Pass Rates

[lmech]

Thanks for the info

[Mamasaphire]

Thanks!

It proves my theory that the new/revised DSSTs are much harder than the older ones. For instance (passing rates bolded):

ETHICS IN AMERICA 46 3 3545 82
ETHICS IN AMERICA 400 3 798 30

HERE'S TO YOUR HEALTH 48 3 1188 70
HERE'S TO YOUR HEALTH 400 3 202 41

INTRODUCTION TO COMPUTING 45 3 2008 83
INTRODUCTION TO COMPUTING 400 3 327 53

INTRODUCTION TO WORLD RELIGIONS 48 3 539 53
INTRODUCTION TO WORLD RELIGIONS 400 3 103 30

PERSONAL FINANCE 46 3 250 61
PERSONAL FINANCE 400 3 36 31

[sheeenz]

it looks like all of the newly revised ones are much harder than the original ones except for the one i need (statistics) whoohoo

[alissaroot]

After taking a look at that, I know for sure that I will never tackle CLEP Chemistry, ever. Did you see the one for maternity nursing? Zero pass rate, geez. Financial Accounting with only a seven percent? And let's just mark geology off the list, too...Am I reading this right? Thank you for sharing this. This will really help me with my degree plans.

[lmech]

I think we all had an idea that this was going on with the new tests. But WOW. Some of these test are way more difficult. It is looking like DSST is trying to get there score averages more inline with most of the CLEPs. Looks like most of the new averages are learning toward the 30%-40% pass rate. Just my opinion. Unfortunatly, not that many easy tests anymore

[cookderosa]

[SIZE="4"][COLOR="Blue"]WAIT A MINUTE EVERYONE!

There are some things to remember.[/COLOR][/SIZE]

First- the pass rate of IC Forum members (you!) is very HIGH (see my siggy). Don't throw out your exam list just yet. **Can one of you statistical people here do a calculation that makes an adjustment so we can factor the military pass rate scale the scores to reflect our pass rate- I don't remember the term of what that's called- adjusting maybe?**

Second- the military folks can take exams for free- which could influence their desire to take an exam cold or with a small amount of preparation (go ahead and try- your not out anything).

Lastly- DSST will work on their test to perfect the difficulty level. That might mean revising it to be overall harder or easier, but the idea is always that the passing score would reflect the average passing C grade student. (maybe student's have improved over the years as well- which would bump up the scale)

[barcotta]

PLEASE, take these with a grain of salt. At most--you can take the extremely high scores and extremely low scores and MAYBE use that to evaluate difficulty. Lucky for us, larrycrys actually pasted in some of last year's pass rates into a post so here they are to compare:

CLEP PASS RATE FY07
(Military Examinees Only)

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

English Composition (without Essay) 30%
Social Science and History 35%
Natural Sciences 34%
Humanities 28%
College Mathematics 32%
Analyzing & Interpreting Literature 64%
College Algebra 17%
Freshman College Composition 54%
History of the U.S. I 23%
History of the U.S. II 25%
Information Systems & Computer Applications 44%
Introductory Psychology 34%
Introductory Sociology 37%
Principles of Management 57%

DSST
A History of the Vietnam War 38%
An Introduction to the Modern Middle East 41%
Art of the Western World 35%
Astronomy 43%
Business Law II 39%
Business Mathematics 64%
Western Europe Since 1945 35%
Criminal Justice 46%
Drug and Alcohol Abuse 41%
Environment and Humanity: The Race to Save the Planet 56%
Ethics in America 58%
Foundations of Education 49%
Fundamentals of College Algebra 25%
Fundamentals of Counseling 25%
General Anthropology 32%
Here’s to Your Health 69%
Human Cultural Geography 44%
Human Resource Management 61%
Introduction to Business 73%
Introduction to Computing 84%
Introduction to Law Enforcement 59%
Introduction to World Religions 57%
Lifespan Developmental Psychology 38%
Management Information Systems 74%
Money and Banking 13%
Organizational Behavior 42%
Personal Finance 62%
Physical Geology 16%
Principles of Finance 16%
Principles of Financial Accounting 21%
Principles of Physical Science I 46%
Principles of Public Speaking 83%
Principles of Statistics 29%
Principles of Supervision 62%
Rise and Fall of the Soviet Union 37%
Technical Writing 74%
The Civil War and Reconstruction 35%

Please note my favorite--25% pass rate on Fundamentals of Counseling. For those who are not familiar with that test--it is not a difficult exam. The fact that 3/4 of the military personnel who took that test did not pass says a whole lot--but nothing about the difficulty of the test.

Seriously--those guys don't have to pay so they have nothing to lose. There HAS to be a serious overload of people taking many of these tests cold to pound some of these pass rates into the ground.

Now, there are tougher tests, like Management Information Systems ("MIS"), that have high pass rates. I believe that people who take these tests cold may be avoiding exams on very specific topics, such as MIS, for which they know they have no knowledge whatsoever. So, if my theory is correct, everyone and their brother is trying exams like Fundamentals of Counseling, which is artificially reducing the pass rate--and mostly folks who really know the material are taking the tougher, specific exams like MIS--which makes some of those exams appear less difficult proportionately.

So, especially for the newbies--DO NOT rely on these pass rates. Use the Specific Exam Feedback section to inform yourself. This section includes (mostly) people who really cared, studied and tried and THEIR cumulative analysis of the difficulty level will be your best guide.

[thatbrian]

Man! That is a huge difference from old test to new!!! We need to track IC pass rates for these revised tests.

Thanks!

It proves my theory that the new/revised DSSTs are much harder than the older ones. For instance (passing rates bolded):

ETHICS IN AMERICA 46 3 3545 82
ETHICS IN AMERICA 400 3 798 30

HERE'S TO YOUR HEALTH 48 3 1188 70
HERE'S TO YOUR HEALTH 400 3 202 41

INTRODUCTION TO COMPUTING 45 3 2008 83
INTRODUCTION TO COMPUTING 400 3 327 53

INTRODUCTION TO WORLD RELIGIONS 48 3 539 53
INTRODUCTION TO WORLD RELIGIONS 400 3 103 30

PERSONAL FINANCE 46 3 250 61
PERSONAL FINANCE 400 3 36 31

[lmech]

I agree with much that has been said. First, I have no intensions of changing my test schedule over these results. For myself, I know that I can pass any test I want. It's just up to me to study hard enough and make the grade; So, I guess that is kind of a lazyness thing. The military guys do lower these averages because of the sheer amount of cold test taking going on.

For me there are 2 points of interest concerning the new averages. First, the 10 DSST's that were changed. Not a problem. I will just make sure I know the information for sure. As stated before, we can get a good gage of this through the specific feedback section. Which has saved me many times.

Second, compare the paper based CLEP to the CBT CLEP pass rates. Many of them are 9-10% higher using the CBT format. This is a great tool for me concerning those CLEPS that I have left. Looks like I'm going CBT for CLEP's. I wonder why those averages are higher?

All in all I agree. The actual overall PR averages on this report are much lower than our IC client standards; So I would not freak out, but I do feel that these can be used wisely if put into the correct perspective.

As for me, I'm not changing my line up.

[Mamasaphire]

I agree with much that has been said. First, I have no intensions of changing my test schedule over these results. For myself, I know that I can pass any test I want. It's just up to me to study hard enough and make the grade; So, I guess that is kind of a lazyness thing. The military guys do lower these averages because of the sheer amount of cold test taking going on.

.....

All in all I agree. The actual overall PR averages on this report are much lower than our IC client standards; So I would not freak out, but I do feel that these can be used wisely if put into the correct perspective.

As for me, I'm not changing my line up.

I can't change my line-up either, but it is a wake-up that shows that many of the tests really are significantly harder.

Like for instance, I took "Here's to Your Health", and I am an adult in my 30's who is a homeschooling parent and also works in the medical field. I reviewed the IC real quick and took the test ending with a 439 (IIRC... it could have been 10 above/below that). With the old test, from what I've read almost anyone who had some common sense and real life experience could pass with a decent score. I am not complaining, I did pass the revised version, but it was a HARD test because of all the percentage questions, even for me who is in the medical field!

Anyway, no amount of talking about it will change things, but yes I am glad for this forum and IC, and yes I am still pretty nervous about taking the revised DSSTs