Natural Science CLEP

Discussion in 'CLEP, DANTES, and Other Exams for Credit' started by MISin08, Sep 8, 2009.

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  1. MISin08

    MISin08 New Member

    I scored a really nice 72 on this exam today. I used REA, the new one by Laurie and Dave Calihan -- and Peterson practice tests, supplemented by cliffs.com. I highly highly recommend this REA. I studied for about two weeks.

    Here & there I looked things up on the Web (say, if I wanted a picture I could paste into my notes, or if I felt I wanted more detail). REA covers "a year" of science education in about 130 pages, so it assumes you know or can look up a few things. It's dense, no fluff. Some topics in the REA review material are not covered very deeply. Rocks, for example, and how layers of rocks form and stuff like coal formation and glaciers -- but it was only 2-3 questions at CLEP time. Astronomy coverage in REA wasn't very deep, but it turned out not to be a big part of the CLEP, either. I think the REA authors are counting on Bio, Chem and Physics fundamentals to get you through, and whatever else you know, so much the better. These authors have experience getting teens through the Natural Science CLEP, so I tried to have faith in the approach -- but I went ahead and filled in some of the gaps from cliffs.com and other sites. Note: I got this score with only OK knowledge of chemical equations, Punnett squares and physics equations. I know more about Mendel's personal life than about his theories. A lot of my score can be attributed to a lifetime of nerdy reading.

    My background: In my teens I had a serious pocket-protector thing going on, with shelves of science books and so there was nothing in REA (or on the CLEP) I had not heard of before. For this level of review REA is fantastic. If you come to this CLEP knowing nothing about science, the book is good and should still get you through. You may want take a little longer than I, and borrow a couple of Idiot's Guides from the library, watch some videos, or something similar to build up your background knowledge. Over a year ago when I first started doing CLEP I thought I would start with Natural Science. I had this huge stack of textbooks and website links -- I had a plan. After 3 weeks of study I scored a 43 on the first Peterson. I had not touched Chem or Physics at that point, but the mass of material was just overwhelming already. So I set Natural Science aside and took 12 other exams, which helped me get my study methods on track. This Summer I got the REA and was determined to keep the number of resources down to a minimum. I scored a 50 (raw) on the first REA practice exam, 62 on the first Peterson, 66 on the second REA, 68 on the second Peterson. Yesterday I scored 78 on the CLEP practice test.

    Phillip
     

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