I asked the folks at Excelsior College if a counseling course at the College of the Canyons in Santa Clarita, CA would satisfy their Information Literacy requirement. Their reply was:

"I reviewed the courses from College of the Canyons and added them to the Course approval screen. As you will see COUNS 070 does not meet Information Literacy, it would be a developmental course and would not be acceptable for credit. LMTECH 100 Introduction to Research will meet the requirement."

Aha! I didn't expect them to delve into the schedule for me, but am very grateful. LMTECH 100 is a one unit online course which would cost $20 for CA residents. It still may be cheaper than the Excelsior course even with the out-of-state tuition. I haven't done it yet but I'm passing along the info so people can use it. If the CA course isn't your best option, you may try looking at the description of the Introduction to Research course at the College of the Canyons website and then attempt to match it to a community college in your area. The course starts in a few months so if there's still room there should still be time to enroll. It's a bit of a hassle to apply and enroll for one unit, but it may save some significant $$$$.

*Follow-up Jan 2008: FYI, I did complete this course and it was not very difficult. At the time, two classroom appearances were required but the teacher stated that his intent was to offer it completely on-line--so it's worth checking out if money is an issue. I copied the pages I needed from the small textbook that was used so there was no significant book expense and most assignments were short and on-line. The most work required was a two page paper with proper bibliography. It takes one month to complete--so the Excelsior course can be completed much faster--but this one is only twenty bucks. So, if you have twenty dollars and time to do a few assignments over the course of a month, you may want to check this out.

I understand CLEP tests are scored between 20 and 80. Does anyone know how that correlates to scores out of 100? Is there a chart somewhere? Any information regarding CLEP (or DSST) scores' relationship to your score out of 100 would be greatly appreciated. I'm assuming that you can get about 35 out of 100 questions wrong to score a 50 on a CLEP, but it would be helpful to have more info before taking my CLEPs on Monday. Thanks!

Hi,

I thought I would introduce myself. My name is Brenda and I am currently a full-time Licensed Practical Nurse in a small town in northern Wisconsin. I am working on getting my Bachelor's of Science in nursing through Indiana State University. So far I have taken the following Excelsior Exams:

Anatomy and Physiology 6 credits
Microbiology 3 credits
Pathophysiology 3 credits (upper level)
English Composition 6 credits

Excelsior's english comp with essay is a nightmare. It is a computerized timed test. You have 3 hours to write 3 papers. I have spoken to the college regarding this test. If anyone plans on taking this,let me know and I will talk to you about this one. ISU would only accept Excelsior's class for Eng. Comp.

I will take my first CLEP on Thursday. After taking the above Excelsior tests I feel well prepared to take a CLEP exam. Instacert is great. I plan on using CLEP, DSST's and Excelsior exams for my entire first 2 years of school and then some. Intro to Sociology will be my first exam and I feel well prepared. I also used an Intro to Sociology textbook that my 20 year old college son had. It was a $25 textbook from Best Value textbook compnay and had great info in it. Easy reading.

I feel blessed to have stumbled upon Instacert!

Good Luck to all,
Brenda

I just wanted to introduce myself. My name is Michael and I'm 41. I'm an Office Administrator in a downtown LA law firm and a life-long musician. I started college right after high school and had two mostly unsuccessful semesters at two different community colleges in upstate NY before moving to Los Angeles. I graduated with honors from Musicians Institute in Hollywood which is not worth anything towards a traditional degree. I have about 29 credits from that effort, and, fortunately, took care of my Math and English requirements back then.

I'm going to take the CLEP Info Systems and Computer Apps and DSST Intro to Computers on Monday. I should be studying now but I received so much useful info from this forum that I thought I'd jump in so people could see what I was doing and chime in with any advice that might be helpful. To prepare for these tests, I've:

• Taken the CLEP practice test

• Studied the Long & Long Computers textbook

• Taken the three Peterson practice tests

• Studied InstantCert (of course!)

Hey all:

Starting to study MIS as we speak, and although I know I need to be be thorough, this one doesn't sound too difficult. Hoping to study it today, and a couple of hours Monday, then study FofE Monday and Tuesday morning, then take 'em both Tuesday afternoon to finish this thing!!!

Foundations of Education is next, and there haven't been many threads on this one, so I thought I'd ask about it. I've had several Psychologies, so I'm familiar with Freud, Skinner, Erikson, and probably a lot of the terminology, but if anybody has taken this exam lately, any pointers would be appreciated.

Thanks,
David

Does anyone know if there are offical pracrice exams for this? I checked the web-site and couldn't find anything. Thanks.

Wheeewww.... What an enormous sigh of relief! I managed to squeak by in D & A Abuse, with a 53 - I needed a 49 to pass...

I have to mark that one down as a hard DSST! I mean, I've got drug names, neurotransmitters, brand names, classifications, symptoms from small doses and large doses, withdrawal symptoms, what the difference is in beer, brandy, spirits, whiskey and champagne, and such just rolling around in my head rather chaotically now!!! Whew I'm glad it's over - I'd say you need a little something more than just IC to pass this one with more ease than I did - if nothing else you just need another format to view all the drugs etc in. Snazzlefrag has posted some great links in past threads about this beast, so definetly check them out, they were a big help to me. Don't take this exam lightly, but don't be afraid of it either - I did pass the thing with only about 18-20 hours of study over two and half days...

Intro to Computing was some better, but still bit me pretty good because I think I was taking it for granted, somewhat. I studied the Info Sys & Comp. Apps IC cards for the ISCA exam, and passed it three days ago. So, I thought with the computer knowledge I already have, and that bit of studing I would ace Intro, but alas I only made a 55, and needed a 45. Certainly a fine enough score, the exam just surprised me a bit - there was a lot on there about programming, logic and other computations that I just had no clue about. But then again, I only read the ISCA IC cards once, taking light notes, so IC may have been plenty of a study guide, I'm just taking these exams as fast as I can possibly cram them down my own throat:

I started with 48 traditional hours this past August, and to date, right at 6 months later, I now own 66 more semester hours, all through testing, for a grand total of 114 SH's - two exams shy of a BA in Liberal Studies!!!!!!!!! And to show you how fast you can go if you really can grind it out, and just spend days and weeks in a row on this stuff: I took 6 exams between August and Christmas while I was working a part time job, etc. - just 18 semester hours. But since the week after Christmas to date I've been off work, and I've taken 12 exams - for a big total of 42 SH's in 6 weeks!!! That's 7 SH's a week, better than two college classes every 7 days! I don't put that out there to boast folks, just to prove that if an ole country boy like me, who spent the last two years out of college milking a cow and cutting hay can do this, anybody can!

Anyway, IC remains the most fantastic study guide ever, just don't take D & A Abuse for granted, or Intro to Computers either for that matter.

Good luck folks, I'm seeing the light coming in fast at the end of that tunnel, and you'll get there soon too, just hang in there.

David

I am studying for ECE World Conflicts and finding it pretty difficult.There are too many minute details and too many situations that need to be known.
If anyone has taken this exam,please give me some tips.
I know that there is an excellent thread by urbannaja about this exam and i am using the advice posted there but i was wondering if anyone took this exam after that..that is in the last few months.
Thanks a lot,
Adoncia

I finally finished my last test! I've been procrastinating since July lol I passed English Comp CLEP (no essay) with a 63 after no study. Really can't add much to the already very helpful posts on the test, I'll just say that it was fairly tricky and I wanted to argue about a good 10-15 answers (multiple choices should have been correct)..and time was very important...they only gave 90 mins for 88 questions, none of which were true multiple choice (all were reading comprehension-type).

Anyways, good luck everyone, IC is awesome =)

I tried to go to the site and it looks like it is no longer funded. You have to pay for the practice tests now. Say it isn't so????????