CLEP Principles of Marketing

Today I’ll quickly share my experience taking my first CLEP, Principles of Marketing.

HOW TO DO IT

According to free-clep-prep.com, Principles of Marketing is one of the two easiest exams, so I decided to try it. Let’s start with what materials.

MATERIALS

Used college textbook.  If you’re interested, the textbook I used was called Basic Marketing. It’s a really long textbook, but it covered pretty much everything on the test.

REA book. They are basically cram guides with tests. The cram guide for Marketing was super lacking. I would say their exams are harder than the actual exam.

Official CLEP Study Guide. If you want to take CLEP exams, you need to buy this. Gives you an introduction to CLEP plus practice tests for all 33 exams.

Free-clep-prep.com. Pretty useful. Check out their ranking of the exams easiest to hardest.

Flashcards I hope I don’t have to explain these…

Quizlet.com Basically a free online flashcard tool.

STUDY ROUTINE

Since this was my first CLEP exam, I spent a way too long time studying.  So I started by taking the REA Diagnostic Test. I got a 70% which I believe is barely a pass. I thought that the REA book was sufficient for getting a good grade (mistake!). When I took the final two practice test, I got more C-’s or possibly even a D+. Finally I realized I needed to study the Basic Marketing textbook. I spent anywhere from 2-5 hours studying per day, and went crazy memorizing. The whole thing is about memorizing. Memorize, memorize, memorize, and memorize some more. I wrote all the terms on flashcards, transferred them to Quizlet, and studied that for two weeks. Then I retook the practice tests. I improved my REA grades to lower 90s. I took the official practice test, got a 95%, kept reviewing what I was weak at, and then took the test.

ACTUALLY TAKING THE TEST

So I brought a signed passport, a birth certificate, the CLEP registration ticket, the test center receipt, and two pencils. Overkill. All they needed was the passport and the registration ticket. The tests are administered on a computer. You can get a feel for it by watching this video from CLEP. The test was really a lot easier than I thought. It was 100 questions and they give you 90 minutes. I went through it thrice, not twice, then reviewed all the questions I was unsure of, and by then, I had 5 minutes left. I submitted the test and instantly was granted my score, which was 75. 80 is perfect, 50 is pass. My guess is that a CLEP 75 is pretty much a 95%. I overstudied, but I don’t regret it.