I found REA's History of the US till 1877 to contain a succinct 146 page review of American history. This is not all you need to know about American history, but it is certainly a nice and well written review to remind you of what you already know, plus give you some new facts and information.

At some points, this book presents almost an outline format with headings of important events such as supreme court cases or treaties followed by a one or two line description. More important topics like the compromise of 1850 take one or two pages.

The REA book also contains several tests with explanations for each question. Eminently useful.

A similarly useful review guide by EZ 101 with a more overt outline structure could do the job for those looking exclusively for a quick review. It is the equivalent to class notes one would have taken during the course. To be fair, this guide is probably a step up from class notes, unless you are an extremely organized person.

If you are looking for more of a college textbook, you can try the Enduring Vision volume I published by Houghton Mifflin. This is a traditional textbook covering early American history. Here you have a collection of web materials associated with the textbook and the course. These links also provide a nice, leisurely approach to review if you have plenty of time and genuine interest in the subject. Although some of their links need updating.

Additional resources for Western Civilization

This site has a collection of primary sources for Western Civ. It also has a quiz and a crossword puzzle utility.

Another wonderful collection of primary documents, maps, photos and other study aids can be found at the Western Civilization Resource Center. This resource includes a timeline and brief descriptions of key figures and events.

Finally, here is a list of books dealing the topic of Western Civ. from my website.

Review of REA's CLEP Western Civ. II

This is a review of Dr. Preston Jones' Western Civilization II REA CLEP.


I found this volume to be a superb, succinct and clear study guide. This book provides a 'targeted' review, by which they mean that they cover the main facts one needs to know to do well on the CLEP test, but certainly a semester course on Western Civ. would provide the student with a wider and richer experience.

So much of Western Civ. can be learned through the eyes: from the Palace at Versailles to the Treaty of Maastricht. The web is a wonderful resource, and there are some expensive but beautiful Western Civ. books. Hopefully, I will review some of them shortly. Thus, if you want to know the topics covered in Western Civ. II and have six months, I encourage you to go beyond this or any other study guide.

Yet, even if you know Western Civ. pretty well you can benefit from a serious period of concentrated study in the month prior to the test. It is at this point that this guide can prove invaluable to you.

It not only covers the main facts of Western Civ. from the reign of Louis XIV onward, but Dr. Jones manages to convey the main currents of western intellectual thought. It is a difficult balance to provide information about the intellectual dialogue which occurs as events take their position in history, while managing to provide enough detail about the what, who, when, how and why of the actual events in just a few pages.

In the long run, I hope you are not just taking this test to get needed credits; but to receive credit for having a mature understanding of how Western Civ. shaped the world we live in. For that latter purpose, it is just as important to know how events are connected from an intellectual standpoint, as it is to remember that the Berlin Conference divided Africa among the European powers.

I wish that Western Civ. were systematically covered in high school. So many undergraduate students arrive at college with little knowledge of how the intellectual currents so popular today cannot be understood outside of their proper historical context.

If you are considering taking this CLEP test but are undecided, I encourage you to take this test because its content is likely to benefit your academic career and may enrich your life well beyond the college years. Other CLEP topics are important -- from marketing to chemistry-- but Western Civ. is the sort of knowledge that can help you make sense of the world you live in. Of course, learning Western Civ. II will take some serious work -- this guide can be useful, but it is not a walk in the park.

If you are a homeschooled high school student, you may benefit from this text as well; although you should supplement by a more traditional text or by ample use of the web.

The REA book instructs the student to pay attention to all terms in bold, but I find that there are too many to keep track. The serious student would have to either know most of them already, or list these historical terms on a separate notebook and then study from it.

As a suggestion, REA may want to create study cards with these terms and their definitions or descriptions. Or you can create your own cards. If you have a study partner, you can then play a game of twenty questions with the Brezhnev Doctrine and Novum Organum (both of which you should know!).

This book comes in two formats: a) with Testware that includes two automatically scoring tests and b) without. I will review the Testware later.

The book also has two full tests with complete answers.

I give it an A.

Review of CLEP Kaplan Guide 2nd Edition

This is a review of the 2nd edition.
Here is what I liked about this volume:

• Great overview of the CLEP testing program
• Good information about the CLEP computer interface. Although it would have been better to get hands on experience directly (more on this on a later post)
• Clear, concise answers on the practice test questions
• It is an inexpensive book
• Great vocabulary list at the end of the book, including a very nice section on word roots (in my opinion, that alone was worth the price of the book)
• I also liked their "Math in a Nutshell" section

On the other hand, I found the subject reviews weak. To be fair, how can one adequately describe Humanities or Social Sciences or Natural Sciences, let alone all five subjects, in just a few pages? I do not think this book can be used as the only book for test prep, unless you have considerable background. As a review, it does an okay job.

What really works well is working through the practice tests (2 per subject) and reading the answers whether you get the questions right or wrong.

The information on how to write good essays was marginally useful in my experience. By the way and in case you have not heard, poor writing is the number one complaint among college professors: students do not know how to write! Any book that improves writing is a winner in my list.

Unfortunately, given the scope of the book, there was not much actual writing practice.

Given the scope of the task and the price of the book - I think the book is an A-.

REA will publish American Gov. Test Prep Soon...

I e-mailed the nice folks at REA. Good news: In the first quarter of 2008 they will publish a CLEP American Government test prep volume (with and without their software).

I look forward to checking it out!

Find your closest CLEP test center

The fastest way to find the closest CLEP test center to your location is to go here.

Any good resources for CLEP American Government?

I first looked into American Government. This must not be a very popular test. I did not find any good quality guides specific to the CLEP.
If you look at Amazon, the highest rated study guide is Cliff Notes!


Hey, Cliff Notes is great and it is certainly cheap. Compare with the textbooks we use in freshman classes for hundreds of dollars. But, really, why don't we have a test prep for American Government?

Am I missing something? Who knows of any other good prep. sources for American government?