pass tests with no prior knowledge?

How feasible is it to pass a bunch of cleps or Dantes without having much prior knowledge.

I feel like i could do it, but i am not confident. Any experience from those who have passed test with no prior knowledge?



drew

 

I've passed and received A's on 9 CLEP and DANTES that I sat 'cold.' I have passed and received A's on another 10+ with less than a week of study for each exam.

I don't know how common this is, but I have found that it takes me no more than 3 days to prepare for an exam that test a subject I have no prior knowledge of. I have about 90 credits through testing now. I might have a 'better than average' memory or something. I just read a book and take a test.

I know some very smart people who study for a month and then still don't pass a CLEP, so who knows.

You asked how feasible it is. For me, and others I'm sure, it is very feasible. For others it is not so feasible. For you? Well, there is only one way to find out!

 

Tautologically:

if you "passed" an exam, and that exam adequately measured the relevant competencies at the appropriate level, then, at the time the test was taken, you possessed the requisite knowledge in the discipline, necessary to pass the exam.

That is, you knew, even if did not know that you knew.

How can you know that you know, or know that you don't know? Consider the following:-


WHILE (NOTPASS MOCK EXAM) DO



{

SIT MOCK TEST
REVISE
SIT MOCK TEST

}


SIT EXAMINATION


The purpose of the, mock test - revise - mock test strategy, is to generate a useful objective assessment of your current level of competence and to provide direction for efficient focused study and revision (if required and as required).

It is important to know the test subject well enough that distractions (such as the angst of testing) do not impede demonstration of competence. Being good at tests can assist a marginal test candidate. The purpose of doing the mocks is to ensure you never test as a marginal candidate, that you only test when you know what the outcome will be, and that that outcome will be the one you want it to be.

 

I'm sure plenty have passed CLEP and Dantes test cold.

I've only taken one CLEP test and I passed that with a lot of studying. To bad I studied the wrong information. After picking up the book, taking the practice test, and doing the reading I requested the wrong test when I showed up at the testing center....ahhh life is fun.

With that said it doesn't really matter if others have managed to do it. What matters is how much of the subject matter you know and how good of a test taker you are.

 

Well, you guys are prolly right. I need to figure out which ones to take I guess.


I had another thread going about a COSC question I had...did any of you have any info for it?



drew

 

Lawrie, I have trouble running this procedure (I was wondering if you could help me out). It runs great until I get to the:

SIT EXAMINATION command and it promptly flashes the "blue screen of death" and the CPU smoke-checks! Then, I get this error message:

!Catastrophic Test Failure!

Any ideas?

 

I think that if it is possible to pass examinations with no prior knowledge of the material being examined, then all you have is a reductio-ad-absurdem of the examination process.

I can understand individuals learning on the job or through independent study. That's wonderful, it's great. I can even understand individuals being surprised by how much they have absorbed from reading the newspapers or even from watching TV.

But all of that is prior knowledge of the material. It's precisely prior knowledge, except that it's prior knowledge acquired informally.

But for the life of me, I can't imagine passing an anatomy class unless I knew all the Latin names for all those slimy things. I can't imagine passing an introductory calculus class unless I can find maxima and minima or points of inflection. I can't imagine passing a course on Plato unless I had read Plato's major dialogues and carefully considered what I had read.

Isn't it the whole point of higher education to impart and verify knowledge, skills and understanding that exceed what the average layman already possesses?

 

I have passed 8 Clep/Dantes exams. I have also failed 4 of them.
I think the first thing is to take a practice test to find out if you are withing 5 points of passing the exam. After this make an apointment to take the exam and use the time up to the apointment date to study. I feel it is well worth it.

Good Luck

 

I was able to pass about 15 CLEP/DANTES in about 7 weeks. Some of the exam were easy because I had taken classes at CCU other exams were easy because I have my MCSE.

The following are the tests I passed without any study or prior knowledge-
DANTES Ethics
DANTES Here’s to you Health
DANTES Tech Writing
DANTES Envir and Humanity
DANTES Intro to Criminal Justice
DANTES Intro to Law Enforcement

 

Hmm. The problem definitely seems to be split between poor data retention and frying the level-2 cache. Sad to say, I think you may be overCLEPing, Bill. You’re not adhering to manufacturers recommended operating limits. You know that that is the definition of a DL geek. There are 12-step programs available.



Try either dropping the frequency of your front side bus, or install memory with shorter access time. If your central processor is smoking during stressful exams – use a more efficient heat sink. Immediately before entering the exam room, take a bag of ice, place under your moped helmet and secure with the chin strap. Now, some may laugh at your appearance, but you’ll be secure in the knowledge that you are performing recursive algorithms 43% faster than them, for the same nominal mental capacity.

If you are simply not recognizing the meaning of some of the exam questions, try a bios update. It may be your revision is well past its sell by date.

It all starts in childhood, you know. I will send you one of my tee shirts with “No, I wont fix your computer”, written on the back, for you to wear when visiting your relatives. Many now in recovery have faced and overcome that very same familial abuse.

If none of the above works – install Linux.

 

Re: Re: pass tests with no prior knowledge?

Exactly. And I can’t imagine who it was that suggested it should be otherwise, or is otherwise. If you do find such an exam, then clearly it is an exam that does not examine that which it purports to examine. That is, it is a fraud. We know that.

Of the 2 GRE Subject, 14+1 CLEP, 10 DANTES, and 13 ECE exams I sat, none were frauds. All required that I possess the relevant skill set before my competence was validated by the award of a pass in the discipline under scrutiny.

No. Not at all. Where did you get that idea? The whole point is to facilitate the acquisition of skill sets at a defined level of competence. That level may be set somewhere above high school, academically, but it does not follow that because it is so, that the layman for all his average-ness, does not posses competencies at that level.

If it is the case that the average layman possesses some or all of the skills required for the award of college credit or even a degree, then the average layman has the right to have that learning recognized and validated. If all adults in the U.S. were educated to bachelor level, I think that would be a fine thing. If, over time, the minimum level of education of the average adult rose to master’s degree level, that too would be a fine thing. I think it is unarguable that in terms of the complexity of acquired (and indeed required) skill sets, we are more capable than our forbearers. Indeed, we are more capable than we were a decade ago. This year 2003, it took the world one day, January 1st , to produce the world’s GDP for the whole of the year 1900.

Should we redefine and raise-up, out of reach, the level of degrees because the average man has forgotten his place in life and attained that mark of intellectual competence once the exclusive preserve of an elite? A degree is first and foremost a testament to competence. It is not a mark of superiority. Who, but those who sanctify themselves as an elite should feel threatened by the working stiff’s quest to better his lot?

Higher education, Bill, not social engineering for the benefit of some self appointed cognoscenti.

 

Re: Re: Re: pass tests with no prior knowledge?

The title of this thread is "pass tests with no prior knowledge". People have listed the exams that they passed "without any study or prior knowledge".

Yes, that is precisely what I'm concerned about. Either there is a lot of hyperbole in some of the posts here, or else some of these exams don't appear to be credible.

Without any formal or informal study or other previous exposure to the subject?

Perhaps part of our disagreement is semantic. I am using the word 'layman' to refer to the resting state, the default condition, in individuals who have not studied a subject either formally or informally. I am referring to ignorance in other words, broken only by whatever is picked up in the course of unrelated activities.

I am not using the term 'layman' to refer to everyone who hasn't had a formal and conventional classroom education. I happily recognize the fact that people learn in other ways, on the job or by pursuing their interests through their own independent study.

In other words, if people have really learned things on the job or through their own independent study, they are no longer 'laymen'. It's precisely the task of the prior learning examinations to verify that fact.

Of course, assuming that your 'layman' really does possess the necessary information, understanding and skills. (In which case I wouldn't call him a 'layman'.)

But if you are suggesting that the average person possesses the information, understanding and skills required for the award of college credit or even a degree without ever studying the material and lacking any prior knowledge of it, then I think that you are mistaken.

 

Re: Re: Re: Re: pass tests with no prior knowledge?

Yes and no. Although that is the title of the thread, that is not what people have been responding to (at least not me). Replace the word "any" with the word "much" and you will have his actual question stated in his original post. Then he changed the question again later in his post.

Hyperbole is not the problem, vagueness and inconsistency is.

 

I believe the way a passing score is decided for CLEP exams, is by giving the test to several students that have taken an actual college level class on the subject. Am I mistaken on this fact? If this is true, how could anyone say that CLEP exams were a fraud? If there was a fraud, it would have to go back to the education that normal college students are recieving is fraudulent.

Is the education at a standard college a fraud? Well, I think there could certainly be a good argument for that. I know I sat in many classes, being either asleep or daydreaming, and still managed to get very good grades. I'm pretty certain that I could pass most CLEP exams with no more than 10 hours of hard studying, starting from zero knowledge (which is about what it took to pass the accounting exam). However, I passed several classes at our local state college where I rarely showed up for class and never studied. At least this way I can condense the small amount you actually learn in college into about 6 months of casual reading and studying.

 

Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: pass tests with no prior knowledge?

Actually, vagueness wasn't too much of a problem now was it. If it was too vague, i wouldn't have recieved any responses. But obviously most knew what i was taking about because all responded to that question that was out there in "vagueland" Just because you couldn't figure out the real question and had to twist it so you could answer it.

Also, please point out the inconsistency. I asked about people passing CLEP without prior knowledge. My second post said that I guess you are right, now I have to figure out which ones to take. There was no changing the question. THe question stayed the same.

uhh........duhhh

 

Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: pass tests with no prior knowledge?

Vagueness does not necessitate a lack of responses. Since the premise of your argument has been shown to be false, I’ll spare you the humility of ripping apart your conclusion.

I would be delighted to help you out here.

You first said, "How feasible is it to pass a bunch of cleps or Dantes without having much prior knowledge."

From the same post: You then said, "Any experience from those who have passed test with no prior knowledge?"

How ironic, that I quote your sarcasm to mock you.

 

ok, maybe its just me. i thought that the question was clear. vague means not being clear.


also, i believe that by the general understanding of the question being clear, then the inconsistency becomes like ice, and it melts away.

I am sorry cmt that it wasn't clear enough for you. obviously some people understood the root of the question and answered accordingly.


i apologize if i came off wrong..........



hey thanks for mocking me. i really appreciate that.


and by the way, humility is a good thing....in my eyes at least. i can never be humble enough

 

Re: Re: Re: Re: pass tests with no prior knowledge?

I used "layman" in the sense of someone who is not an expert or a professional in some specific field under scrutiny(1). Say, an average blue-collar working stiff who is not an English major, yet possesses competency in college level English. A used car salesman who without formal learning has a set of skills that will serve him well in college level Organizational Behavior, Abnormal Psychology, and Drug and Alcohol Abuse.

I would say I have a layman's understanding of art. I have some knowledge of the subject, which served me well in the CLEP Humanities exam, but, with respect to the discipline, I am no less a layman for that.

I made the point in the previous post that today, we are of necessity, far more accomplished in terms of acquired skill sets than previous generations. The layman's understanding is greater than once it was. If requirements for conferral of a bachelor's degree remain constant over time, or increase more slowly than the increase in the level of understanding of the layman, it is inevitable that at some point the two will coalesce. Given that, I am surprised that you are surprised when a candidate passes some of these tests in short order. It seems to me that this level of individual performance will become unexceptional and indeed, unremarkable in this forum.

I think my previous posts in this thread make it abundantly clear that that in not my position. I have noted that my experience of forty proficiency exams leads me to believe that all pretty much do test the competencies they purport to test. The exams are not frauds. I have also made the point* that if the exams are not fraudulent then a candidate CANNOT pass them without the required knowledge.





(1)Layman:

Encarta
1. somebody without specialist knowledge: somebody who is not trained or expert in a particular area
e.g. . a law book for the layman

Merriam-Webster
2 : a person who does not belong to a particular profession or who is not expert in some field

The American Heritage® Dictionary
2. A man who is a nonprofessional: "His is just the layman's view of medicine"

UltraLingua English Dictionary
Someone who is not a clergyman or a professional person

WordNet 2.0 Vocabulary Helper Synonyms/Hypernyms
commoner, common man, common person -- (a person who holds no title)



(2)”Tautologically:

if you "passed" an exam, and that exam adequately measured the relevant competencies at the appropriate level, then, at the time the test was taken, you possessed the requisite knowledge in the discipline, necessary to pass the exam.

That is, you knew, even if did not know that you knew.”

 

A linguistic expression is said to be "vague" if there are cases in which it is impossible to tell if the expression applies or does not apply. "Vague" expressions often allow for a continuous range of interpretations. The meaning is hazy, obscure, and imprecise. For example, words such as "love," "peace," "excessive," and "much" are vague. How "much" of something is "much?"

The proof is in the pudding as they say. The easiest test to determine whether the expression was vague is to ask, "Did a dispute occur?" Clearly one has.

I did not take your second question to be literal. Who has "...no prior knowledge?" We can't even say a five year old child meets that requirement. I interpreted your second question in the light of the more realistic first question. Only through a miraculous statistical anomaly can an academic examination be passed without any prior knowledge.

I don't think anyone answered your "...no prior knowledge." I believe we answered your "...much prior knowledge." If you reread the posts, I think you will agree that even I answered your intended question. Your missing my point, see my response below.

You misunderstand. I don't really think you did. You see, no confusion had occurred by anyone responding to your intended question (I assume, of course, that you meant "much" and not "no."). The dispute occurred by someone analyzing your question and the title of the thread.

To this, I still contend that you did not clearly articulate your intended meaning. It was clear enough for most, but not for all. When some people are able to sufficiently answer your question, yet others take issue with your very question, then one of two things probably occurred. Either your question was vague or it was ambiguous. On a technical note, it could be argued that both apply here, but vagueness is the more obvious.

I apologize for the mockery. However, your attempted sarcasm (read mockery) was deserving of a response. To be sure, your last sentence rings true to my ears. How lacking I am.