The Psychology CLEP exam is the equivalent of a one-semester intro psych course, and it is wide. College Board splits it into 13 categories, and no single one is worth more than 12% of the exam. There is no math beyond a few statistics terms and no lab work. It is vocabulary, theorists, and knowing which idea belongs to which approach. The general breakdown is below.
| Category | Share of exam | What is in it |
|---|---|---|
| History, Approaches, and Methods | 11 to 12% | History of psychology; behavioral, cognitive, humanistic, psychodynamic, and biological approaches; research design and methods; ethics in research |
| Social Psychology | 9 to 10% | Attitudes and persuasion, conformity and obedience, group behavior, attribution, prejudice and discrimination, prosocial behavior |
| Biological Bases of Behavior | 8 to 9% | Neuroanatomy, neural transmission, endocrine system, genetics and behavior, brain structure and function |
| Learning | 8 to 9% | Classical conditioning, operant conditioning, observational learning, cognitive learning, reinforcement schedules |
| Cognition | 8 to 9% | Memory (encoding, storage, retrieval), forgetting, problem solving, decision making, language and thought |
| Developmental Psychology Across the Lifespan | 8 to 9% | Prenatal and childhood development, adolescence, adult development and aging, Piaget, Erikson, Kohlberg, nature vs. nurture |
| Psychological Disorders and Health | 8 to 9% | Anxiety, mood, psychotic, dissociative, and personality disorders; DSM classification; health psychology and stress |
| Sensation and Perception | 7 to 8% | Sensory transduction, thresholds and signal detection, vision, audition, other senses, perceptual organization |
| Personality | 7 to 8% | Psychoanalytic, neo-Freudian, trait, humanistic, and social-cognitive theories; personality assessment |
| Treatment of Psychological Disorders | 6 to 7% | Psychoanalytic, behavioral, cognitive, humanistic, and group therapies; drug therapy and ECT; community mental health |
| States of Consciousness | 5 to 6% | Sleep and dreaming, hypnosis, meditation, psychoactive drugs, biological rhythms |
| Motivation and Emotion | 5 to 6% | Drive, arousal, and incentive theories; Maslow's hierarchy; hunger and sexuality; James-Lange and Cannon-Bard |
| Statistics, Tests, and Measurement | 3 to 4% | Descriptive statistics, the normal distribution, reliability and validity, types of psychological tests |
| Questions | 95 multiple choice |
| Time | 90 minutes |
| Passing score | 50 (some schools require 60) |
| College credits | 3 semester hours (typical) |
| Exam fee | $97 |
| Retake wait after a fail | 90 days |
How do our free questions compare to the real exam?
Twenty questions cannot cover 13 categories, and you should know where the holes are before you read anything into your score. Here is the count for our 20 free questions (10 here, 10 more by email) against the real weights.
| Category | Share of real exam | Our 20 free questions |
|---|---|---|
| History, Approaches, and Methods | 11 to 12% | 3 of 20 |
| Social Psychology | 9 to 10% | 1 of 20 |
| Biological Bases of Behavior | 8 to 9% | 3 of 20 |
| Learning | 8 to 9% | 2 of 20 |
| Cognition | 8 to 9% | 3 of 20 |
| Developmental Psychology Across the Lifespan | 8 to 9% | 2 of 20 |
| Psychological Disorders and Health | 8 to 9% | 1 of 20 |
| Sensation and Perception | 7 to 8% | 2 of 20 |
| Personality | 7 to 8% | 0 of 20 |
| Treatment of Psychological Disorders | 6 to 7% | 1 of 20 |
| States of Consciousness | 5 to 6% | 1 of 20 |
| Motivation and Emotion | 5 to 6% | 1 of 20 |
| Statistics, Tests, and Measurement | 3 to 4% | 0 of 20 |
TIP: NONE of our free questions cover Personality (Freud's structure of the mind, trait theories, personality tests), which is 7 to 8% of the real exam, or Statistics, Tests, and Measurement, which is 3 to 4%. Together that is about 10 questions out of 95. Social Psychology and Psychological Disorders get one question each, and none of the 20 is a research-methods question. A good score here tells you the biology, learning, and cognition terms are in decent shape. It does not tell you anything about the parts the quiz does not sample.
Where should I spend my time studying?
Five things, based on the College Board weights and what we tell every student on our study guide page:
- Learn the theorists by what they argued. Freud, Piaget, Skinner, Erikson, and Maslow come up again and again, and mixing up their names is the most common way students lose points on this exam. A name is useless without the idea attached.
- Do not go looking for the one big category. There is not one. The largest is 11 to 12% and most sit around 8%, so skipping any category costs you 5 to 10 questions. Cover all 13, even if some only get an evening.
- Put real time into Personality. It is 7 to 8% of the exam and our free questions have nothing on it, so do not let a good score here talk you out of it.
- Learn the disorder names and the treatments together. Psychological Disorders and Treatment add up to about 15% of the exam, and the questions often ask you to match a therapy to the approach it came from.
- Learn pacing. About 57 seconds per question is enough if you keep moving, so do not sink 3 minutes into one you do not know. Rehearsing at the real speed is what the timed practice tests are for.
For the full topic breakdown and pass-rate history, see the Introductory Psychology CLEP study guide page. Your subscription also gives you 3 Introductory Psychology mock exams.