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TEST DESCRIPTIONS |
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The following six exams are the ones most frequently taken by UNI students.
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For descriptions of other exams and more complete descriptions of these
exams see the current
CLEP Official Study Guide, published by The College Board, or visit
www.collegeboard.com/student/testing/clep/exams.html |
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All tests consist of a 90-minute question format. Any time candidates spend on tutorials or providing
personal information is in addition to the actual testing time. |
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COLLEGE COMPOSITION |
The examination measures students' writing skills both at the sentence level and within the context of
passages. Two versions of the exam are offered. One version contains approximately 90 multiple-choice questions.
The other version has a 45-minute multiple-choice section with approximately 50
questions and another section with one essay question to be responded to in 45 minutes. The essay is
graded by college faculty who teach writing courses. |
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Approximately 55 percent of the all-multiple-choice version and 30 percent of the multiple-choice
question in the version with essay include usage relating to sentence boundaries; economy and clarity of
expression; concord/agreement; active/passive voice; diction and idiom; syntax; and sentence variation.
Approximately 45 percent of the all-multiple-choice version and 20 percent of the version with essay
measures recognition of the following in the context of works in progress or of published prose; main
idea; thesis; organization of ideas; relevance; detail and specificity; audience and purpose; logic of
argument; coherence within and between paragraphs; rhetorical emphasis; sustaining tense or point of
view; and sentence combining/variety. |
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| College Composition contains multiple-choice items and two mandatory, centrally scored essays. College English faculty from throughout the country convene twice a month to score the essays via an online scoring system. Each of the two essays is scored independently by two different readers, and the scores are then combined. This combined score is weighted approximately equally with the score from the multiple-choice section. These scores are then combined to yield the candidate's score. The resulting combined score is reported as a single scaled score between 20 and 80. Separate scores are not reported for the multiple-choice and essay sections. College Composition contains approximately 50 multiple-choice items to be answered in 50 minutes and two essays to be written in 70 minutes, for a total of 120 minutes testing time. |
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HUMANITIES |
This exam covers literature (50%) [drama, poetry, fiction, non-fiction (including philosophy)] AND
Fine Arts (50%) [visual arts, music, performing arts, and architecture]. The exam questions are fairly
evenly divided among the following periods: Classical, Medieval and Renaissance, seventeenth and
eighteenth centuries, nineteenth century, and twentieth century. There are questions that draw on other
cultures, such as African and Asian. Some questions cross disciplines and/or chronological periods.
Some test knowledge of terminology, genre, and style. |
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NATURAL SCIENCES |
Topics include Biological Science (50%): origin and evolution of life, classification of organisms; cell
organization and division, genes, bioenergetics, biosynthesis; structure, function and development in
organisms, patterns of heredity; concepts of population biology/ecology. Physical Science (50%):
atomic/nuclear structure/properties, elementary particles, nuclear reactions; chemical elements,
compounds and reactions, molecular structure/bonding; heat, thermodynamics, states of matter, classical
mechanics, relativity; electricity/magnetism, waves, light, sound; the universe; earth science. |
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SPANISH LANGUAGE |
This examination consists of two listening sections and one reading section. Subject matter is drawn
from the following abilities: 60% reading (discrete sentences, short cloze passages and reading
comprehension); 25% listening comprehension through long spoken selections; 15% listening
comprehension through short oral exchanges. |
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