Many students ask “which CLEP Exams Are Easiest?” There is no easy answer to this question because considering an exam as easy or easiest is subjective.
What’s easy for one student may be extremely difficult for another, it all depends on you and your background. What you think of as an easy subject may be a terrible challenge for another student.
In general, we can see that many students think of the ‘Analyzing & Interpreting Literature’ exam as the so-called easiest of the 34 CLEP exams.
This CLEP exam doesn’t require you to master specific texts or poems.
At this exam, you merely need to understand how you must analyze literature. Taking the ‘Analyzing & Interpreting Literature’ CLEP exam is actually a fantastic way to acquire three credits quickly!
The other CLEP Literature exams are generally seen as more complicated, though pretty well to take if you would put in a little extra study time.
Social Sciences and History & Humanities are also generally considered to be a bit on the easy side.
So it all depends on your earlier learning, your skills, and your interests, but what we CAN show you, though, is how many people were successful on which CLEP exam in the past.
DANTES (Defense Activity for Non-Traditional Education Support) publishes CLEP pass rates on a yearly basis, DANTES separates civilian and military pass rates.
Just take a look at which exam was passed most and least in 2017 (by percentage, not by numbers). The list doesn’t mean that if one exam shows a lower pass rate, you shouldn’t be taking it, or that it is more difficult (subjectivity, remember. The list only provides you with a rough idea of the amount of preparation you may have to put in before you may take the exam successfully.
So you’ll understand that asking which is the ‘easiest’, or the hardest’, is really a very subjective question. Many examinees have reported that they found the Humanities CLEP exam pretty easy, while others reported that they found exactly this exam one of the hardest.
Some reported they thought Accounting was pretty hard, while many said that Marketing wasn’t that hard at all for those who prepared for it by reading an introductory marketing text. For CLEP test centers, check out this post.
Also, the Western Civilization CLEP exams weren’t conceived as being extremely challenging, but once again, it’s all highly subjective. Many respondents said they thought one of the most difficult CLEP exams was actually Statistics, and Calculus was perceived as tough as well.
Here’s is an overview of the percentage of all examinees that passed a CLEP exam in 2018 (source: followmywhat.com):
- Spanish Language – 91%
- College Composition & College Composition Modular – 84%
- French Language – 84%
- Analyzing & Interpreting Literature – 81%
- Principles of Marketing – 75%
- Introductory Psychology – 75%
- German Language – 74%
- Introductory Sociology – 74%
- Human Growth & Development – 72%
- Information Systems – 70%
- Principles of Macroeconomics – 69%
- Western Civilization I – 68%
- College Mathematics – 67%
- Principles of Microeconomics – 67%
- Biology – 66%
- English Literature – 63%
- Introductory Educational Psychology – 60%
- History of the United States I – 60%
- Social Sciences & History – 59%
- Precalculus – 58%
- Humanities – 57%
- Calculus – 56%
- History of the United States II – 55%
- Western Civilization II – 53%
- Natural Sciences – 52%
- College Algebra – 47%
- American Literature – 46%
- Principles of Management – 46%
- Introductory Business Law – 45%
- Financial Accounting – 45%
- American Government – 44%
- Chemistry – 36%