Each testing center establishes its own administration schedules, registration dates, and registration deadlines. When you contact the testing center, you should ask for a list of upcoming test dates. You can then enter this information, along with your personal data and the name of the exam, into the registration form available on the College Board website.
The registration form will include a space for you to indicate the institution or institutions that should receive your score report. You are allowed to leave this space blank and request score delivery after the exam. The CLEP exams cost $65 each; an extra $10 is charged for the exams with an essay component. Some testing centers add a $15 administration surcharge. Payment must be made with a credit card, money order, or check payable to the College-Level Examination Program. Your completed registration form and payment should be mailed directly to the testing center.

On the day of your exam, make sure that you arrive at the testing center at least fifteen minutes in advance. If you are unfamiliar with the exam location, it is a good idea to visit a few days before the exam.
In order to participate, will need two pieces of personal identification. One of these must be a government-issued ID containing a photograph, correct name, and signature. Acceptable forms of primary identification include driver’s licenses, state-issued ID cards, certificates of citizenship, and naturalization cards. The secondary identification must include either a photograph or a signature. Acceptable forms of secondary identification include Social Security cards, student IDs, and credit cards. You should also bring a non-mechanical pencil, though if you forget you will be issued a pencil by the test administrator. You will be given as much scratch paper as you need during the examination.
It is not necessary to bring a calculator, as those exams requiring a calculator will include one in the computer software. The following items are also prohibited: cellular phones; beepers; personal digital assistants; protractors, compasses, slide rules, and rulers; radios and recorders; any kind of papers; pens, highlighters, and mechanical pencils; and hats, unless they are worn for religious reasons.

At present, all 34 CLEP exams are offered in a computer-based format that is user-friendly and efficient. The CLEP exam does not require any special computer skills; as long as you can use a mouse to point, click, and scroll, you are prepared for a CLEP computer program.
Most of the exams are composed entirely of multiple-choice questions, each of which will have five answer choices. The questions may ask you to fill in a blank, complete a sentence, or simply identify the most appropriate response to a given question. Some of the multiple-choice questions may be phrased in the negative: for instance, they may ask you to identify the answer choice that is NOT true. Make sure to read each question carefully so as to avoid being tripped up by a negative formulation.
The following exams may require an essay: English Composition; American Literature; Analyzing and Interpreting Literature; English Literature; and Freshman College Composition. The word-processing program used to complete the essay includes text-manipulation applications like cutting and pasting but does not include a spell-check feature.

To determine your score on the CLEP, the test administrator first adds up the raw score. This is the number of questions answered correctly. The CLEP scoring system does not distinguish between unanswered questions and questions answered incorrectly. You should make an educated guess at answers you don’t know with certainty rather than leaving them blank. Once the raw score is determined, it is converted into a score on a scale of 20 to 80. The conversion takes into account slight differences in difficulty between test forms.
The American Council for Education has set 50 as the minimum passing score on all but the following exams: French Language, Level 2 (recommended minimum passing score is 62); German Language, Level 2 (63); and Spanish Language, Level 2 (63). If your exam includes an essay component, the unofficial score report available immediately after the exam will include only your performance on the multiple-choice questions. Essays are graded by trained college faculty and placed on a scale from 20 to 80. When you receive your complete score report, it will not include separate scores for the multiple-choice and essay components. Once you have seen your score, it becomes a permanent part of your CLEP transcript. This transcript is kept on file by the College Board for 20 years, during which time you may have it sent to an institution by filling out a simple request form.