About the Tests
How the CLEP program works
The 34 CLEP exams are administered at college test centers and on military bases. Students must register directly with test centers to take the exams. Find out more about registering for the exams.
Although CLEP is sponsored by the College Board, only colleges may grant credit toward a degree. Colleges' CLEP policies differ; some colleges accept credit for only two or three of the exams while others accept credit for all of them. A college often grants the same amount of credit to students earning satisfactory scores on the CLEP examination as it grants to students successfully completing that course. Find out which colleges grant credit for CLEP exams and learn more about setting a CLEP policy.
How the exams are structured
CLEP examinations cover material taught in courses that most students take as requirements in the first two years of college. Many examinations are designed to correspond to one-semester courses, although some correspond to full-year or two-year courses. Faculty at individual colleges review the exams to ensure that they cover the material currently taught in their courses. See a list of the tests by subject.
Most questions are multiple choice. Other types of questions require students to fill in a numeric answer, to shade areas of an object, or to put items in the correct order. Questions using these types of skills are called zone, shade, grid, scale, fraction, numeric entry, histogram, and order match questions. Some of the exams also include optional essays. Language exams include a listening section. For examples of CLEP questions, download the free CLEP Sampler (.zip/9.36MB; PC only; you will need a compression utility such as WinZip).