Redleg - Good luck on your test today, I took that one a while back, I liked it (i'm a bit of a tech geek so it was nice to have an "easy" one) And, thanks for sparknotes info, I'll definitely heed the advice.

Shoto - I totally agree, I nearly fell of my chair when I took CLEP macroeco to find that I had like 8 minutes left when I finished.

I have to admit, I'm kinda stressin' about Civil War and Soviet Union. I need 15 UL arts and sciences. I bombed Money & Banking (still bitter about that) and I've got a lot riding on these two. I'm listening to Don't Know Much About the Civil War on audio book, based on someone's recommendation here on the forum and I'm getting the SparkNotes, along with my "standard" InstaCert. I take Civil War Monday AND I'm doing 2 day yoga cert class all weekend. YIKES! I haven't started studying for Soviet Union...

I have to admit, I'm kinda stressin' about Civil War and Soviet Union. I need 15 UL arts and sciences. I bombed Money & Banking (still bitter about that) and I've got a lot riding on these two. I'm listening to Don't Know Much About the Civil War on audio book, based on someone's recommendation here on the forum and I'm getting the SparkNotes, along with my "standard" InstaCert. I take Civil War Monday AND I'm doing 2 day yoga cert class all weekend. YIKES! I haven't started studying for Soviet Union...[/quote]

I too need to complete 4 UL credits so I'm going after both the Civil War and Soviet Union DANTES exams; Civil War on Friday.

I like taking practice exams in books like REA or petersons.com but I have only found one DANTES prep book that offers DANTES (Civil War and Soviet Union) and that is the Rudmans (I call them RED COVER) books available on amazon.com). They have 600 sample questions in varying degrees of difficulty. Some I nail and some I get get nailed on.

I'm just HOPING that the "real" DANTES exam questions are more on par with those that are seen on most CLEP exams. Obviously one must be familiar with the subject material before sitting the exam, but thus far I have done very well on CLEP's and I'm praying that the DANTES exams are not too difficult. GOOD LUCK!!!

I have taken four DANTES and three CLEP tests and I don't see any difference in the difficulty levels between the two. I like the DANTES because they are not timed so I don't stress about the clock.

Have you guys seen this?http://www.dantes.doded.mil/dantes_w...tions/DSST.htm

Follow the lonk and click on "FY 05 exam pass rates" you can choose between CLEP General. CLEP subject, DSST and EXCelsior exams to find out the pass rates on these tests. These are stats for military test takers only, but should be usefull in choosing an exam.

Actually, it may depend on the specific exam, but I've heard people say that test-taking skills seem to be more crucial with the Dantes exams over the CLEP exams.

One student had said that there are generally at least a few questions on a Dantes exam that can be figured out without any real prior knowledge on the subject--for example, if the question says something like "Which one of the statements would a proponent of blah make", and you know that a proponent is someone who is in support of a certain issue, then there might be only one answer choice that clearly sounds positive, instead of negative...

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Steve, Webmaster

I'd have to say dantes wins my vote for being harder. I've taken 13 clep's and 2 dantes. I was much more comfortable with the questions on clep than I was on dantes. now maybe some of you feel just the opposite, but for now those are my feelings to date. Take care everyone and pass'em all.

RBOWMAN,

I tend to agree!

I seem to encounter more challenging questions on the DANTES than I do on the CLEPs. Also, DANTES questions sometimes seem less well thought out than the CLEP questions. This has the effect of creating a few questions on each DANTES exam that you think you probably know the answer to...but you're not quite sure because of the way the question or the answer options are worded.

As a result, I often leave a DANTES exam thinking that I may well have aced it...or I may well have completely flunked it. Until I get the score report in the mail a few weeks later, I can never say for sure that I passed.

Having said all that, I have not done badly on any DANTES exam I have taken so far, and I am always VERY PLEASANTLY surprised when my score report arrives.

I suspect that this might be the experience of many other people here too.

Take care,
Snazzlefrag

Yes! This is a big complaint I've consistently heard about Dantes questions.

One student said he knew a lot about a particular subject, but on the exam he would have difficulty choosing an answer for some of the questions because based on the way the answer choices were worded, more than one of them seemed to be a valid answer.

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Steve, Webmaster

I couldn't agree more! It's like a crap shoot with Dantes, I always leave feeling that exact same way. I took a bunch of Dantes before I ever took my first CLEP. I remember thinking during my CLEP, "it can't be this easy!" but comparatively speaking it is.
I actually let myself get so flustered on a DSST's once - (Environment and Humanity) that I honestly think I said humans were herbivores - the question had me so fubar'ed. That was a long couple of weeks waiting for results.