WHAT’S ON IT
This exam covers western civilization from ancient Near East to 1648. It covers material that is usually taught in the first semester of a two-semester course in Western civilization. Questions deal with the civilizations of Ancient Greece, Rome, and the Near East; the Middle Ages; the Renaissance and Reformation; and early modern Europe.
NUMBER OF QUESTIONS
The exam has 120 multiple choice questions to be answered in 90 minutes.
NUMBER OF COLLEGE CREDITS
This exam can earn a student 3 college credits and 1 high school credit. See Locating College CLEP Lists and College CLEP Policy to help you learn about the CLEP exams your target college may accept.
PASSING SCORE
This exam is pass/fail. A passing score is 50. Read CLEP Exam Scoring.
WHAT’S ACTUALLY ON THIS EXAM
The following description is from the CLEP College Board website: You may be asked to choose the correct definition of a historical term, select the historical figure whose political viewpoint is described, identify the correct relationship between two historical factors, or detect the inaccurate pairing of an individual with a historical event. Groups of questions may require you to interpret, evaluate, or relate the contents of a passage, a map, or a picture to other information, or to analyze and utilize the data contained in a graph or table.
Personal thoughts after studying this subject. History, it seems, requires layers of learning. The first is memorization of facts. The second is placement of facts in order. The third is understanding the overarching relationship of one event to others sometimes many years apart.
DIFFICULTY RANKING
This exam typically gets rated as a high level 3 out of 5 difficulty with 5 being the most difficult on websites that rank CLEP exams. My two daughters passed this exam in the 11th grade with lower scores than other CLEP exams they took (51 and 53).
I cannot with certainty pinpoint why this exam was harder than the others for them. But I do have some hypotheses. For one, history is not a family favorite. Two, the material covers thousands of years and a continent or two. Three, maybe our resources were not a good match for this exam. Four, maybe this exam is actually harder than others which would explain the medium difficulty rating on websites.
See CLEP Difficulty Ranking based on our experiences as middle and high school test takers.
GRADE TAKEN
My daughters studied and took this exam in the 11th grade. See Which CLEP When: How We Tracked from Middle School to Graduation.
MAKING WESTERN CIVILIZATION A HIGH COURSE COURSE
You can create a one-year high school course using a college textbook. Divide the chapters over 32 – 36 weeks. Create a flashcard set of the important facts on Quizlet each week. If you have no time or interest in making flashcards, sets can be found on Quizlet (mine listed below). Boxed AP flashcards can be helpful too. Consult a CLEP study guide to help you determine which facts are important. Create weekly tests using the flashcard facts or facts from the textbook. Include some multiple-choice questions so your student can get more savvy with them. These tests can be a source of graded material. Reinforce learning using YouTube videos for main topics. For extra enrichment, assign a project that fits the interests of your child.
PLACING CREDIT ON THE HIGH SCHOOL TRANSCRIPT
After studying for and taking this exam, a student can confidently place one credit on the high school transcript. Based on the amount of time my daughters spent on this subject, I entered “Honors Western Civilization” on their high school transcripts.
Read CLEP on the High School Transcript for ideas on how to record these credits. For ideas on how to determine a letter grade for the material studied read Determining Grades for CLEP Coursework. For help on how to determine a credit read Transcripts: How to Determine Course Credits.
STUDY PLAN WE USED
We approached Western Civilization with a one school-year plan. See CLEP Prep: Different Study Plans and Sample CLEP Year.
RESOURCES WE USED
My older daughter took the online Ron Paul Western Civilization I course along with his CLEP crash course. Read review below.
My second daughter started with the free online course through Modern States but switched to a college textbook after a month. Read Modern States review below. I used a thrift store book entitled Western Civilization 4th edition by Jackson J. Spielvogel and divided Chapters 1 – 16 over the school year. The 4th edition was published in 2000. I figured the older date was fine because it was history, after all.
Quizlet flashcards were made from this textbook and from the REA CLEP Study Guide. This set of Quizlet cards has proven to be one of my post popular sets of cards. Colleges are using them.
Practice tests came from the REA guide and the CLEP Official Study Guide.
Instantcert online review questions were used during the final review weeks. A helpful addition was John Green’s Crash Course YouTube videos. Below is a summary of the most helpful resources we used.
- Western Civilization I college textbook (We used the 4th edition of Jackson J. Spielvogel Chapters 1 – 16)
- REA CLEP Study Guide for Western Civilization I (provides flashcard facts, review, and practice tests)
- CLEP Official Study Guide (found at public libraries) (provides 1 practice test only)
- Instantcert online review (provides 100’s of questions for review)
- John Green Crash Course YouTube videos (provides entertaining summaries)
- Quizlet (access my 2188 flashcards on this subject via creator DocPaula)
Ron Paul Online Western Civilization I course and CLEP crash course review
Ron Paul’s online courses are expensive, but we were excited to use his program, nevertheless. I especially like the way Ron Paul promotes CLEP tests and early college credits. He’s an out-of-the-box thinker in regard to education and I admire that. My daughter handled all the studying herself, so I cannot comment on how she actually prepared for the CLEP exam. But she passed with a 51 so Ron Paul did not have to reimburse us for a failed exam. Ron Paul, my daughter, and I were happy. My daughter enjoyed his courses overall.
MODERN STATES ONLINE
Modern States offers free online courses with the pitch that students can pass a CLEP exam after their six-week courses. I was skeptical about completing an entire course in 6 weeks for an 11th grader with no previous western civilization instruction. Modern States makes it seem easy to pass a CLEP exam, but they are probably marketing to college students who have had prior western civilization coursework.
My plan was to stretch this course over one schoolyear. The free “textbook” was a bonus and I liked how it was written. After a month trial, however, we switched to a college textbook. I felt the video lectures were too shallow for an 11th grader with no previous western civilization instruction. The lectures seem better for a student who is using this course to review Western Civilization facts previously learned.
In addition, I found the online textbook difficult to use for making flashcards as well as to assign start and stop points for my daughter. Call me old school.
When it comes to choosing study resources, choose wisely. Using the wrong resource can consume valuable time and undermine your plans.
FINAL PREPARATION
To help organize all the historical happenings, my daughter made timelines of events. She reviewed the Quizlet flashcards until they were memorized. Then she reviewed the Instantcert questions and took four practice tests. Her scores on these tests loomed around 60% which is my cutoff for readiness. I always prefer scores closer to the mid-60’s, but we were jaded and wanted it over. So, we pulled the trigger and signed up for the exam.
See my posts on Determining CLEP Exam Readiness and CLEP Prep Boot Camp: The Final Weeks.
EXAM RESULTS
My older daughter passed this exam with a 51 using the Ron Paul curriculum. My second daughter passed this exam with a 53 using the college textbook.
USING THESE CREDITS AT COLLEGE
History CLEP credits seem to be accepted by most colleges. My older daughter was able to use these 3 credits at her college with a contingency. She had to first take a history course outside of US and Western Civilization to “unlock” this credit. That is a new twist for me in regard to how a college handles CLEP credits. Our big local state college accepts these credits without this contingency.
If your target school does not accept this CLEP and it is a state school, there is a loophole to getting more CLEP credits accepted. If your state has an articulation agreement like North Carolina does, earning an associate degree at a community college allows CLEP credits normally not accepted by a four-year state college to transfer. Read CLEP Credits and NC’s Articulation Agreement.
WHAT THIS EXAM PAIRS WELL WITH
Western Civilization can help prepare a student for the Humanities CLEP exam as long as there is emphasis on the arts and literature.
THOUGHTS ON THIS EXPERIENCE
My daughter and I spent many wonderful hours together reading and hashing out facts. The facts that we learned provide us opportunities for current discussion. Because history seems to repeat itself, we enjoy linking past events with current events. It was a lot of work, but both of our lives have been enriched by it. I am thankful that I had the opportunity to learn this with my daughter.
My experience with CLEP testing. I have coached my kids and their friends through 16 different CLEP exams over a period of 9 years. Collectively, they have passed 39 CLEP exams and earned over 159 college credits. I’m still coaching my younger son through his CLEP journey. My high school graduates have received full-ride merit scholarships.
Musing: a period of reflection or thought. As such this post reflects my thoughts, opinions, and experiences on the topic. The choice to home school and the methods you choose are yours to determine.