Spark Chart for Marketing

[wfauchier]

Greetings everyone:

I saw on this site that somebody mentioned Spark notes for Marketing. Does anybody know if the Spark chart is helpful? It's only $5. I'm using REA and InstantCert, and will take the official CLEP practice marketing test (17th edition) when I've studied some more. For Management, I found the Peterson tests excellent, but they unfortunately do not exist for Marketing.

Yesterday I took the Management CLEP and scored 76 out of 80. I would like to say, however, that I did not find the test particularly easy, and I worked hard for 3 weeks using InstantCert, Comex and the Peterson tests, not to mention the official CLEP test. My university requires not 50 but a score of 65, so I was not overconfident. In addition, we only get one shot, and that's it. No testing 6 months later if you fail.

I write this because I see a number of entries where people say they got high scores with just a few hours/days of prep, and the tests were a breeze. Possibly these people are business majors? Maybe they prepped a little more than they realized? I already have a humanities BA with a GPA is 3.87 (I'm doing a pre-MBA now), so I know how to learn effectively, and I still think it's important to study and prepare--a lot.

I write this for anybody who reads the claims that you can do minimal prep work and just fly through a breezy test and all is well. From what I've seen, too much confidence about how easy something will be is a good way to be taken by surprise and fail a test. This holds true especially if your institution requires a higher score than the standard 50, and/or you only have one chance to pass.

Now about those Spark notes for Marketing -- any opinions on those?

-WF

[ShotoJuku]

Originally Posted by wfauchier

Greetings everyone:

I saw on this site that somebody mentioned Spark notes for Marketing. Does anybody know if the Spark chart is helpful? It's only $5. I'm using REA and InstantCert, and will take the official CLEP practice marketing test (17th edition) when I've studied some more. For Management, I found the Peterson tests excellent, but they unfortunately do not exist for Marketing.

Yesterday I took the Management CLEP and scored 76 out of 80. I would like to say, however, that I did not find the test particularly easy, and I worked hard for 3 weeks using InstantCert, Comex and the Peterson tests, not to mention the official CLEP test. My university requires not 50 but a score of 65, so I was not overconfident. In addition, we only get one shot, and that's it. No testing 6 months later if you fail.

I write this because I see a number of entries where people say they got high scores with just a few hours/days of prep, and the tests were a breeze. Possibly these people are business majors? Maybe they prepped a little more than they realized? I already have a humanities BA with a GPA is 3.87 (I'm doing a pre-MBA now), so I know how to learn effectively, and I still think it's important to study and prepare--a lot.

I write this for anybody who reads the claims that you can do minimal prep work and just fly through a breezy test and all is well. From what I've seen, too much confidence about how easy something will be is a good way to be taken by surprise and fail a test. This holds true especially if your institution requires a higher score than the standard 50, and/or you only have one chance to pass.

Now about those Spark notes for Marketing -- any opinions on those?

-WF

Look at it this way - it can't hurt.

The benefit of the sparkchart is its unique, compact portability of a lot of information that you can study anywhere. GOOD LUCK!!

[anar579]

I don't have the Spark Chart for Marketing and didn't use it in my study for that exam. They are very helpful. Like ShotoJuku said, compact and you can study anywhere. I've found them very handy for a quick lookup of certain terms or overview. In general, I don't think they should be used as your sole source of study.

Personally I found the Marketing CLEP very passable with IC's materials alone.