CLEP Chemistry

What is it?

What exactly is the CLEP Chemistry?

Clear a full year of general chemistry in one sitting for up to six credits.

The CLEP Chemistry exam covers a one-year college general chemistry course: structure and states of matter, reactions, stoichiometry, equilibrium, kinetics, thermodynamics, and descriptive and experimental chemistry. An online scientific calculator and periodic table are built into the exam. It suits students who already have strong chemistry fundamentals and want to skip the sequence.

The path in brief

1. Confirm your school’s chemistry credit policy
2. Register and pay the $97 fee
3. Book a test center or remote-proctoring slot
4. Review stoichiometry, equilibrium, and thermodynamics
5. Score 50+ for six credits

Before you book

Who is eligible to sit the CLEP Chemistry?

The test itself

What is the format of the CLEP Chemistry?

The CLEP Chemistry is administered by CLEP test center or CLEP with Remote Proctoring and runs 90 minutes and requires 50 (ACE credit-granting score) to pass.

The fine print

What are the retake and renewal rules for the CLEP Chemistry?

Proctoring & delivery

All SAT Suite tests are taken in Bluebook on a laptop or tablet, in a school or an authorised weekend test centre, under a live human proctor. There is no at-home option. Bluebook locks the device, and a built-in Desmos graphing calculator and formula sheet are available throughout the Math section; you may also bring your own approved non-CAS calculator.

Retake policy

There is no limit on SAT attempts and no mandatory waiting period beyond the eight national dates offered each year. The PSAT-related assessments are given once per school year per grade band and are not retaken on demand. Most selective colleges superscore across SAT sittings, taking your best Reading and Writing score and your best Math score.

Score reporting

The SAT reports a 400 to 1600 total built from two 200 to 800 section scores. The PSAT/NMSQT and PSAT 10 report 320 to 1520 with 160 to 760 sections, and the PSAT 8/9 reports 240 to 1440 with 120 to 720 sections, so results across the suite sit on one comparable scale. PSAT/NMSQT reports also carry an NMSC Selection Index of 48 to 228.

Recertification

SAT Suite scores do not expire and never need renewal, but colleges commonly ask for a score from within the last five years and most students test in the spring of eleventh grade and again in the autumn of twelfth grade. Only a PSAT/NMSQT taken in eleventh grade enters the National Merit competition.

Refunds & rescheduling

Cancelling an SAT registration by the change deadline costs 34 dollars; cancelling after the deadline but before test day costs 44 dollars. Changing test centre costs 34 dollars, and late registration costs 38 dollars. Fee-waiver students are not charged for cancellation or late registration.

What it pays

How much does this credential pay?

No direct occupation — a CLEP Chemistry score of 50 earns the ACE-recommended 6 semester hours (General Chemistry I and II), the largest single-exam credit award in the CLEP program, and the payoff is the education-return premium plus the STEM-track progress it buys

The direct answer is that CLEP Chemistry has no BLS occupation of its own — it is a credit-by-examination assessment whose payoff is the college credit it earns and the tuition and time it saves — so the salary story is the education-return premium that CLEP credit accelerates for STEM degrees. The relevant reference points from BLS: in 2023, workers with a bachelor’s degree earned a median weekly wage of about $1,493 versus about $1,059 for associate-degree holders and about $899 for high-school-diploma-only workers, and the earnings gap has persisted in every recent BLS year. A score of 50 or higher on the 20-to-80 CLEP scale earns the ACE-recommended credit of six semester hours for CLEP Chemistry, which the ACE National Guide splits into three hours of General Chemistry I and three hours of General Chemistry II — the largest credit award of any CLEP exam — and colleges that accept CLEP credit typically grant the six hours under their own policies, with some requiring a higher score and many noting that a lab component may still be required. The practical financial value is significant for STEM-track students: six credit hours of a year-long general chemistry sequence replaced by a $97 exam can shorten time-to-degree and save a meaningful share of tuition at in-state public rates, and for pre-med, nursing and engineering-science students, clearing the general chemistry requirement by exam keeps them on schedule for the organic and analytical courses that follow. CLEP Chemistry is one of the most demanding CLEP exams — 75 questions in 90 minutes covering a full year of general chemistry — and its honest value proposition is that it pays off for students with solid recent chemistry mastery, not for learning chemistry from scratch.

Job growth.BLS does not project growth for a CLEP exam; the relevant projections follow the occupations the earned degree feeds into, and the value is the six credit hours, tuition savings and time-to-degree it buys toward a year-long chemistry requirement.

Source: BLS Education Pays

Your schedule

How long should I study for it?

60-90 hours over 6-8 weeks, more if you need to re-learn material rather than review it of focused study

Plan for 6 to 8 weeks and 60 to 90 hours of study if your chemistry is recent but rusty, or 10 to 12 weeks if you are re-learning material, because CLEP Chemistry is a serious exam — 75 questions in 90 minutes covering a full year of general chemistry, with structure of matter (20 percent) and states of matter (19 percent) together making up 39 percent of the paper — and the honest requirement is solid mastery, not familiarity. The exam provides a built-in scientific calculator and a periodic table, and roughly 25 to 35 percent of the questions involve calculations, so the stoichiometry and gas-law fluency must be real. The effective sequence is: first, take a full timed practice exam against the 20-to-80 scale to baseline, and mark every miss by topic; second, master the structure-of-matter block first — atomic theory, quantum mechanics and electron structure, periodic trends, bonding and nuclear chemistry — because it is the largest share and the foundation for everything else; third, work the states-of-matter block — gas laws, phase changes, solutions and colligative properties; fourth, close the reaction-types and equations-and-stoichiometry blocks, because the mole-based calculations recur across the paper; fifth, cover the smaller blocks — equilibrium, thermodynamics, kinetics, descriptive and experimental chemistry — in the remaining weeks; and sixth, in the final two weeks, take two or three more full timed exams and re-study the topics that still drag. Confirm your college’s CLEP credit policy before you invest the hours, since some STEM programs require a higher score or do not accept CLEP credit for the chemistry sequence without a lab, and note the exam fee is about $97 plus a test-center fee.

1. Week 18-10 hrs

   Baseline and structure of matter

   • Take a full timed practice exam and log every miss by topic
   • Atomic theory, atomic structure and periodic relationships
   • Chemical bonding: covalent, ionic, metallic and the VSEPR shapes
2. Weeks 2-39-11 hrs/week

   Structure and states of matter (39%)

   • Finish quantum mechanics, electron configuration and nuclear chemistry
   • Gas laws, the ideal gas equation, phase changes and phase diagrams
   • Solutions, concentration methods and colligative properties
3. Weeks 4-59-11 hrs/week

   Reaction types and stoichiometry

   • Acid-base, precipitation and oxidation-reduction reactions
   • Mole concept, balancing equations and net-ionic equations
   • Drill the stoichiometry calculations with the built-in calculator
4. Week 69-11 hrs

   Equilibrium, thermodynamics and kinetics

   • Equilibrium constants, Le Châtelier’s principle, acid-base and solubility equilibria
   • Thermodynamics: enthalpy, entropy, free energy and Hess’s law
   • Kinetics: rates, order, activation energy and catalysis
5. Week 78-10 hrs

   Descriptive and experimental chemistry

   • Descriptive chemistry: periodic relationships and main-group and transition elements
   • Experimental chemistry: titration, filtration, measurement and lab practice
   • Organic and environmental chemistry basics
6. Week 88-10 hrs

   Full timed exams and taper

   • Two or three full timed practice exams under the 75-question format
   • Re-lab every miss and re-study those topics
   • Light final review and confirm exam logistics

What to buy

Which study resources are worth paying for?

CLEP Chemistry preparation is unusual in that the highest-value resources are free and the commercial options are mostly structured delivery of the same content: the College Board CLEP page defines the exact format, the ACE National Guide confirms the credit, and free resources like OpenStax Chemistry, Khan Academy and the College Board’s own sample questions cover the content to a solid standard. The comparison below separates official and free resources, with prices current to this review. The rule that works: build the content with free resources, rehearse the calculations and the 75-question format with timed practice, keep total spending well under about $200 including the exam fee, and spend money only on a structured course if self-study has already failed to reach the 50 target. Because the exam is one of the hardest CLEP papers and worth six credit hours, the investment in a review book and a practice bank is worth making early, and candidates should confirm their college’s policy on the lab requirement before spending anything, since many schools require a lab component in addition to the exam credit. Verify the current exam fee, which is about $97 plus a separate test-center administration fee. The practice bank is the component worth paying for first, because the exam’s distinctive combination-item style and the 75-question pace are only calibrated by timed practice, and the periodic-table and calculator interface is best rehearsed on practice software that mirrors it rather than on paper. Candidates who budget the review book, a practice bank and the exam fee together still land well under the cost of a single semester-hour of chemistry tuition, which is the whole point of the credit-by-exam path.

Prices approximate and dated to this review; the exam is offered year-round by appointment, and the test-center administration fee is separate from the about-$97 exam fee. We do not rank by commission.

What you'll face

What question types will I see?

The CLEP Chemistry exam is approximately 75 multiple-choice questions answered in 90 minutes, scored on a 20-to-80 scale with the ACE credit-granting score at 50 for six semester hours of General Chemistry I and II. A TI-30XS MultiView scientific calculator and a periodic table are integrated into the exam software. The content is weighted across structure of matter (20 percent), states of matter (19 percent), descriptive chemistry (14 percent), reaction types (12 percent), equations and stoichiometry (10 percent), experimental chemistry (9 percent), equilibrium (7 percent), thermodynamics (5 percent) and kinetics (4 percent). The questions test three abilities — recall of facts and terminology, application of concepts to unfamiliar situations, and interpretation of data — and a distinctive share are combination items that present a numbered list of statements and ask which combination is correct. There is no penalty for guessing. The samples below are editor-written illustrations of the published question styles, not live exam items. Because the exam rewards breadth across a full year of general chemistry, candidates who drill the calculation types and the recall-heavy blocks and rehearse the combination-item style against a question bank find the paper predictable, and the balance between structure and states of matter (39 percent together) should shape the study plan more than any other single fact about the exam. The calculation items are weighted toward the setup as much as the arithmetic — candidates who practise recognising which equation applies to which situation, then use the on-screen calculator for the numbers, report that the quantitative half becomes routine — and the descriptive-chemistry block rewards spaced review of the periodic relationships rather than a single read-through, so building the recall blocks into the weekly schedule from week one pays off disproportionately on exam day.

Samples are editor-written illustrations of the published blueprint, not live exam items.

Reference

What are the key facts about the CLEP Chemistry?

CLEP Chemistry is a exam credential; awarded by College Board; the exam fee is $97 (2025–26) + test-center fee.

In short

Is the CLEP Chemistry worth it?

• Equivalent to a year of general chemistry
• ~75 questions in 90 minutes; score 50 for ~6 credits
• Built-in periodic table and scientific calculator
• Strong prep option for pre-health students

Worth comparing

How does the CLEP Chemistry compare with similar credentials?

• CLEP Biology College Board
• CLEP College Algebra College Board

Trust

Where does this information come from?

Everything above is taken from the awarding body's own published material. Fees, question counts and domain weights are revised regularly — check the official page before you pay.

• College Board Awarding body
• Official CLEP Chemistry exam page Exam page

Research confidence: high · Last reviewed 2026-08