CLEP® Spanish Language: Levels 1 and 2 (Book + Online) (CLEP Test Preparation) (English and Spanish Edition)

I bought this book to prepare for my Spanish CLEP exam. You took the first practice exam without studying just how they suggest to gauge where I needed to improve. And of course I failed, but not by much. After studying for a couple of hours a day and doing the drills (questions) that are provided in the book, I took the second practice exam a couple of days before my actual exam and I scored pretty well. Let me just say that I crushed the CLEP exam! The practice tests that this book provided are a bit tougher then the actual exam. Which is a good thing because passing is passing, but acing the test gives you more college credits. I wouldn’t hesitate to recommend this book to anyone thinking on taking the test. Even if it’s just for the practice exams. They are worth it.

I read a lot of reviews about the code not working, well mine did......If you are looking to pass the 1st tier with a score of 50 on the Spanish CLEP, get this book as opposed to the official CLEP guide if only because it comes with 2 practice tests. If you are looking to get a 63 or above, all I can say is you better have a good background in Spanish.I studied spanish off and on for about 6 months knowing I would need to eventually take this test (I chose Spanish because I thought it would be easy and the university didn't have a Russian program and therefore I couldn't test out of that). I started really putting the nose to the grindstone about a month before the actual clep test. If you ONLY need a 50, get this book and take the first test and see why you are failing while keeping in mind, THIS BOOK IS NOT MEANT TO BE A COMPREHENSIVE GUIDE it can only show where you are weak. I would recommend listening to the listening and rejoinders quite a few times, BUT don't make this your only source of audio study; believe me because I relied heavily on the audio included with the practice tests and I could hardly understand the audio part of the test; the test may have some speakers that speak like some Spanish speakers hyped up on caffeine. I used this book in conjunction with Duolingo and a crap ton of translating on SpanishDict.com and only got a 55. If you want a 63 I would recommend 1. longer intensive study than 1 month 2. don't buy a college text book because they kind of suck and seem to follow some NEW AGE educational doctrine bull crap with more visual eye candy than actual hard core knowledge. 3. Learn a LOT of verbs and ALL of their conjugations including when to use imperfect, preterite, subjunctive, infinitve, etc. 4. learn the word "obras" because it seemed to be used a lot in my version of the test. 5. Did I mention learn verb conjugation? Well also learn indicative vs subjunctive vs imperfect vs...... spanish has a lot of verb tenses and conjugations.Just to give an idea of how hard I studied. It was at least 8 hours per day on weekends and 4-5 hours a day after work during the week about a month before the test. I had 1 year of Spanish in high school back in 2003. The result: I only got a 55. Your results will obviously vary depending on your dedication, experience, and aptitude.

My daughter had never studied any foreign language. As a teenager she completed the entire Rosetta Stone Spanish course over 2+ years. This amounted to about 2-3 hours per week for a total of 20 months, mostly taking the summers off. She also used the Duolingo app for more practice. When she started out she didn’t have any plans to try to pass a CLEP test (I’m not sure we even knew about CLEP at that time).Not planning on additional Spanish instruction for now, we decided to have her try the CLEP so she could test out of taking Spanish in college. Of course a foreign language is not required at all colleges or for all majors, but we thought it would be worth her trouble to see if she could pass the CLEP anyway - just in case. She is a very bright student and has passed other CLEP tests with the help of these “REA” books (she used these books mostly for the practice tests since she had already studied the subjects - though she did find the other materials in the book useful for review).For a foreign language CLEP test, it is especially helpful to have a resource like this since the test has a large audio component. When you buy this book you get access to two online exams that are a lot like the real test in that parts of the test require you to listen to audio of people speaking Spanish and answer the questions based on what you’ve heard.She took the first REA practice test and scored a 54. Concerned that she might not pass, she decided to spend another 3 weeks using Duolingo for 20 minutes per day, and watched some TV shows in Spanish. She then took the second REA practice test and to her frustration scored a 50. While the REA practice tests seemed to suggest she might not quite be ready, she went ahead and took the CLEP and scored a 61, which made all of us very happy.So we do recommend this book because it’s great to have practice tests, especially for a foreign language. At least for my daughter, the REA practice tests were tougher than the real Spanish CLEP turned out to be. I hope our experience has been helpful for you.

I am writing this review on behalf of my boyfriend who used only this text for clep review. My boyfriend is a native Spanish speaker and passed with a high enough score to earn 8 credits of Spanish. The only complaint is that the brand new copy's online access code did not work. But he just chatted online with REA, told them what happened and they provided access. No biggie.Another complaint my boyfriend had after using this text was that the online test allows you to pause and play the audio version. This is not accurate on the actual test. You cannot pause and hit play on the test. You must hear the audio and answer within 10 seconds. So beware of this when taking the online practice tests.Using the practice tests, it predicated that he would score in the mid 70s (High enough to Clep out of 5 Semesters of Spanish). On the actual test he got a 60 (Very disappointing). He says the biggest problem was the audio portion.Hope that helps! Happy Clepping!