 2,000+ test centers, or via remote proctoring.
- Comma splice
- Two independent clauses joined with only a comma; fix with a period, semicolon, or comma + conjunction.
- Sentence fragment
- An incomplete sentence missing a subject, a verb, or a complete thought.
- Run-on sentence
- Two or more independent clauses joined with no punctuation or conjunction.
- Thesis statement
- One or two sentences stating an essay's central, debatable claim.
- Topic sentence
- The sentence that states the main idea of a paragraph (often first).
- Subject-verb agreement
- A singular subject takes a singular verb; a plural subject takes a plural verb.
- Parallel structure
- Items in a list or comparison share the same grammatical form.
- Dangling modifier
- A modifier with no clear word to modify, creating confusion.
- Synthesis (essay)
- Combining ideas/evidence from two or more sources into one coherent argument.
- Rhetoric
- The art of effective, persuasive communication — purpose, audience, technique.
- Rhetorical analysis
- Examining how an author uses purpose, audience, tone, and strategy to persuade.
- College Composition format
- 50 multiple-choice questions + 2 required essays, 125 minutes, 6 credits.
- College Composition Modular
- Multiple-choice-only version (no essays), worth 3 credits.
- Biggest area on College Composition MC
- Revision Skills (about 40%).
- Argument essay (College Composition)
- Take and defend a clear position on a given statement (30 minutes).
- Synthesis essay (College Composition)
- Build a thesis from two provided sources and cite them (40 minutes).
- Metaphor
- Stating that one thing IS another ('he is a lion in battle').
- Simile
- A comparison using 'like' or 'as' ('brave as a lion').
- Imagery
- Sensory language that creates a vivid picture or feeling.
- Tone (literature)
- The author's attitude toward the subject, shown through word choice.
- Theme
- The central idea or message a literary work explores.
- Irony
- A gap between what is said/expected and what is meant/happens.
- Personification
- Giving human qualities to non-human things.
- Alliteration
- Repetition of initial consonant sounds in nearby words.
- Point of view
- The perspective from which a story is told (first person, third person, etc.).
- Analyzing & Interpreting Literature format
- About 80 multiple-choice questions, 98 minutes, no essay, 3 credits.
- Biggest genres on the Literature exam
- Poetry and prose, roughly 35–45% each; drama is smaller.
- Does the Literature exam need historical context?
- No — answers are supported by the passage itself.
- Humanities exam scope
- A broad survey of literature plus art, music, philosophy, and the performing arts.
- American Literature exam
- Tests U.S. literary works from colonial times to the present, 3 credits.
- English Literature exam
- Tests British literature from Beowulf to the present, 6 credits.
- Connotation
- The implied or emotional meaning of a word, beyond its literal definition.
- Denotation
- The literal dictionary meaning of a word.
- Symbolism
- Using an object or image to represent a larger idea.
- Allusion
- A brief reference to a well-known person, event, or work.
- Three branches of U.S. government
- Legislative (makes laws), Executive (enforces), Judicial (interprets).
- Separation of powers
- Dividing authority among the legislative, executive, and judicial branches.
- Checks and balances
- Each branch can limit the others (veto, override, judicial review).
- Federalism
- Power shared between the national government and the states.
- Judicial review
- Courts' power to declare a law or action unconstitutional.
- Bill of Rights
- The first 10 amendments to the U.S. Constitution.
- How a bill becomes law
- Introduced → committee → both chambers pass same version → President signs or vetoes.
- Veto override
- Congress can override a presidential veto with a two-thirds vote in each chamber.
- Biggest area on American Government
- Institutions and policy processes (30–35%).
- U.S. History I range
- Early colonization to 1877.
- U.S. History II range
- 1865 to the present.
- Declaration of Independence (year)
- 1776 — asserted independence and natural rights.
- U.S. Constitution (year)
- 1787 — established the framework of government.
- Reconstruction amendments
- 13th (ended slavery), 14th (citizenship/equal protection), 15th (Black male suffrage).
- Classical conditioning
- A neutral stimulus paired with a meaningful one triggers a response (Pavlov).
- Operant conditioning
- Behavior is shaped by its consequences — rewards and punishments (Skinner).
- Introductory Psychology scope
- Methods, biology, perception, learning, cognition, development, personality, disorders, social.
- Human Growth and Development
- Studies physical, cognitive, and social change across the lifespan.
- Piaget
- Proposed stages of cognitive development in children.
- Erikson
- Proposed eight psychosocial stages across the lifespan.
- Scarcity
- Limited resources vs. unlimited wants — the root economic problem.
- Supply and demand
- Price settles at equilibrium where quantity supplied = quantity demanded.
- Equilibrium price
- The price where quantity supplied equals quantity demanded.
- Microeconomics
- Studies individual consumers, firms, and markets.
- Macroeconomics
- Studies the whole economy: GDP, inflation, unemployment, policy.
- GDP
- Gross Domestic Product — total value of goods and services a country produces.
- Inflation
- A sustained rise in the general price level that lowers purchasing power.
- Fiscal policy
- Government use of taxing and spending to influence the economy.
- Monetary policy
- The central bank's control of money supply and interest rates.
- Introductory Sociology scope
- Social institutions, stratification, processes/change, and theory.
- Social stratification
- The ranking of people into layers based on wealth, power, or status.
- Western Civilization I range
- Ancient Near East to 1648.
- Western Civilization II range
- 1648 to the present.
- The Enlightenment
- An 18th-century movement emphasizing reason, science, and individual rights.
- Social Sciences and History exam
- A broad survey blending political science, economics, geography, and history (6 credits).
- Pavlov
- Demonstrated classical conditioning with salivating dogs.
- Marginal utility
- The added satisfaction from consuming one more unit of a good.
- Slope formula
- Slope = rise/run = (y₂ − y₁)/(x₂ − x₁); the m in y = mx + b.
- Slope-intercept form
- y = mx + b, where m is slope and b is the y-intercept.
- Y-intercept
- Where a line crosses the y-axis (x = 0); the b in y = mx + b.
- Function
- A relation where each input has exactly one output; f(x).
- Domain of a function
- The set of all allowed input (x) values.
- Range of a function
- The set of all possible output (y) values.
- Quadratic equation
- ax² + bx + c = 0; its graph is a parabola.
- Order of operations (PEMDAS)
- Parentheses, Exponents, Multiplication/Division, Addition/Subtraction.
- Biggest area on College Algebra
- Functions and their properties (about 30%).
- College Algebra calculator
- An on-screen scientific (non-graphing) TI-30XS MultiView is provided.
- College Mathematics scope
- Non-STEM reasoning: sets, logic, probability, statistics, financial math.
- Precalculus scope
- Linear, quadratic, polynomial, rational, exponential, log, and trig functions.
- Calculus topics
- Limits, derivatives, and integrals (worth 4 credits).
- Photosynthesis
- Plants convert CO₂ + water + light into glucose and oxygen (in chloroplasts).
- Cellular respiration
- Cells break down glucose to release usable energy (≈ reverse of photosynthesis).
- Mitosis
- Cell division producing 2 genetically identical body cells.
- Meiosis
- Cell division producing 4 genetically varied sex cells (gametes).
- Three areas of CLEP Biology
- Molecular/cellular, organismal, and population biology (≈33% each).
- Natural selection
- Better-adapted organisms survive and reproduce more — the mechanism of evolution.
- DNA
- The molecule that carries genetic information in cells.
- Dominant vs. recessive allele
- A dominant allele masks a recessive one when both are present.
- Cell theory
- All living things are made of cells; cells come from existing cells.
- Producers (ecology)
- Organisms (like plants) that make their own food via photosynthesis.
- Energy flow in a food chain
- Energy moves from producers to consumers; about 10% passes up each level.
- Natural Sciences exam
- A biology + physical science survey for non-science majors (6 credits).
- Atom
- The basic unit of matter: protons, neutrons, and electrons.
- Conservation of mass
- Matter is neither created nor destroyed in a chemical reaction.
- Stoichiometry
- Using balanced equations to relate amounts of reactants and products.
- Chemistry exam scope
- First-year general chemistry: matter, reactions, equilibrium, kinetics, thermodynamics (6 credits).
- Pythagorean theorem
- a² + b² = c² for right triangles.
- Mean
- The average — sum of values divided by how many there are.
- Median
- The middle value of a data set arranged in order.
- Mode
- The value that appears most often in a data set.
- Probability
- Favorable outcomes ÷ total outcomes, a number from 0 to 1.
- Limit (calculus)
- The value a function approaches as the input approaches some point.
- Derivative
- The instantaneous rate of change (slope) of a function.
- Integral
- Accumulated area under a curve; the reverse of differentiation.
- Four functions of management
- Planning, organizing, leading, and controlling.
- Marketing mix (4 Ps)
- Product, Price, Place, Promotion.
- Accounting equation
- Assets = Liabilities + Owner's Equity (always balanced).
- Biggest area on Principles of Management
- Functional aspects of management (45–55%).
- Planning (management)
- Setting goals and deciding how to achieve them.
- Organizing (management)
- Arranging resources and people to carry out the plan.
- Leading (management)
- Motivating and directing employees.
- Controlling (management)
- Monitoring performance and correcting deviations from goals.
- Product (4 Ps)
- The good or service offered to satisfy customer needs.
- Price (4 Ps)
- What customers pay; reflects value and influences demand.
- Place (4 Ps)
- How and where the product is distributed to customers.
- Promotion (4 Ps)
- How the product is communicated and advertised.
- Market segmentation
- Dividing a market into groups with similar needs.
- Target market
- The specific group a firm aims its marketing at.
- Consumer behavior
- How buyers make purchase decisions and what influences them.
- GAAP
- Generally Accepted Accounting Principles — standard rules for financial statements.
- Double-entry accounting
- Every transaction affects at least two accounts to keep the equation balanced.
- Balance sheet
- A statement of assets, liabilities, and equity at a point in time.
- Income statement
- Reports revenues and expenses over a period (net income).
- Assets
- Resources a business owns that have value.
- Liabilities
- What a business owes to others (debts).
- Owner's equity
- The owners' residual claim: assets minus liabilities.
- Information Systems exam scope
- Office/web apps, hardware/software, data management, dev concepts, tech ethics.
- Introductory Business Law focus
- The function of contracts in American business law.
- Contract (business law)
- A legally enforceable agreement between parties.
- Agency (business law)
- A relationship where one party acts on behalf of another.
- Principles of Marketing scope
- Marketing's role, consumer/organizational markets, strategy, and the mix.
- Revenue
- The income a business earns from selling goods or services.
- Net income
- Revenue minus expenses — the 'bottom line'.
- Each business CLEP exam is worth
- 3 semester hours.
- CLEP World Language exams
- Spanish, French, German (Levels 1 & 2) and Spanish with Writing.
- World Language section split
- About 40% listening and 60% reading, in separately timed sections.
- How many times does CLEP audio play?
- Once — you cannot replay the listening clips.
- Cloze passage
- A reading passage with blanks you fill in by choosing the best-fitting word.
- World Language Level 1 credit
- Earned at a score of 50 — about two semesters (6 hours).
- World Language Level 2 credit
- Earned at a higher score — more credit hours.
- Spanish Language Level 2 score
- 63 (earns 9 semester hours).
- French Language Level 2 score
- 59 (earns 9 semester hours).
- German Language Level 2 score
- 60 (earns 9 semester hours).
- Spanish with Writing
- The only World Language exam with a writing section; up to 12 credits.
- What do World Language exams test?
- About two years of college-level reading and listening.
- Why aim high on a language exam?
- A higher score earns Level 2 — more credit hours for the same test.
- Listening section content
- Short exchanges plus longer dialogues, announcements, and narratives.
- Reading section content
- Vocabulary/grammar in context, cloze passages, and comprehension of authentic texts.
- Who often takes language CLEP exams?
- Heritage speakers, returning adults, and students fulfilling a language requirement.
- Protagonist
- The main character of a story.
- Antagonist
- The character or force opposing the protagonist.
- Foreshadowing
- Hints that suggest events to come later in a story.
- Hyperbole
- Deliberate exaggeration for effect.
- Metonymy
- Substituting a related term for a thing ('the crown' for the monarchy).
- Sonnet
- A 14-line poem, often in iambic pentameter.
- Iambic pentameter
- A line of five iambs (unstressed-stressed pairs).
- Stanza
- A grouped set of lines in a poem, like a paragraph.
- Onomatopoeia
- A word that imitates a sound ('buzz', 'hiss').
- Satire
- Using humor or irony to criticize or expose folly.
- Mood
- The atmosphere or feeling a work creates in the reader.
- Diction
- An author's word choice.
- Syntax
- The arrangement of words and phrases in sentences.
- Active vs. passive voice
- Active: the subject acts; passive: the subject is acted upon.
- Misplaced modifier
- A modifier positioned so it seems to describe the wrong word.
- Pronoun-antecedent agreement
- A pronoun must match its noun in number and gender.
- Apostrophe (punctuation)
- Marks possession or contraction — never a plain plural.
- Semicolon use
- Joins two closely related independent clauses without a conjunction.
- Allegory
- A story whose characters/events symbolize deeper meanings.
- Constitutional Convention
- The 1787 meeting that drafted the U.S. Constitution.
- Articles of Confederation
- The weak first U.S. government, replaced by the Constitution.
- Manifest Destiny
- The 19th-century belief the U.S. was destined to expand westward.
- Emancipation Proclamation
- Lincoln's 1863 order freeing enslaved people in rebel states.
- Progressive Era
- Early-1900s reform movement targeting corruption and inequality.
- The New Deal
- FDR's 1930s programs responding to the Great Depression.
- Cold War
- Post-WWII rivalry between the U.S. and the Soviet Union.
- Civil Rights Movement
- Mid-20th-century struggle to end segregation and secure equal rights.
- Electoral College
- The body that formally elects the U.S. President.
- Due process
- Fair legal procedures guaranteed by the 5th and 14th Amendments.
- Interest group
- An organization that tries to influence public policy.
- Political party
- An organization that nominates candidates to win office.
- Conditioning vs. observational learning
- Conditioning uses stimuli/consequences; observational learning copies a model (Bandura).
- Maslow's hierarchy of needs
- Needs from physiological up to self-actualization.
- Nature vs. nurture
- The debate over genetics versus environment in shaping behavior.
- Cognitive dissonance
- Discomfort from holding conflicting beliefs or actions.
- Reinforcement
- A consequence that increases the likelihood of a behavior.
- Opportunity cost
- The value of the next-best alternative you give up.
- Recession
- A significant, widespread decline in economic activity.
- Demand curve
- Shows quantity demanded falling as price rises (downward slope).
- Supply curve
- Shows quantity supplied rising as price rises (upward slope).
- Socialization
- The lifelong process of learning a society's norms and values.
- Norm (sociology)
- A shared rule or expectation for behavior in a group.
- Factoring
- Rewriting an expression as a product of its factors.
- Quadratic formula
- x = (−b ± √(b² − 4ac)) / 2a, solves ax² + bx + c = 0.
- Exponent rule (product)
- xᵃ · xᵇ = xᵃ⁺ᵇ.
- Inequality sign flip
- Flip the inequality when multiplying or dividing by a negative.
- Linear function
- A function whose graph is a straight line (y = mx + b).
- Parabola
- The U-shaped graph of a quadratic function.
- Range (statistics)
- Highest value minus lowest value in a data set.
- Independent variable
- The variable an experimenter deliberately changes.
- Dependent variable
- The variable that is measured for a response.
- Homeostasis
- An organism's maintenance of a stable internal environment.
- Enzyme
- A protein that speeds up a biochemical reaction.
- Genotype vs. phenotype
- Genotype is the genetic makeup; phenotype is the observable trait.
- Punnett square
- A grid used to predict offspring genotype ratios.
- Prokaryote vs. eukaryote
- Prokaryotes lack a nucleus; eukaryotes have a membrane-bound nucleus.
- ATP
- Adenosine triphosphate — the cell's main energy currency.
- Periodic table
- Organizes elements by atomic number and properties.
- Ionic bond
- A bond formed by the transfer of electrons between atoms.
- Covalent bond
- A bond formed by sharing electrons between atoms.
- pH scale
- Measures acidity/basicity from 0 (acidic) to 14 (basic); 7 is neutral.
- Newton's second law
- Force = mass × acceleration (F = ma).
- Kinetic vs. potential energy
- Kinetic is energy of motion; potential is stored energy.
- Sets (math)
- Collections of objects; operations include union and intersection.
- Logic statement
- A statement that is either true or false (used in College Mathematics).
- SWOT analysis
- Assessing Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, and Threats.
- Span of control
- The number of subordinates a manager directly supervises.
- Centralization
- Concentrating decision-making authority at the top.
- Delegation
- Assigning authority and responsibility to subordinates.
- Motivation theory
- Explains what drives employee effort (e.g., Maslow, Herzberg).
- Supply chain
- The network that produces and delivers a product to customers.
- Brand
- A name/symbol that identifies and differentiates a product.
- Market research
- Gathering data to understand customers and markets.
- Pricing strategy
- How a firm sets prices (e.g., cost-plus, value-based).
- Promotion mix
- Advertising, personal selling, sales promotion, and public relations.
- Liability vs. asset
- An asset is owned value; a liability is owed debt.
- Depreciation
- Allocating an asset's cost over its useful life.
- Accrual accounting
- Records revenue/expenses when earned/incurred, not when cash moves.
- Statement of cash flows
- Reports cash inflows and outflows over a period.
- Equity vs. debt financing
- Equity sells ownership; debt borrows money to be repaid.
- Database
- An organized collection of data stored for retrieval and use.
- Software vs. hardware
- Software is programs/instructions; hardware is the physical equipment.
- Breach of contract
- Failing to perform a contractual obligation.
- Consideration (contract)
- Something of value each party exchanges to make a contract binding.
- Tort
- A civil wrong causing harm, for which the law allows a remedy.
- French Language Level 1 credit
- Earned at a score of 50 — about 6 semester hours.
- German Language Level 1 credit
- Earned at a score of 50 — about 6 semester hours.
- Conjugation
- Changing a verb's form to match subject, tense, and mood.
- Cognate
- A word similar across languages due to shared origin (e.g., 'nation').
- Authentic materials
- Real-world texts (ads, articles) used in the reading section.
- Section timing (languages)
- Listening and reading are separately timed within the exam.
- Why heritage speakers use CLEP
- To earn fast college credit for a language they already know.
- Spanish with Writing sections
- Five timed sections, including a writing section.
- Gender (grammar)
- Many languages assign nouns a grammatical gender affecting articles/adjectives.
- Tense
- A verb form that places an action in time (past, present, future).
- Can CLEP credit transfer between schools?
- Sometimes — each college decides; transfer policies vary, so confirm.
- Sending CLEP scores
- You request College Board send your official score to your chosen college.
- Canceling a CLEP score
- You can decline to report a score before seeing it; it can't be reinstated.
- Free official CLEP prep
- Free fact sheets for all 34 exams and free Modern States online courses.
- Who takes CLEP exams?
- High-school/homeschool students, college students, military, and returning adults.
- Composition essay scoring
- Scored by college English faculty; results come in 2–3 weeks.
- Highest possible CLEP score
- 80 on the scaled-score scale.
- Lowest possible CLEP score
- 20 on the scaled-score scale.
- Veterans and CLEP
- Some veterans can be reimbursed for CLEP fees under GI Bill provisions.
- DANTES retake funding
- DANTES funds first attempts but no longer funds retests of funded exams.
- CLEP vs. AP
- Both earn college credit; CLEP is a single exam taken anytime, AP follows a year-long course.
- CLEP vs. DSST
- CLEP is College Board's program; DSST is a separate Prometric/DANTES program.
- Why stack CLEP exams
- Passing several can clear general-education requirements affordably.
- College Composition credit value
- 6 semester hours (the highest among single-test CLEP exams in its area).
