Shmoop has added courses!

[bjcheung77]

Yup, it's $88/month and you get NO PROCTOR exams, only thing is, it's a killer of an exam for each unit.
The questions are so convoluted and answers are so close, some answers are plain wrong!

It took me a while but got all the history credit I needed, 3 courses/9 credits in a month.
I wasn't looking for Math/English Lit, and those courses were NOT ACE recommended yet.

[BingCherry]

Is the $88/month for unlimited ACE credits? If so, I'm curious to know if anyone has attempted several classes in a single month. @Notgodot, it looks like you've done this. How realistic a goal is it?

Also... Does anyone have an opinion on the Bible as Lit & History II courses? I'm trying to find some "easy-ish" courses to fulfill general ed/ electives. Thanks for the input!

I did all 5 courses of my Shmoop courses in one month. Started a 6th but I was so pissed and frustrated by that time. I just gave up. Broken links, random subjective feelings questions, etc. NOPE. I gave up. HA

Bible was easiest. Shakespeare second.

[Thorne]

I did all 5 courses of my Shmoop courses in one month. Started a 6th but I was so pissed and frustrated by that time. I just gave up. Broken links, random subjective feelings questions, etc. NOPE. I gave up. HA

Bible was easiest. Shakespeare second.

What would the likelihood be of going into an exam blind and searching the answers through recommended textbooks / course materials?

[lmckown]

Is the $88/month for unlimited ACE credits? If so, I'm curious to know if anyone has attempted several classes in a single month. @Notgodot, it looks like you've done this. How realistic a goal is it?

Also... Does anyone have an opinion on the Bible as Lit & History II courses? I'm trying to find some "easy-ish" courses to fulfill general ed/ electives. Thanks for the input!

I did 5 courses the first month and two so far this month (though only 1 more there can apply to my degree)

Shakespeare's Plays was easy. If you get a firm handle on the summary that shmoop provides it's pretty simple. I did not read the whole plays, though I had a passing knowledge of them previous to the course. Drugs in Literature, Holocaust Lit, and American National government were in the middle for me. Made me think, sure, but my brains did not leak from my ears. Plus with the last two there were not any broken links that I can recall.

American History 2 legitimately made me pull out my hair and I am not ashamed to say that I teared up when I passed.

The tests themselves are sometimes confusing and sometimes convoluted, and if I NEVER hear the words "We speak student" again it will be too soon. As their "shmooptube" videos automatically play when you scroll down the page and that is in the intro to every. single. one.

I do, however, have to commend the customer service team. I had a family emergency during American History 2 and I bombed a retake because I needed to literally run out the door. That originally made me fail American History 2 after putting so much work in. When I asked when I would be able to take the course again they said that I could not as it's kind of a one and done kind of deal. However, they were able to help me and allow me to retake the exam due to the circumstance of my emergency. Their customer service has been pretty amazing whenever I've had to reach out.

I am definitely in the minority, however, I really enjoy Shmoop.

I just remembered there is a very detailed review on a bunch of the lit courses in a post if you're interested. I don't know if we can actually post links, but the thread is titled Shmoop Literature Courses Overview

[lmckown]

What would the likelihood be of going into an exam blind and searching the answers through recommended textbooks / course materials?

If you have to do that, I would definitely recommend copying and pasting into a word document or something. There is no way in the final that you could navigate that many individual lessons and external links within the time frame. Though I would not recommend this for ANY of the lit courses except Shakespeare, unless you have read the books 5 times over. I think one person put it in a PDF and succeeded if I'm remembering correctly.

[Notgodot]

What would the likelihood be of going into an exam blind and searching the answers through recommended textbooks / course materials?

The way to think about these courses is on a unit level. Open every single link, put everything on a separate tab in your browser for the unit (reading/scanning as you go), and keep them all open for the unit test. That way you actually have time to track down the answer to the questions during the test. The final is just the last unit test plus a bunch of repeat questions from previous unit tests.

I very much doubt anyone could pass a course by taking the unit tests blind, relying on prior knowledge, or even googling. The whole thing is set up so that it doesn't *need* to be proctored. You have to know the *shmoop* answer, not "the answer" to any given question.

Also avoid Contemporary Lit unless they've updated it. It's a tire fire.

[bjcheung77]

If you have to do that, I would definitely recommend copying and pasting into a word document or something. There is no way in the final that you could navigate that many individual lessons and external links within the time frame. Though I would not recommend this for ANY of the lit courses except Shakespeare, unless you have read the books 5 times over. I think one person put it in a PDF and succeeded if I'm remembering correctly.

^This^. I did both, copy page by page into a word document and also made it a searchable pdf using google docs. I just copy the text, the pictures are worthless. Did that for 3 courses and it was a "hard" set of exams.
History is not my forte, and I just used those 3 as general education elective credits for cheap (9 credits from Shmoop in total). If they had more courses back then, I would have taken more of them.

[CollegeKid]

What is the "format" of Shmoop? Is it just one big test at the end? Or chapter exams? I can't find on their website the breakdown of points (like it shows on SL or Study.com).

[bluebooger]

What is the "format" of Shmoop? Is it just one big test at the end? Or chapter exams? I can't find on their website the breakdown of points (like it shows on SL or Study.com).

read this page

http://www.shmoop.com/college-credit/

[bjcheung77]

What is the "format" of Shmoop? Is it just one big test at the end? Or chapter exams? I can't find on their website the breakdown of points (like it shows on SL or Study.com).

it's unit exams, roughly 10 of them and a final - the final is strange, it can be from 17-22 percent of the entire course... you need to review the course info