Sample Questions

The CLEP series contains some 34 exams, divided into general and specific subjects. There is one thing they all have in common though—they are all multiple choice. The questions can look like this:

Humanities:

Maud is the heroine of a poem by the author of "The Lady of Shalott", The author is:

(A) Alfred Lord Tennyson
(B) Percy Bysshe Shelley
(C) William Wordsworth
(D) W.H. Auden
(E) John Dryden

English Composition:

Identifying Sentence Errors: Identify the error in the following sentence. If there is no error, select choice (E).

At the moment the play started, the audience were still buying drinks at the bar.
  (A)                               (B)                          (C)                            (D)
No error.
  (E)

Improving Sentences: part or all of the following sentence is underlined. Beneath the sentence, you will find five versions of the underlined part. Choose the answer that you believe best expresses the meaning of the original sentence. If you believe that the original sentence is best, choose (A).

The house was built on foundations who were made of the wrong material.

(A) The house was built on foundations who
(B) The house was built on foundations which
(C) The house's built foundations
(D) The foundations on whom the house was built
(E) The foundations of the house were built

	Answers:
	Humanities:
	(A) Tennyson.
	English Composition:
	(C) "Audience" is a singular nounso it should be “was”.
	(B) The correct relative pronoun is "which".