Question to expect

You’ll see three types of questions on the GED. Most questions are multiple choice, which means you’ll be able to pick one answer from a list of possible answers. This gives you test-taking advantages. You only have to recognize the correct answer, instead of calling it up from memory. You can eliminate incorrect answers. And, you can guess. On the GED, you don’t lose any points for marking an incorrect answer, so you should answer every question, even if you have to guess. But multiple-choice questions aren’t the only ones on the GED. In addition, the GED has:

Short-answer questions (in math) The GED math test has questions where you need to calculate an answer, but there are some clues... the answer will either be one point on a graph or a 5-digit or shorter number.

Essay question (in writing) The GED essay is a short (4–6 paragraph) essay that requires you to be able to organize and communicate your thoughts about a topic, with a main idea, a beginning, middle, and end.

The GED exam includes questions about a lot of topics, like U.S. history and life science and sentence structure. But that’s not the only way the questions are divided up. The questions on the GED exam are carefully chosen to include:

• Questions that include pictures, charts, and graphs, as well as text to read
• Questions that test thinking skills including knowledge, comprehension, analysis, application, synthesis, and evaluation
• Questions about important concepts behind the subject areas, such as technology questions in the science test

The best way to prepare for the GED test experience is by taking practice tests, which recreate the experience of taking a GED test. But you don’t need to jump into a full, timed practice test right away. Working up to a practice test gives you more familiarity to build on.

Start by walking through several practice questions to get familiar with what the test questions are like. Why are the questions structured the way they are? What are the questions asking you to do?

Take an untimed practice test. Take as long as you need to. Familiarize yourself with the test format and structure. Practice the whole test, including the essay.

Use your practice test results to study. Time yourself for practice questions while you study, and try to work your time down to about 1 minute, 15 seconds to answer a question.

Before you take the GED, take a timed practice test. Taking practice tests will improve your score on the GED, even if you already know you’re ready to pass. It’s a simple step that can have great benefits.

All about the GED English Writing Test

Part I—Multiple choice

You’ll have 50 multiple choice questions to answer in 75 minutes. That means, on average you’ll have about 1½ minutes per question. But, what you’ll find is 6 or so long readings, with about 8 or 9 questions about each. Like the reading test, because you’ve got a pretty big reading to deal with, it’s better to think of your time in chunks per reading than per question. For 6 readings, you’ll have about 10 minutes per reading, with 15 minutes or so left over. For the writing test, even more than in the reading test, you might not need to read through the whole reading. Most of the questions focus on one or two sentences. Read the question first, and use the longer reading for reference about what it’s talking about, or for organization questions.

The readings on this test should not be difficult to read. They’ll be workplace and community documents (that is, letters, memos, or similar documents, like the reading test workplace documents), “how-to” texts that have instructions about how to do something, or informational texts, which are like articles that talk about a topic. The texts are 12 to 22 sentences long, about 200 to 300 words. The readings are good writing, except that they have some errors in them, on purpose. The multiple choice questions, for the most part, ask you to identify and fix those errors.

The questions on the test fall into four categories.

* About 7 to 8 questions (15%) will be organization questions.

These questions ask you to add, remove, or move sentences. They’re testing whether you know where a sentence or paragraph belongs. You should understand topic, or main idea, sentences; organizing paragraphs into a beginning, middle, and end; and organizing writing into a beginning, middle, and end. And, of course, the writing needs to make sense!

* About 15 questions (30%) will be sentence structure questions.

These questions have to do with how the sentences are written. You’ll need to identify fragments, run-ons, how to join sentences properly, and other elements that make a sentence correct.

* About 15 questions (30%) will be usage questions. These questions are about using words correctly. You’ll need to identify whether the right verb is used with the right subject. You should be familiar with how to use the right verb tense and how to use pronouns, too.

* About 12 to 13 questions (25%) will be mechanics questions.

These questions are about capitalization, punctuation, and spelling. The spelling questions will only be about possessives, contractions, and easily confused words like “your” and “you’re.”

That’s the content of the questions. The questions themselves are in several different formats.

* About 22 to 23 questions (55%) will be correction questions.

A correction question shows you a sentence (or a part of the reading) and asks you to choose which correction should be made to it. Sometimes, no correction is needed, and that will be one of the choices.

* About 17 to 18 questions (35%) will be revision questions.

These questions show a sentence or sentences with an underlined part. To answer the question, choose the best way to change the underlined portion. You’ll always have the choice to leave it the way it is.

* About 10 questions (20%) will be construction shift questions.

These questions will ask you about rewording a sentence in a different way, or moving or deleting sentences, or changing paragraphs.

The multiple choice section of the writing test expects you to have some knowledge of grammar, punctuation, and spelling. It also expects some common-sense knowledge of organization and what “sounds right” in language. You have a lot of language knowledge, and you can supplement that by learning about some common mistakes. You might find that you know the right answer to some questions immediately. For other questions, you’ll have to think it through.

Part II—Essay

45 minutes

On the GED essay, you’ll need to write a short essay, about four or five paragraphs long. The GED essay gives you a prompt that asks you to talk about your beliefs or something from our life. You won’t need to know anything special or obscure. The goal of the GED essay is to learn whether you can write a basic essay and communicate your own ideas, not whether you have any particular special knowledge.

Understanding what the essay readers expect from you is the first and most important step to passing the GED essay. If you understand what the GED essay readers want, you’ll be able to write a solid GED essay.

How Is the GED Essay Scored?

The GED essay is scored on a scale of 1 to 4. You only need to score a 2 to pass, but your GED essay score will affect your whole GED writing score. If you score a 2 on the essay, you’ll have to do much better on the multiple choice questions to pass than if you score a 3 or 4 on the essay. Since it’s easier to improve your score on the essay than on the multiple choice section of the writing test, learning how to write a great GED essay is definitely worthwhile.

The GED essay is scored on the following qualities:

1. Response to Prompt: Did I answer the GED question and stay on topic?
2. Organization: Is my writing organized?
3. Development and Details: Did I give enough good details?
4. Conventions of EAE (Edited American English): Are there language mistakes, like spelling and grammar?

The GED essay is a timed, 45-minute test, so you’ll need a strategy for finishing on schedule. For many students, writing under a time constraint is a lot more difficult. You don’t have a lot of time to think about what you’re going to write and how you’re going to write it. It helps to time your writing when you’re preparing for the GED, so you’ll be comfortable writing a timed essay on the test.

You’re going to need to write an organized, 4 to 6 paragraph GED essay in 45 minutes. Here’s a time plan for the GED essay test:

• Reading the question and brainstorming: 10 minutes
• Organizing your ideas: 5 minutes
• Drafting your essay: 20 minutes
• Reading and editing your essay: 10 minutes

All about the GED English Reading Test

You’ll have 40 multiple choice questions to answer in 65 minutes. That means, on average you’ll have about 1½ minutes per question. But, what you’ll find is 6 to 9 long readings, with 4 to 8 questions about each. Because you’ve got a pretty big reading to deal with, it’s better to think of your time in chunks per reading than per question. Most likely, you’ll find 8 readings on the GED reading test. That means, you’ll have just over 8 minutes for each reading. A good goal is to finish each one in 6 minutes. With a good plan, you’ll have no problem.

The reading test covers 75% literary texts and 25% nonfiction texts, which means you’ll probably have about 2 nonfiction readings, and 6 fiction readings. The fiction readings will include poetry, drama, prose fiction before 1920, prose fiction between 1920 and 1960, and prose fiction after 1960. The nonfiction readings will include two of the following three categories: nonfiction prose, critical reviews, or workplace and community documents. At the top of the selection, you’ll find a question. This isn’t a test question; it’s just a way for you to focus on the reading and put it in a context. It gives you a hint of what the reading is about and a way to start thinking about what you’re going to read. The readings are 200 to 400 words long, and poetry is 8 to 25 lines long.

The questions on the test fall into four categories.

1. About 8 questions (20%) will be comprehension questions. These questions want to know if you understood what you read. You’ll use skills like restating, summarizing, and inferring.
2. About 6 questions (15%) will be application questions. These questions want to know if you can apply what you read about to a new situation.
3. About 13 questions (30–35%) will be analysis questions. These questions want to know if you can make conclusions and relate conclusions to supporting statements, understand literary style and techniques, and recognize cause and effect.
4. About 13 questions (30–35%) will be synthesis questions. These questions want to know if you can link together different pieces of information. You’ll need to see patterns in what you read, understand tone and point of view, compare and contrast, and relate what you read to other information the test will give you.

Different Types of Readings

It’s important to realize that different types of reading involve different skills. You’ll have a few different types of readings to deal with. Most of them will be fictional, and a few will be nonfiction.

All the readings in the GED reading test will have a thinking question at the top. The thinking question gives you a context for the reading, and helps you focus on what it’s about. It’s not one of the questions you’ll need to answer for the test. The readings will also have line numbers on every fifth line, which help you find specific places in the reading. Sometimes the question will tell you to look at a specific line or lines.

All about the GED Math Test

The GED math test is the most difficult part of the GED for many students. The thinking skills required for GED math are more specialized. They’re math thinking skills. Since most people work with language a lot more than with numbers, language skills come easier for many people. Still, you can master GED math, with the right tools and the right approach.

The GED math test has two parts. One part of the math test doesn’t allow you to use a calculator, and the other part does. The calculator will be provided to you at the test site; you can’t bring your own. The calculator you’ll need to use is the Casio fx-260 Solar Scientific Calculator. Since it’s a little more complicated than a simple calculator, it’s a good idea to buy this calculator to practice with (it’s not expensive). It has some advanced features that can be helpful and time-saving on the GED test. And, since it operates a little differently than non-scientific calculators, you’ll want some practice to make sure you know how to use the basic features.

For both parts of the test, you’ll be given scratch paper to work out problems and make notes. Each part of the GED math test counts the same amount toward your final score, and each part will have 25 questions. You’ll have 45 minutes for each part. That gives you just over 1 minute, 45 seconds per question. If you average about a minute and a half (1 minute, 30 seconds) for each question, you’ll have time to go back over your answers. On the math test especially, though, you won’t spend the same amount of time on each question. Some questions should be easy and only take a few seconds, and some questions will need more time.

The makers of the math test want you to master:

• the ability to solve problems, analyze, and reason
• the ability to understand word problems, charts, tables, graphs, and diagrams
• the ability to understand math problems from real-life situations

The math test covers four general areas of math, and each is approximately 20% to 30% of the test, or about 12 to 13 questions.

Number Operations and Number Sense includes understanding negative and positive numbers, fractions, decimals, percents, scientific notation, ratios, proportions, roots and exponents and using these in real-life math problems. You’ll also need to understand different mathematical operations, like addition, subtraction, multiplication, and division, and when to use them. The test also expects you to be able to estimate to solve problems and check your answer.

Measurement and Geometry includes understanding concepts about geometric figures (like triangles, rectangles, lines, angles, and circles) and comparing them to each other. You’ll need to be able to visualize how figures look if they’re turned or flipped, use the Pythagorean Theorem to solve problems (learn to look for right triangles in diagrams!), graph a linear equation and understand graphed lines (including slope), use appropriate units of measurement and convert a measurement to a different type of unit (like inches to feet), solve problems of geometric sizes (like area, volume, or perimeter, including changes in measurements based on changes in the figure), solve problems about rate (like miles per hour), and read measurements (from scales, meters, or gauges).

Data Analysis, Statistics, and Probability includes understanding tables, charts, and graphs, including choosing effective ways to show data; analyzing, making conclusions about, making predictions from, and evaluating arguments based on data; understanding and using mean, median, and mode; and simple, dependent, and independent probability.

Algebra, Functions, and Patterns includes understanding variables; manipulating, changing, creating, and solving equations and expressions that include variables; showing equations involving variables as tables, graphs, equations, or in words; and understanding the meaning of formulas.

That’s a lot of math! But it’s definitely learnable, and focusing on understanding basic math concepts and developing math thinking skills will help. Most of the problems on the GED math tests are word problems, since the GED creators want to know that you understand how to solve problems in normal, everyday situations. You’ll see situations involving work, family and home, technology, and other everyday math contexts. Part of studying for the math test is understanding what type of math is needed in different situations and then being able to apply it.

80% of the math questions (40 questions) are multiple choice, which means that if you can estimate a solution, you may be able to choose the answer quickly, without working out every step of the problem. That’s a big time saver on the GED. 20% of the questions (about 10 questions) ask you to solve the problem without multiple choices. You’ll enter your answer in a grid. You’ll want to double check these answers, since a simple error might throw you off.

About half of the GED math questions include a visual part of some kind, like a diagram, chart, table, map, or other graphic. The GED math test’s thinking skills are divided into three types. About 20% (10 questions) of the test covers procedural questions, which ask you to choose the correct way to solve a problem; read and understand graphs, charts, and tables; make geometric figures; and round, estimate, or order numbers. About 30% (15 questions) of the math test are conceptual questions, which ask you to show that you know how basic math ideas work. The rest of the test, 50% or 25 questions, is about solving math problems. You need to understand what the question is asking for, choose the right information to use, choose the right math ideas needed to solve the problem, and solve it!

So, what do you need to pass? Here’s a good strategy for passing the math test.

Don’t sweat the tough algebra questions, like quadratic equations. At most there are 3, maybe 4 questions that deal with difficult algebra. If you missed all of these, and did okay on the rest, you would easily pass the test. You could spend a lot of time relearning algebra and still miss a couple of the questions.

Why? Because it’s hard to learn and remember more difficult math, and you’ve got a lot of other things you’re trying to learn and remember. If there are one or two things, like quadratic equations, that you just don’t seem to get, don’t sweat your time on them.

Instead, focus on really thoroughly learning the easier things and being able to think through the word problems and diagrams to understand what they’re really asking.

Choose the easiest way to solve problems. Maybe you don’t remember how to do quadratic equations and have no idea how to solve for x. You can probably still find the correct answer by trying to plug the values for x from the answer choices into the equation to see if they work.

Go back to the basics. If you can do simple number operations with different types of numbers, measurement, and some data analysis in abstract and word problem forms, you will do fine on the GED tests. Spending lots of time on the basics will help you the most.

Focus on word problems. Get as much practice with these as you can. Over 70% of the questions on math test are stated as math word problems. What you want to do is develop a basic word solving strategy that allows you to identify what you need to solve. You need to figure out the question. Finding the answer usually isn't too hard.

Learn to pace yourself and not waste time on questions you can’t answer. Answering all the questions that are easy and getting the right answers to questions you can do with a little work is your best strategy. You don't need to get every question right to pass, so make sure you have time to answer all the questions you know first. Then you can try to improve your score by figuring out some of the harder ones. Working with actual GED practice questions and then going back to relearn forgotten material is the best overall strategy.

What Is Really Important?

1. The math test covers a lot of ground, so it can be hard to focus your studying. Here’s what’s most important:
2. Knowing how to identify what a word problem is asking for and how to change the word problem into the right math problem.
3. Knowing basic math: addition, subtraction, multiplication, and division. You should be able to do basic math quickly and accurately, in your head. The more comfortable you are with basic math, the quicker and easier the test will be.
4. Being able to estimate correct answers in your head and look at the problem in a straightforward, real-world way, to see if your answer makes sense. Don’t get so caught up in complex math that you miss the simple ideas.
5. Being able to use the Casio fx-260 Solar Scientific Calculator accurately and easily.
6. Being able to use fractions, decimals, percentages, negative numbers, exponents, and ratios.
7. Being able to solve simple interest problems.
8. Knowing the Pythagorean Relationship and how to apply it to word problems and diagrams, especially recognizing right triangles in diagrams and illustrations.
9. Being familiar with metric measurements (like centimeter, meter, and kilometer) and English measurements (like feet, inches, and miles), and how to convert, add, and subtract them.
10. Understanding measures of central tendency (mean and median) and how to use them with data.
11. Understanding simple, independent, and dependent probability, like the likelihood of picking one particular card out of a deck.
12. Being able to read and understand tables, charts, and graphs.
13. Being able to manipulate and solve a simple equation for a variable (like x + 2 − 3x = 10).
14. Understanding and being able to use exponents and roots or scientific notation.
15. Knowing how to graph equations, lines, and points.
16. Being able to find the perimeter, area, or volume of geometric figures.
17. Understanding and being able to work with lines and angles.
18. Recognizing types of geometric shapes, knowing their qualities, and being able to compare them.

That’s less than 20 basic areas that you can master, by taking them one step at a time. None of them is too difficult. Just study one at a time until you’re comfortable with each one.

The GED math test gives you a page of math formulas that you can use on the test, but just seeing the formulas doesn’t do you any good. The important thing is understanding what they mean. You just need to understand what they mean.

All about the GED Social Studies Test

You’ll have 50 multiple choice questions to answer in 70 minutes. That means, on average you’ll have about 1¼ minutes per question. The social studies test will ask you questions based on both readings and visual materials. About 40% of the questions, or 20 questions, will be about a reading of 200 words or less. Another 40% (20 questions) will be about visual materials, like maps, charts and graphs, diagrams, cartoons, or pictures. The final 20% (10 questions) will have a combination of text and images. Map reading, understanding charts and graphs, and interpreting diagrams and pictures are all important skills for the social studies test, but these skills are not difficult to learn.

Often, several questions will be grouped together to apply to one text or image, but overall you’ll have more, shorter texts than on the reading test. Most often, there will be one or two questions about a particular short text, chart, map, or picture. A good plan is to aim at finishing one question per minute. That will leave plenty of time to go back to more difficult questions at the end of the test.

The social studies test covers 25% National U.S. History (12–13 questions), 15% World History (7–8 questions), 15% Geography (7–8 questions), 25% Civics and Government (12–13 questions), and 20% Economics (10 questions). That’s a lot of material to cover, and not very many questions. The test doesn’t try to check your knowledge of details of historical events, because it can’t. The area it covers is too broad. Anyone might have a broad knowledge of social studies and still be missing an important piece of information about a Civil War battle, so it would be unfair to test people on facts and dates. The social studies test addresses the bigger issues—whether you have a background of understanding against which to read, analyze and interpret information in all these different areas.

Your context for understanding social studies is more important than the details. The GED social studies test is 60% international and 40% national U.S. That means you need a background of thinking about the whole world, not just your own country or local area. Reading about world news can give you a good background for thinking about global issues.

You’ll also need to understand a few important historical documents. In the U.S., you’ll find questions about the Declaration of Independence, the U.S. Constitution, and landmark Supreme Court cases.

You’ll also find at least one practical document on the social studies test. That means a tax form, voter guide, political speech, or some other document that is important to you, as a citizen. This practical document shows how the big, global and national issues of civics or economics affect individuals like you.

Having a context and background to understand important social studies concepts is one part of the GED test. The other part is having the thinking skills to answer questions about social studies readings or visual information. The thinking skills on the social studies test are broken down into the following categories:

* About 10 questions (20%) will be comprehension questions. These questions want to know if you understood what you read. You’ll use skills like restating, summarizing, and inferring.

* About 10 questions (20%) will be application questions. These questions want to know if you can apply what you read about to a new situation. You’ll need to understand general principles and examples of those principles.

* About 20 questions (40%) will be analysis questions. These questions want to know if you can understand facts and opinions, make conclusions and relate conclusions to supporting statements and assumptions, recognize persuasive information and evaluate arguments, understand biases and viewpoints, and recognize cause and effect.

* About 10 questions (20%) will be evaluation questions. These questions want to know if you can evaluate information (by its source, objectivity, accuracy, and appropriateness), compare and contrast, and understand how values and beliefs affect decisions.

The GED social studies test won’t ask you to remember facts, names, and dates, but you will need to be able to read, understand, and interpret information and images. That means, you’ll need some background in important concepts.

On the test, you’ll definitely run into a question about the Declaration of Independence, the United States Constitution, or landmark Supreme Court cases. Since some of these documents can be difficult to read, it’s a good idea to become familiar with them. It will also give you background on important civics ideas.

All about the GED Science Test

You’ll have 50 multiple choice questions to answer in 80 minutes. That means, on average you’ll have about 1½ minutes per question. If you take about 75 seconds (1 minute, 15 seconds) per question, you’ll have plenty of time. Remember, though, that this is an average. Some questions will be easier, and some will be more difficult.

The science test covers 35% Physical Science (about 17–18 questions), 45% Life Science (about 22–23 questions), and 20% Earth and Space Science (about 10 questions). Physical Science covers atoms, matter and energy, chemistry, and forces and motion.

Life Science covers a wide range of issues about life and health, including cells, DNA and RNA, heredity, evolution, how plants and animals affect each other, and how plants and animals behave. Earth and Space Science includes questions about Earth’s systems and origin, the universe, and bodies in space.

On the science test, it’s important to have a good background in science and science thinking, but you won’t need to know a lot of details like scientific formulas or facts. For the most part, the information you need to know is all on the test. What you need is a solid background to interpret and understand the information.

The context of the science test covers five areas. The Unifying Concepts and Processes area is about fundamental science concepts. You’ll need to understand the overall idea of systems and organization in science, evidence and explanations, change and measurement, evolution and equilibrium, and form and function. Science as Inquiry involves asking questions, planning and carrying out experiments, tools to collect data or information, connecting evidence and conclusions, evaluating different explanations, and understanding science arguments. Science and Technology is about using science to develop technological solutions to problems. Science in Social and Personal Perspective is about how science affects the world. It covers natural resources, population, the environment, and government policy about science. History and Nature of Science addresses the human aspects of science and the history of science in different cultures.

The science test will cover both readings and visual information, including tables, charts and graphs, and diagrams. About 60% of questions may contain visual information, so it’s important to be able to read and understand charts and graphs.

About 25% of the test will be two to five questions about one chart, graph, or reading, but 75% of the test will be a single question about some information.

The science test covers comprehension, analysis, and application, but it does not break down specific percentages for different types of thinking skills.

Important Science Concepts

Your goal in studying for the GED science test is scientific literacy. That is, you should be familiar with broad science concepts and how science works. You should be able to read, analyze, and evaluate science information. Becoming familiar with important science subjects, concepts, and ways to present information will give you the background you need. However, you don’t have to memorize science ideas. You don’t need to remember all the terms. You do need to be able to read about science and understand what you’re reading, so that you can answer questions that ask you to analyze and apply the information. So, don’t focus on remembering everything you read. Focus on reading science better and comprehending more.

Look for Key Words

Key words in a question tell you what you’re looking for. These words give you important information about what the question is asking for. 

Look for words like:

1. comparison, compare: to show how two things are similar or different
2. conclusion: an opinion or idea based on facts
3. consider: think about
4. decrease, reduce, lessen: to make smaller or have less
5. defend: to give evidence for
6. describe: to tell about, often restating what’s in the reading
7. determine, produce: to cause
8. evidence, basis, support: the facts that support a conclusion, or show it’s true
9. explain, explanation: to give a reason for or tell what something means
10. increase, enlarge, gain: to make bigger or have more
11. influence, affect: contribute to or partially cause
12. most effective, most acceptable, most appropriate: best
13. require: need
14. shift: change
15. similar: like one another
16. suggest, imply, implication: a conclusion based on the reading, picture, or chart
17. summarize: to give the main idea
18. valid, accurate: correct

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