This book is a "MUST HAVE" for any one taking the Amer history I CLEP test.

If you LOVE (or kind-of like) history, you can pass this CLEP test with this book only, no problem.

If you don't like or HATE history, you MAY need another source of study material. These test are not that hard. Looking up something on the net for Amer history 1492-1865 should pull up any "extra" help that you may need.

Also, the book tells you what the test covers. Study more in your weak areas and you will be fine:

35% - Political institutions and behavior and public policy
25% - Social developments
10% - Economic developments
15% - Cultural and intellectual developments
15% - Diplomacy and international relations

I read REA history for a month and took the exam to get 70(though i was expecting more).I want to emphasize that you need more than this book to score good. I went through the AP history quiz sites. One thing that I wanted to mention is that the paper had a lot of questions on religion as in Baptist, methodist , presbyterian church which are not covered in this book at all. Also, you need to be familiar with terms like stono rebellion . The exam actually tests more than your basic knowledge, it checks whether u have a thorough understanding of the events and if you can correlate them. So this book helps to get the basic idea but dont count on just this book to score good.
Most of the questions on literary authors were not covered in this book. Also I bought the practise questions guide from CLEP for $10 but none of the questions from it came so u can skip that.
I hope this review helps somebody.

This was my only source of study material for the US History I exam. I read the book only once, the day before the exam, which is not advisable you need at least a week to study. I still passed with a score of 55, but I only needed a score of 50 to to get credt from this class. The information in this book is useful for the exam, just make sure to take all the practice test and read the explanation for the answers. Some of the material for these practice questions were not mentioned in the study guide section of the book, but are then explained in the explanation and answer section.

I bought this book around half a year ago, though I ended up procrastinating and only taking the CLEP test just today (I passed with a 73, more than the needed 65). This book was instrumental in my studies, but it has enough flaws to justify a three-star rating.

In studying for the CLEP American History 1, I spent about two weeks cramming (after skimming through the book and the first two tests some months earlier). First, I read in detail the 170-page review. Then I took the first test, looked over the explained answers (paying careful attention to the ones I missed), skimmed through the book again, took the second and looked at the answers, and did the same with the third. My calculated scores were the CLEP equivalent of 69, 70, and 71. Then I took a quick look online at some timelines, looked at the order of the presidents, and took another practice 40-question CLEP provided by the university. Next, I went back through each question that I had missed before, tried the question again, and looked at and read the extended answer. The day of the exam, I reviewed the ones I missed twice, skimmed through the review one last time (I spent about an hour), and went to take the test.

A few things: the test had significantly more emphasis on women, blacks, and their cultures than the book did. Look up information about these on the internet first. Also, the answers to one or two of the practice questions are inconsistent with their explanations. Also, some of the material in the book was redundant. The section on mormons (who weren't on the test anyway) was in there twice. Finally, I was a little annoyed by the non-chronological manner in which the book was presented. It has sections on time periods, and jumps around significantly within those.

So, all in all, a decent study guide, but you'll need a little more than it to do well.

This book offers an excellent overview of History. I highly recommend using this in preparation for the American History I CLEP exam. In addition to this text, I used Baron's EZ-101 Study Keys, "American History to 1877." I read them simultaneously to get a broader perspective of each era of history, then wrote out key events and people on index cards for review. I also did a lot of the AP US HIstory quizzes on the historyteacher.net website. Combined...after studying for a little more than a week, I acheived a 69 out of 80 on the CLEP test.