If the materials here on HC USA aren't enough....

NOTE: All links in this post are used for reference only. They are NOT affiliate links; if you choose to purchase anything mentioned here, I will not profit from it. I am not attempting to make money off you by making this blog post.

There may be a point where you either feel that the free resources available online are not enough, or you may simply want additional materials to study. In that case, there are a few options that can help you.

Cheap textbooks. Believe it or not, they do exist. You have probably heard college students (justifiably) complain about the costs of books, but that's because they are often forced to buy the latest edition of whatever book their course requires, and this can often be $150 or more. When you are self-studying, this is not the case. Not only can you buy used, but you can buy the used previous edition. While sometimes books really do go through major revisions, often the changes are minimal. We have in our house an environmental science textbook that, when reading through the preface and introduction pages, we learned has undergone rewrites on an average of more than once a year. (17 in 12 years.) I think there's something to be said about the belief that books are "updated" frequently to keep the prices artificially high. Colleges do get money from the sales, after all. As frequently as science can change with new discoveries, I find it awfully hard to swallow the idea that it changed so much to warrant the need for THAT many new editions of our book!

How do you find cheap textbooks, and how do you even know which one to buy? You want to start with a visit to a college or university website where you can scroll through their online catalog and course descriptions. For an example, let's suppose you are interested in taking the Biology CLEP. You visit the THOMAS EDISON STATE COLLEGE WEBSITE and discover that the Biology 101 course uses a book called Biology: Concepts and Applications (8th ed.) This book is being sold new for $145. Ouch. However, a perusal of Amazon's website reveals you can order a PREVIOUS EDITION OF THE SAME BOOK new for under $18 and used for as little as $2.99.

You can use this method of finding inexpensive textbooks for any course you are undertaking. Alternately, you can also find textbook titles by LOOKING AT A SPECIFIC EXAM GUIDE to see what textbooks are recommended for study, and then also look to find a used previous edition.

Study guides. The obvious ones here are the "Whatever for Dummies" and "Idiot's Guide to Whatever" books, but there are other series out there you might be interested in. Many of them include chapter quizzes, and some even have tests and final exams. If you're in a state/situation where you need to keep grades, this can be especially helpful. (Keep in mind, if you plan to use the quizzes, you should consider buying new, or make certain the used book isn't written in, because someone may have already marked the answers otherwise.)

1. THE DEMYSTIFIED SERIES. These books generally cover math and science topics, though there are some other subjects.

2. HOMEWORK HELPERS. These cover a wide range of subjects.

3. (WILEY'S) SELF TEACHING GUIDES. Mostly maths and sciences.

4. NO NONSENSE KNOWLEDGE. These books come with titles like "Chemistry Made Simple."

The nice thing about the study guides are you can often get them new from around $10, and used for half that (or even less.)


Practice Exams. While, unfortunately, it seems that the free practice exam sites keep disappearing, you can pay to take them. You can either look at BUYING A PREP BOOK THAT COMES WITH PRACTICE EXAMS or TAKE A FEE-BASED ONLINE PRACTICE TEST. If you are particulary worried about the exam, this is a good option. After all, the $5-$25 you invest here may make the difference between a pass or a fail, and since you do pay to take the exams, you definitely only want to take each one once!

(You should also check your local library. Ours has many exam study guides you can check out. Interestingly, these must be books that have a high rate of not being returned, because our library has a policy now that you must leave a $20 deposit to check any of these books out, which is given back once you've returned it.)