Before You Prepare for the Exam

Before you begin your exam preparation, check with your school’s advising or admissions department about their credit awarding policy. The DSST exams were developed to enable schools to award credit to students for knowledge equivalent to that learned by students taking the course. The school may choose to award college credit to the student based on the achievement of a passing score. The ultimate passing score for each examination is determined by the school. The DSST program provides schools with a recommended passing score established by a national committee of college faculty who teach these courses. The DSST program is approved by the American Council on Education (ACE), and the ACE provides both a recommended passing score and a recommended number of credits that could be awarded to successful students. Some schools set their own standards for awarding credit and may require a higher score than the ACE recommendation. Make sure to obtain this information from the institution from which you expect to receive credit.

Test Preparation

Test Preparation Materials

At Prometric, we believe in giving each student the best chance at success, so we offer a wide variety of study materials to help you adequately prepare for your DSST exam. We offer free exam fact sheets that give content outlines of subject areas covered on each test, as well as sample questions, credit recommendations and suggestions for other reference materials.

Prometric has also partnered with iStudySmart to provide practice tests and courses in subject areas that correspond with DSST exams. Practice exams in most subject are available and will enable learners to see whether they possess the level of knowledge necessary to pass a specific DSST exam prior to actually taking it. As each DSST exam is revised, so is the corresponding fact sheet and practice exam. Prometric does not endorse any third party test preparation material outside of what's described above, nor is responsible for the test outcome if the student chooses to use preparation material not recommended here.

Using all or any of the provided preparation materials outlined below will put you in the best position possible to pass your exam and earn college credit. Good luck, and happy studying!

Select DSST Exams by Category:
Refreshed Exams | Business | Humanities | Natural Science | Social Science

Exam Study Materials for Refreshed Exams


iStudySmart.com link

Documents available for download throughout this site are offered in PDF format.

If you do not already have Acrobat Reader installed on your computer, you may download it below.

Get Adobe Reader