Are you prepared for the CLEP exams? Try these sample CLEP test questions for the College Mathematics, Humanities, English Composition, Natural Sciences, and Social Sciences and History exams to gauge your progress. Answers are provided at the end of all the questions.
College Mathematics
1. If n is an odd integer, which of the following must be odd?
(A) n + 1
(B) (n + 1)2
(C) n2
(D) n2 + 1
Humanities
1. Crazy Jane is the heroine of a series of poems by the author of ”Sailing to Byzantium,” who is:
(A) T.S. Eliot.
(B) Alfred Tennyson.
(C) Dylan Thomas.
(D) William Butler Yeats.
(E) W.H. Auden.
2. The film Roshomon, starring Toshiro Mifune, was directed by:
(A) Peter Bogdanovich.
(B) Isamu Noguchi.
(C) Akira Kurosawa.
(D) Red Buttons.
(E) S.I. Hayakawa.
English Composition
Identifying Sentence Errors
Identify the error in the following sentence. If there is no error, select choice (E).
1. In this type (A) of problem (B) the total of all the items (C) are (D) always a positive number. No error (E).
(A) In this type
(B) problem
(C) items
(D) are
(E) No error
Improving Sentences
In the following sentence, part of the sentence or the entire sentence is underlined. Beneath, you will find five versions of the underlined part of the sentence. Choice (A) repeats the original; the other four are different. Choose the answer that best expresses the meaning of the original sentence. If you think the original is better than any of the alternatives, select choice (A); otherwise, choose one of the others.
1. The reason the company failed was because the president spent too much money.
(A) The reason the company failed was because
(B) The company failed because
(C) Because the company failed
(D) Because the reason was the company failed
(E) The company failed was because
Revising Work in Progress
This is an early draft of a student essay in which the sentences have been numbered for easy reference. Some parts of the selection need to be changed. Read the selection and try to answer the questions.
(1) When I think about my childhood in Mexico, the most vivid memory was our visit to my paternal grandmother’s home in the state of Michoac. (2) She was a tiny dark woman with long gray-black braids. (3) She lived in a tiny dirt-floored shack off the center square of a small village. (4) Our mother came from a wealthy family in the capital. (5) My father, a self-made man, never spoke of his roots. (6) He had never introduced us to his family. (7) When I was five, his father died. (8) Usually on the Day of the Dead holiday, we went to the cemetery and laid flowers on the graves. (9) That fall, my father informed us that we would be going that holiday to his mother’s house. (10) My father seemed almost embarrassed to take us there.
1. Which of the following is the best way to revise and combine sentences 4 and 5?
(A) My father, a self-made man, never spoke of his roots to my mother’s wealthy family in the capital.
(B) My mother came from a wealthy family in the capital, while my father, a self-made man, never spoke of his roots.
(C) My father, a self-made man, never came from a wealthy family like my mother, so he never talked about his past.
(D) Our mother came from a wealthy family in the capital, and my father, as a self-made man, never spoke of his roots.
(E) My mother was very different from my father because she came from a wealthy family in the capital, and my father was a self-made man who never talked about his family.
Natural Sciences
1. When DDT or PCB are introduced into the base of a food pyramid, they will:
(A) decompose rapidly.
(B) become incorporated into nucleic acids.
(C) show a biomagnification up the pyramid.
(D) dilute themselves out as they move up the pyramid.
(E) become less toxic substances.
2. When small particles are added to a liquid they can often be seen to be undergoing very rapid motion on the surface of the liquid. The explanation for this motion is best described by which of the following?
(A) The electrical interactions between the liquid and the suspended particles
(B) The molecular vibrations of the liquid causing collisions with the suspended particles
(C) The low density of the particles causing them to try to rise above the surface of the liquid
(D) Air currents above the liquid moving the particles
(E) The heat rising, causing the particles to move
Social Sciences and History
1. Before ratifying the Articles of Confederation, Maryland demanded which of the following?
(A) That individual states maintain funds derived from taxes they levy
(B) That individual states have the right to issue their own currency
(C) That all states cede to the Union all claims to western lands
(D) That the right of Congress to levy taxes be restricted
(E) That Congress assume both legislative and executive functions
2. Which of the following is true about a Mercator projection map?
(A) East-west dimensions of geographic areas are accurate.
(B) North-south dimensions of geographic areas are accurate.
(C) Mathematical locations are accurate.
(D) Mathematical locations are inaccurate.
(E) Lines of longitude converge at the poles.
CLEP Answers
College Mathematics
1. The correct answer is (C).
Try using a numerical value; let n = 3
n + 1 = 4
(n + 1)2 = 16
n2 = 9
n2 + 1 = 10
Choice (C) is the only one that results in an odd number.
Humanities
1. The correct answer is (D). William Butler Yeats was the Irish poet and playwright who co-founded the Irish National Theatre Society, which became Dublin’s famous Abbey Theatre. He is known for the poems ”Leda and the Swan,” ”The Second Coming,” ”The Lake Isle of Innisfree,” and many other works, and was awarded the Nobel Prize in literature in 1923.
2. The correct answer is (C). Kurosawa directed Roshomon in 1950. An examination of the nature of truth, the work awakened Western interest in Japanese cinema.
English Composition
Identifying Sentence Errors
1. The correct answer is (D). The verb in a sentence, clause, or phrase must agree with its’ subject in number. In this sentence, the subject of the sentence is total, which is singular. This means that the verb must be singular as well. The verb in this sentence must be changed to ”is.”
Improving Sentences
1. The correct answer is (B). The other choices are wordy or create illogical sentences. “Was because” is an error because it is a mixed construction that attempts to use an adverb clause (”because the president … money”) as a predicate nominative, which renames the subject.
Revising Work in Progress
1. The correct answer is (B). Choice (B) combines all the information together in the correct grammatical format. Choice (A) is incorrect because it adds extra information that was not present in the original two sentences (the father speaking to the mother’s family). Choice (C) is false because it deletes the information about the father speaking of his roots. Choice (D) is wrong since these two sentences are intended by the writer to juxtapose two separate lifestyles. The use of “and” is incorrect stylistically because it indicates the joining of equal ideas. Choice (E) is wrong because it is too wordy.
Natural Sciences
1. The correct answer is (C). DDT and PCB are lipid-soluble compounds and are therefore found in lipid tissues. As their half-lives are quite long, DDT = 10 years, there is a magnification of these compounds in food chains; e.g., DDT has been found in high concentrations in the fatty tissues of Antarctic penguins.
2. The correct answer is (B). This question can be answered when one pictures the actions of molecules on a molecular level. They are continually vibrating and colliding. The addition of very fine particles will cause collisions between these particles and the molecules of the liquid, resulting in the movement of the particles. This behavior is called Brownian motion.
Social Sciences and History
1. The correct answer is (C). Maryland refused to ratify the Articles of Confederation until all states agreed to cede to the Union their claims to all lands in the western territories.
2. The correct answer is (C). Lines of latitude and longitude are parallel on a Mercator projection map; thus, mathematical locations are accurate, but dimensions of areas are distorted.
