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.