Get off the board and STUDY! Thanks for answering my question though

Because we're doing it too Now get back and study!

__________________
I'm done!
B.A. English, TESC, completed December 2008

Tests passed: A/I Lit-73, Mgmt-71, Amer Lit-73, Tech Writing-64, Criminal Justice-56, Here's to Your Health-65, Law Enforcement-60

First, let me say that InstantCert is very much worth the money. I paid for the $108 six-month membership and I don't regret it for a minute. I would definitely recommend it to anybody taking more than one or two CLEP or DSST exams.

Having said that, I'm not sure I'd use it as a primary resource for anything. To me, "primary" means I don't know anything at all about the subject and I need to learn it from the ground up. In that situation, I want to start with a text, or at least an outline. To me, IC is about drill. It's not so much about concepts, but more about individual facts.

For most of the CLEPs I didn't seem to need IC. The Official Guide and the Princeton Review books were my most helpful resources, and I used several of the Barron's books. I did use the IC flashcards quite heavily on several of the DSST exams -- Criminal Justice, Drug and Alcohol Abuse, Here's to Your Health, Civil War and Reconstruction, and even Principles of Supervision. I used them for the ECEs too, but not as heavily.

My problem with the IC flashcards is that too often I find there are too many cards per set. I would be a whole lot happier with them if I could split them up into sets of no more than 20. I get frustrated and annoyed trying to work through sets of 40 or 60 or more flashcards. It just feels like they're going to go on forever. I know it doesn't make much sense, but I'm sure I could do three sets of twenty much more quickly and happily than one set of sixty. Still, I don't mean to complain -- for the money, it's a terrific value.

But hey, that's just me. Your Mileage May Vary.

By the way, I did manage to complete Chapter 3 in the Business Strategy text, and aced the quiz. The quizzes are open book, but they're still not easy. They seem to be mostly "which of these is NOT xxx" type questions, and the wrong answer you need to choose is very often quite plausible. It's twenty questions per chapter (at least so far) and they count for 50% of your total grade.

-Gary-

Great Information. Thanks for your insight.

I had the same issue with the longer sections as well. Whenever I had one longer than 40 questions I split it in half and treated it like another section. I usually went through each section once, just to read it, then I started it over and tried to answer the question in my mind...I do not like typing so this was easier for me . When I could go through a section and not miss a single question and knew the explanations....I would then move on to the next section.

One more tidbit of advice if I may. As I finished a section of a subject, I would go back to the beginning and go through them all again

1
12
123
1234
12345
123456
1234567

This will really drill the information into your head; repetition is key. Is this a bit overkill? Sure is, but it worked perfectly for CLEPs, Dantes, and the 8 ECE tests I passed.... IC was my primary source of study and I tested out of my degree. Good luck!

__________________
Associates Degree, Aviation Maintenance Technology, Community College of the Air Force
Bachelors of Science, Liberal Studies Degree, Excelsior
MBA Human Resource Management, California Coast University

You do have an ambitious schedule lined up! Keep us posted on your progress. I just may have to emulate your plan (maybe add anohter 4 weeks for sanity )

Hoosier Christian

I actually wouldn't advise doing the exams in the same order I did them. My order was pretty haphazard! A lot of it happened due to scheduling issues with ECE exams around the holidays. Sticking more closely to the bain4weeks.com schedule (only spread out a little more) probably makes more sense.

I got ECE World Population out of the way this afternoon, scoring an A. My Penn Foster course still hasn't shown up, so I'll have to call them tomorrow morning and see what's going on. Meanwhile, it's nose-to-the-grindstone on Principles of Finance and Business Strategy.

-Gary-

I finished the online Business Strategy quizzes up through Chapter 8 (out of 13). I think I'll do a couple more chapters today, because I want to head down to Anaheim for the NAMM show tomorrow morning. The Penn Foster Managerial Accounting course should finally show up tomorrow. I need to really tear into Principles of Finance the rest of today and some of tomorrow, if I'm going to take the exam on Friday morning. I've pretty much decided to take CLEP Analyzing and Interpreting Literature instead of DSST Fundamentals of Counseling on Friday, as I'm confident I can pass it without any study at all (based on trying the Official Guide practice exam a week or two ago), and the grade from the DSST wouldn't make much difference to me anyway. But I still want to get Finance out of the way on Friday if at all possible, especially because I won't be able to take the Managerial Accounting proctored exam until sometime next week.

I want to request a "ruling" from anybody with an opinion. My intention right now is to finish the online Business Strategy quizzes, and do my case study project, submitting it by Friday, 01/25. I will make a few posts on the discussion board, but probably not on every chapter. Based on that, I intend to claim victory on 01/25. The quizzes are 50% of the grade, and the case study project is another 30%. The discussion is 20%. I'll continue to post to the board after 01/25, but I want to be able to say "I earned my degree in sixty days" and that means being done on 01/25. What do you think? Am I cheating if I follow that plan?

-Gary-

Just a little... I wanted to say I earned my degree in a year and I was trying to determine if it would be considered cheating if 15 calendar months elapsed from start to finish but I took three months off. I decided that if I was successful I would tell people that it took about a year's worth of time over the course of a year and a few months. No danger of turning that into a brand! Yours is much more interesting. If you end up with a round number once you're successfully completed all requirements (as in you have all your grades) you could use that (75 days...80 days....).

There are many measuring points from which to choose. Once you know what they all are you can choose the one you like best.

__________________
Michael

CLEP - ISCA 68, Sociology 72, Psych 73, A&I Lit 61, HG&D 65, Ed Psych 70, Marketing 72, Management 69, Macroeconomics 63, Microeconomics 67
DSST - Intro to Comp 66, MIS 61, Supervision 67, Counseling 58 - no study!, Personal Finance 67, Statistics 60, Criminal Justice 57, Ethics 58, Finance 63 (All A's at EC)
COC - 2007 (Community College) - Acctg I&II 10c, Work/Study 4c, Intro to Research (Info Lit req) 1c, Society and Rock & Roll 3c, Fund of Music 3c, Guitar I & II 4c, Bass Guitar I 2c
ECE - Ethics (A), HRM (B), Organizational Behavior (B) | CSU - Operations Mgmt. (A) | TECEP - Business Policy 80 (CR)

My Excelsior Degree Journey

Bachelor of Science in General Business, cum laude
Excelsior College
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If all goes as planned, I planned on saying on finished my degree in less than 3 1/2 months as I have planned for my last test date to be February 26 and I started November 16. SO, if you are cheating, than that would make me as cheating as well! Excelsior has indicated that in certain circumstances, they will write a letter of qualification since it will take until May before I actually get a diploma. I've also revised my last few tests so I do excelsiors last because they receive the results immediately.