If you know what this is, you might be ready to take the CLEP chemistry exam.
There are many ways to earn college credits that do not involve taking college courses. The CLEP program gives test-takers an opportunity to demonstrate their college-level knowledge at any point in their lives, regardless of whether they obtained that knowledge in a classroom, at home, or on the job. Doing well on the CLEP exam in chemistry gives you the chance to rack up college credits and to skip introductory chemistry courses at participating colleges.
What Is CLEP?
CLEP stands for College-Level Examination Program, which is administered by the College Board, the same company that administers the Scholastic Aptitude Tests (SAT) and Advanced Placement (AP) exams. The CLEP examinations are offered in 34 academic subjects.
Like the AP program, CLEP gives you a chance to earn college credit by doing well on a test. CLEP is more flexible than AP, though, in that you do not have to take any special CLEP-certified courses before sitting for the exam, and you can take the exams even after you start college.
According to the College Board, more than 2,900 American colleges and universities give credit for high scores on CLEP exams or allow you to skip introductory courses.
Overview of Chemistry CLEP Exam
The CLEP in chemistry includes questions on material generally covered in a one-year college-level chemistry class. It requires the abilities to recall facts and terminology, apply concepts, use math to solve problems, and interpret data.
The exam takes an hour and a half (not including the time it takes to report your personal information) and includes 75 questions.
Information Covered: Matter
Approximately 40 percent of the questions on the CLEP chemistry exam are on either the structure or the states of matter.
The structure of matter (20 percent) includes atomic theory and structure, chemical bonding and nuclear chemistry.
The states of matter (19 percent) includes solids, liquids, solutions, and gases.
Information Covered: Reactions, Equations, and Equilibrium
Between a quarter to a third of the CLEP chemistry exam covers the following areas:
Reaction Types (12 percent): formation and cleavage of covalent bonds, precipitation reactions, and oxidation-reduction reactions
Equations and Stoichiometry (10 percent): ionic and molecular species in chemical systems, net-ionic equations, mass and volume relations, and balancing equations.
Equilibrium (7 percent): dynamic equilibrium, LeChâtelier's principle, equilibrium constants for gaseous reactions, and equilibrium constants for reactions in solutions
Information Covered: Descriptive and Experimental Chemistry, Kinetics and Thermodynamics
About one-third of the questions on the CLEP chemistry test ask about the following topics:
Descriptive Chemistry (14 percent): chemical reactivity and products of chemical reactions, relationships in the periodic table, and organic chemistry
Experimental Chemistry (9 percent): laboratory tools, methods of observation, common calculations, and interpretation of data
Kinetics (4 percent): rate of reaction, order of reaction and rate constant, effect of temperature change on rates, energy of activation, role of catalysts, and relationship between the rate-determining step and a mechanism
Thermodynamics (5 percent): state functions, first law, second law, relationship of change in free energy to equilibrium constants, and electrode potentials.
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