A total newb's experience with CLEP/DSST

[lrgaul]

[SIZE="2"][COLOR="Navy"]This is an interesting thread we have going here. Based on my experience so far, InstantCert will usually give you enough information to pass an exam. I am not prepared to say that this will be a low-stress pass, but a pass indeed.

I can certainly admire the positions of those who are self proclaimed perfectionists. I think being excellent, rather than average, is a fantastic goal for everyone to work towards in life. On the other hand, I think it is so important for people to be careful that they do not become self-righteous in the process. Afterall, for some people, including me, perfection is the enemy of progress.

My pet peeve is when people post to the forum saying something similar to this, "I only got a 65, but I will take what I can get."

What? This is a little bit like saying, "Oh my God, I took an IQ test today and it was only 125!" A score of 60 is equivalent to an A ladies and gentlemen. I certainly understand that some colleges get particularly high and mighty about the scores they will take, but the majority of us are attending open enrollment institutions, which are not exactly known for being the ultimate in choosy. I apologize in advance if I offended anyone with this particular viewpoint, but the University of Minnesota is a very selective college and it will accept CLEP scores of 60.

My experience with CLEPs so far has been pretty different than many of the people who have described their experiences here. For example, I took the Principles of Management CLEP a few weeks back and I scored a 70. (By the way, this was my highest score yet and I am actually pretty darn proud of it.) Anyway, when I was taking this exam, I didn't run into a single question that I wasn't 100% confident about. I mean literally, there wasn't a single question that I was not rock solid positive that I knew the correct answer to, and I finished it in less than half of the allotted time. The result: A 70! Human Growth & Development and Introductory Sociology produced a similar experience.

Frankly speaking, if I was going to judge the experiences of others based on my own experiences, I would not be sure how someone would find a test particularly difficult at all when they managed to score higher than 60 on it. To be completely honest, every test that I have scored higher than 60 on, I felt like I could have aced if I had been drunk as a skunk! However, to a marked degree this is a pretty sensible reaction because according to the Raw Score Conversion Chart at my local testing center, the scaled scores of a CLEP can be effectively translated into an equivalent letter grade. Of course, this is a figure for statistical purposes because the majority of colleges do not offer letter grades for CLEP. The Raw Score Conversion Chart is as follows:

Scaled scores of 58 to 80 are equivalent to an A.
Scaled scores of 53 to 57 are equivalent to a B.
Scaled scores of 47 to 52 are equivalent to a C.
Scaled scores of 41 to 46 are equivalent to a D.
Scaled scores of 40 or under are equivalent to an F.

Looking at this a little deeper yet, I live in MN where we have some of the highest academic test scores in the country. My local testing center indicates that 88% of its passing scores on CLEP exams (meaning scores of 50 or higher) will fall in between 50 and 60. Having said that, it is not terribly common for CLEP scores to exceed 60 to begin with. Fun fact: approximately 64% of the CLEP exams taken at my testing center are scored high enough to qualify as passing.

In summary, any score higher than 60 is nothing to shake a stick at. Scores like this would put you in the upper 10 percentile, which should be pure bliss for the average perfectionist! [/COLOR][/SIZE]