Principles of Macroeconomics

[soltran]

I doubt that I have much to offer that hasn’t already been posted on the forum but on the off chance that I do include something that is of help to someone here is my experience with the macroeconomics test. Keep in mind, I passed with a 66 but as my score suggests, I am no authority on the subject.

Test – CLEP Principles of Macroeconomics
Questions – 80
Time – 90 minutes

General Observations

The test questions seemed to run pretty much in the order that they are presented in the CLEP Official Study Guide. That is, the questions started with Basic Concepts, moved onto Measurements and ended with International Trade and Finance. Out of the first 20 questions I felt fairly confident about 17 or 18 of them which reduced any anxiety I may have been feeling about the rest of the questions. I found that the time allowed was more than adequate with over 30 minutes still available when I finished the test.

My Preparation

I utilized Cliffs AP – Economics Micro and Macro for my preparation. I found this a very concise guide which was easy to understand with plenty of review and test questions for practice (a number of which seemed almost identical to the CLEP official study guide questions). I believe this resource would be enough (though I suggest using IC to supplement the book) to produce scores in the 70s with proper use and adequate preparation time. Maybe I shouldn’t admit this in public but I only went through the Macroeconomics section of the book and only bothered to complete 1 of the 3 available practice exams in the book. I took 2 weeks to prep for this test but what I didn’t realize was that in the book there was an additional section (at the end of the microeconomics section – far from the macro section) that dealt with International Economics which made up 10%-15% of the exam questions.

The exam questions

There weren’t any real surprises in the exam with only some basic math required and an understanding of the concepts. If anything, I thought there were a disproportionate number of questions relating to Fiscal and Monetary policies but that may have been a perception issue. There was a tendency to ask similar questions in different ways, for example:

What is the Fed trying to achieve when it buys bonds?
To increase the money supply the Fed can?
What tool could be used as part of an expansionary monetary policy?

The only thing that could be a bit tricky with these questions is the use of distracters in the answer options. If the question was about Monetary policy at least two options were related to Fiscal policy and vice versa so it is imperative to have these clear in your mind. And intermingled with 3 questions like those above were 3 questions relating to Fiscal policy so it could be easy to start confusing them with each other.

Anyway, I didn’t come across any real demons and here’s hoping that those of you taking this exam in the future don’t either.



Best of luck to all

Regards

[sgloer]

Good work on that exam, and thanks for the feedback Ron!

[ShotoJuku]

Feedback is always welcome - THANKS!!

[Librevore]

Originally Posted by soltran

I doubt that I have much to offer that hasn’t already been posted on the forum but on the off chance that I do include something that is of help to someone here is my experience with the macroeconomics test. Keep in mind, I passed with a 66...

Congratulations on the pass!

Thanks for taking the time to give such great feedback also. Everyone's input together is part of what makes this such a great resource.