CLEP College Composition Modular

It is entirely multiple-choice: approximately 90 questions in 95 minutes, roughly a minute per question. The exam also includes some pretest questions that do not count toward your score. There is no essay section, which is what distinguishes it from the essay-inclusive version of the composition exam.

The knowledge and skills assessed are the same, but the format and timing allow a more extended indirect assessment of your knowledge and skills. College Composition Modular is designed for colleges that want a valid, reliable multiple-choice assessment, and most colleges award credit based on this exam alone.

ACE recommends a credit-granting score of 50 and 3 semester hours for College Composition Modular. That is a recommendation, not a guarantee: each institution sets its own credit-granting policy, which may differ. Contact your college to confirm the score required for credit and the number of credit hours granted.

Registering for the College Composition Modular exam costs $97.00, per the exam's registration page. Check the official site before you register, because fees and any test-center or remote-proctoring charges are set by the program and can change.

Follow the weighting. Revision Skills, including sentence-level skills, is 40% of the exam; Ability to Use Source Materials and Rhetorical Analysis are 25% each; Conventions of Standard Written English is 10%. Spend most of your time on revising drafts, evaluating and integrating sources, and analyzing tone, appeals, organization, and evidence.

You should be familiar with documenting sources, including but not limited to MLA, APA, and the Chicago Manual of Style. Expect questions on integrating resource material and judging source quality, often inside passage-based sets rather than as isolated format trivia. Know the general logic of each style, not every edge case.

Two areas. First, passage-based sets that ask for the best revision of a whole paragraph rather than a single sentence - coherence, transitions, level of detail, and tone all matter. Second, source evaluation and documentation questions, which reward judgment about authority and relevance rather than grammar knowledge.

The official exam page does not state a retake rule, so confirm the current policy with the College Board or your test center before scheduling a second attempt. In the meantime, treat your first sitting as the target: work through the official examination guide and sample questions beforehand.

The exam sponsor publishes a CLEP College Composition and College Composition Modular Examination Guide with practice questions (PDF, $10.00), a free study plan and list of online resources, free sample questions, and an official practice app. Those are the safest sources to calibrate the question style before test day.

CLEP exams are administered at official test centers and, with remote proctoring, at home. Test centers number more than 2,000 worldwide and exams are offered year-round. Use the sponsor's test-center finder and remote-proctoring guidance to confirm equipment requirements before you schedule.