Hi, I took the US History II clep today. This was the hardest of all the cleps I have taken so far. Only scored 57 so I'm a little disappointed. I was trying to keep my scores in the 60's. Anybody else think this clep was challenging? I'm up to 21 credits by clep testing so far. It's taken under three months and about two weeks review time for each subject. ML
I'm curious about what you used for studying. The US History II exam is one of the next ones that I'm taking. I'm a little concerned now about the difficulty of this exam. Darren
Hi, I used the following books to prepare for the history clep exams. REA's US History Builder REA's History of the US I Painless American History I found all these books at Barnes and Nobles. Another source of information you could tap into are the many companion websites for college texts. Just do a search for" US history companion websites" and you will have a wide variety to choose from. Also, check out the Dummies series or the Idiot's series, they may sound silly but they are full of information that's easy to read and understand. I didn't mean to imply that the test was overly hard. Know Johnson and the new Deal. FDR too. I think that there was more focus on LBJ than any other president. Know the Spanish American War and the impact it had. Be familiar with immigration patterns. Know what happened to the Indians. Know War Powers Act. Know about the rise of Industry and how railroads were financed. Know about labor relations. This particular clep just seemed harder. I can't explain it. There just always seemed to be more than one right answer for the questions. The Painless American History book is great for a quick overview and it has good internet suggestions. Barron's is the publisher. I am now working on American Government and using Cliff's US Goverment and Politics. Wish me luck. ML
Oother sources... I am no gauge of difficulty with the CLEP II (US History) here since I have studied too much advanced American history to know. But two years ago I used "The Unfinished Nation: A Concise History of the American People" by Alan Brinkley. Around 900 pages in its third edition now, I used the second ed that also had it in two volumes, and therefore used only the second volume. (This is the Brief version of the multi-author "American History," in two column per page 11.5 X 8 inch format.) The format is quartile, and with the maps and illustrations, reading went quite speedily. (Only the risible chapter on the American West, which swallows the New Western history whole hog, is not recommended.) I got a 70-something. The Unfinished Nation also has a study guide available. But many "brief" edtions of current textbooks are available. Only know that the oldest one by Arthur Schlesinger, Jr., is different in being most traditional, i.e., more politics and foreign policy, and less "social history" than the rest of what's available; I have no idea how this might, or might not affect your CLEP score--I'd guess very little since CLEP tests do not much follow recent fads (in this case, of the last two plus decades)! And besides, CLEPS tend to be comprehensive in coverage, not trendy. Another brief survey, acclaimed for being the most balanced, least biased, and available in a variety of attractive formats (one-volume at 800+ pages, or else two volumes for part I and II), is "America: A Narrative History" by David Emory Shi, George B. Tindall. The AP student reports on Amazon.com are effusive with praise, and several professor friends use it in their classes. It's in its fifth edition. (It's informally called "Tindall" after its senoir author.) Yet another is the one by Mary Beth Norton, et. al.--I've not read this since, perhaps, 1989. But undoubtably the greatest US history textbook is by Bernard Bailyn of Harvard (and Robert Dallek, Gordon Wood. David Brion Davis), is "The Great Republic." I used it for CLEP I in US history many years ago--also availble with a detailed study guide. (Also scoring in the 99th percentile.) Why the multiple authorship? Each does the text corresponding to his specialty, e.g., Bailyn does American Revolution--a practice all the full-length textbooks reveal. The brief editions are abridgements of the full-lenth treatments, typically for profs that want to assign other books along with the survey text.) How to study? As a series of topics, periods, and themes. The AP US History preps available by many publishers can help you make these cuts of periodization and subject matter. And if you are only looking to get a passing grade, I'm sure these alone are all you need; the sample exams they provide ought to give you a decent gauge of your level of learning. Use the customer reviews at Amazon.com for judicious help in deciding which sample exam is fairest and most representative of a standardized exam (AP or CLEP--it's still ETS). Good luck to all--and perhaps someone will report experience using the AP preps for this CLEP exam...? --Orson PS To mll: you are tooling along quite swiftly through CLEPS. I did indeed take more time to prep for the above than you for just these--perhaps six weeks each. So--be proud and don't look back, unless you want to take it again and do better.
