I passed Personal Finance today with a 68! That gives me an "A" at Excelsior. I studied for about one week, maybe less. I used The Wall Street Journal: Complete Personal Finance Guidebook by Jeff Opdyke. I also used the DSST study guide. The study guide is good because it gives you, with pre and post exams, roughly 80 questions. So you familiarize yourself with the type of questions.

This exam really is not very hard. There were a few questions that I got wrong because they were fairly deep but most of the exam was information that any savvy professional would know. Example, What is the role of the Federal Reserve. The answer: control monetary policy. Other questions were related to the rule of 72. If you have $1000 and earn 6% interest, how many years would it take to double your money. There were two or three questions like that. Another question was which form do you fill out to determine your tax deduction amount. Answer: W4. Or who pays social security tax. Answer: employee and employer. If you have $1000 and earn 15% interest, how many years until you reach $1500. Answer: 3 years.