Introducing the GED® Test
Welcome to McGraw-Hill Education: Preparation for the GED® Test! Congratulations on choosing the preparation guide from America’s leading educational publisher. You probably know us from many of the textbooks you used in school. Now we’re ready to help you take the next step—and get the high school equivalency credential you want.
Before you start your study program, this chapter will give you a brief introduction to the exam. In the following pages, you’ll learn:
• The history of the GED® test and how it took its current shape
• The structure of each part of the GED® test
• How the test is scored
• Some basic test-taking strategies
• Some dos and don’ts for test day
About the GED® Test
“GED®” stands for General Educational Development. The GED® test is commonly referred to as a “high school equivalency” test because passing scores on all the test sections are usually accepted as equal to a high school diploma.
The GED® program started in 1942 during World War II. Many young people had joined the armed services before completing high school. As a way to help returning veterans reenter civilian life with the equivalent of a high school diploma, which would help them get better jobs or go on to college, the U.S. military asked the American Council on Education (ACE) to develop the GED® test.
The GED® test was revised several times over the years, but many things remained constant. There were five separate test sections: Language Arts–Reading, Language Arts–Writing, Social Studies, Science, and Mathematics. These were standard “paper-and-pencil” tests that featured mostly multiple-choice questions. In 2002 a computerized version of the test was introduced. It did not differ much from the paper-and-pencil version.
ACE, a nonprofit organization, administered the GED® program until 2011. In that year, ACE formed a new partnership with Pearson, a major educational publisher, to create the GED® Testing Service. The first major goal of the new joint venture was to overhaul the old GED® test series and create a new series of tests that use modern computer technology to measure career and college readiness.
The 2014 version of the GED® test was a major departure from the 2002 and earlier versions. Some key differences are:
• There is no paper-and-pencil version of the test. Only a computer version is available.
• There are four, not five, test sections: Reasoning Through Language Arts (RLA), Mathematical Reasoning, Science, and Social Studies.
• The test uses new question formats that may be unfamiliar to test-takers. (But don’t worry—we will get you up to speed!)
• Multiple-choice questions have four, not five, answer options.
There are some other major differences that are more important to test designers and teachers than to test-takers like you, but in case you are interested, here they are:
• Instead of using Benjamin Bloom’s Taxonomy for measuring the difficulty of questions, the tests now use Norman Webb’s Depth of Knowledge measurements.
• Questions are aligned to the Common Core Standards rather than to standards generated by various boards or groups of educators, as they were in the past.
Again, these are not changes you need to be concerned about. These changes tell the test designers what to test and how difficult to make each item.
In February of 2014, a few additional changes were made to the test. The Mathematical Reasoning test was expanded from 90 minutes to 115 minutes. The Social Studies Extended Response question was removed, which makes the total time for the Social Studies Test now 70 minutes. Test-takers are now allowed to bring their own TI-30XS Multiview Scientific Calculator (this is the only calculator allowed). The score report now includes four different scoring level descriptions to help test-takers better interpret their test results.
The current format of the GED® is as follows:
How Do I Register?
In 2014, more than 223,000 people took at least one of the GED® test sections. That makes it one of the most widely administered tests in the world. Luckily, that means you will probably have a lot of options about where to take the test.
The quickest way to register is to do so online at:
Visit this website and follow the step-by-step instructions for registering and scheduling your test. You can also locate an official GED® testing location by signing in on the site and clicking “Locate a test center” at the bottom of the page.
You must register and schedule your test times in advance, and the times tests are offered vary from center to center. Each of the GED® tests is scheduled separately.
Test-taking accommodations are available for those who need them, but test-takers must get approval in advance for these accommodations. Accommodations include:
• An audio or Braille version of the test
• A private testing area
• Extended testing periods
• Additional break times
• Font-size options
You must get the appropriate approval form filled out and approved. You can find the forms here:
http://www.gedtestingservice.com/testers/accommodations-for-disability#Accommodations4
In general, you will need documentation from your doctor or your school that proves testing accommodations are recommended and necessary. It will take 30 days for the GED® testing service to review your application, so make sure you leave plenty of time for the approval process.
Question Formats
Do not worry too much about the question formats. The bulk of the current version of the GED® test is made up of multiple-choice questions, which almost everyone has experienced at one point or another. But some new question types do take some getting used to. Here is what to expect:
• Drag and drop: Drag-and-drop questions can look a variety of different ways, but what they ask you to do is use the computer mouse to select an object (it could be a word, a shape, a set of numbers, or another object) and “drag” it into a correct position in some kind of diagram. If you use a computer, you are probably familiar with the concept of “dragging” and “dropping.” It is exactly what you do when you move the icon for a document from one folder to another. Look at the simple question that follows:
In this case, it is clear you should drag hot, yellow, and large into the “Words That Describe the Sun” column and green, extinct, and freezing into the “Words That Do Not Describe the Sun” column. Your correct answer would look like this:
This is the basic idea of a drag-and-drop question. You will find many more examples in the practice tests and instructional chapters of this book.
• Hot spot: Hot spot items appear mostly in the Mathematical Reasoning test. They require you to plot points on a graph, alter a chart, or complete a similar task. Here is an example:
Click on the grid below to plot the point indicated by the ordered pair (1, −3).
To answer this question, you have to “click” with your mouse on the correct point on the graph. In this case, you would move one place over along the x-axis to 1, and then move down the y-axis to −3. Your correct answer would look like this:
• Fill in the blank: This is a question type that is familiar to most people. On the GED® tests, you will simply type in the correct answer. For example, look at this item:
Do not forget to take (you) ________________ umbrella.
This question is testing whether you know when to use apostrophes. So your correct answer would look like this:
Do not forget to take Your umbrella.
In this case no apostrophe is required because your is an adjective describing umbrella.
• Drop-down: In a drop-down item, you will see a blank space, usually in a reading passage. At the start of the space, you will see the word “Select . . .” with an arrow. If you “click” on the arrow with your mouse, you will see a drop-down menu showing several answer options that could fill the blank space. This concept will be familiar to you if you often use the Internet. Many Web pages have “menus,” and if you use your mouse to click on them, multiple options appear. Here is a simple example:
It is raining out, so you should probably take your 
with you to work today.
If you “click” on the arrow, here is what you will see:
It is raining out, so you should probably take your 
with you to work today.
In this case, you should select umbrella as the best answer option.
• Short answer and extended response: These are two versions of the same thing: an essay question. There is one extended response question on the Reasoning Through Language Arts test and there are two short answer questions on the Science test. The only difference is the length. You will see many examples in the practice tests and chapters to come. You will be asked a question and expected to answer in your own words, typing your response. The question will be based either on a passage or another set of information or on your personal experience and opinions.
The Reasoning Through Language Arts (RLA) Test
This test measures both your reading and your writing skills. You will be tested on your ability to read carefully, write clearly, and understand and use Standard English grammar.
You will see multiple reading passages on this test. About 75 percent of these passages will be nonfiction. The rest will be literature. There will be no poetry selections. These items test your reading comprehension.
Your writing abilities will be assessed through the extended-response question. Various question formats will test your understanding of Standard English grammar.
You will have 150 minutes to complete the test, which is broken into three sections as follows:
The time allowed for Parts 1 and 3 may vary slightly from what is shown above, but the total time for the RLA test will always be 150 minutes. The exact number of questions on Parts 1 and 3 varies.
The Mathematical Reasoning Test
The Mathematical Reasoning test is 115 minutes long and features items in a variety of formats. There is a short section of 5–7 questions on which a calculator is not allowed, but for the bulk of the test, a calculator is allowed. The calculator is available on the computer screen.
You may bring a calculator from home if you prefer, but it must be the TI-30XS Multiview Scientific Calculator. This is the only model of calculator allowed. You will be given a Formula Sheet that has formulas for perimeter, area, surface area, volume, and some formulas you will need for algebra questions.
The Mathematical Reasoning test is broken into two sections as follows:
The total number of questions varies. About half of the test (45%) focuses on quantitative problem solving, and about half (55%) focuses on basic algebraic problem solving. There are some geometry questions as well. The test measures skills both with straightforward math problems and with hypothetical real-world situations that require you to decide how to use your problem-solving skills to arrive at the correct answer.
The Science Test
You will have 90 minutes to complete the Science test. About 40 percent of the test focuses on life science, about 40 percent focuses on physical science, and the remaining 20 percent focuses on Earth and space science. The total number of questions varies.
The Science test features a full range of question formats. You may use a calculator on the Science test.
The Social Studies Test
The Social Studies test is 70 minutes long. Fully half of the test focuses on civics and government, so get ready to brush up on your knowledge of state and federal government and the duties of citizens. The rest of the test focuses on U.S. history (20%), geography and the world (15%), and economics (15%). The total number of questions varies. You may use a calculator on the Social Studies test.
More About the Test Interface
Taking a test on a computer understandably makes many people nervous. Test-taking features you may be familiar with, such as the ability to mark skipped questions with a pencil so that you can return to them later, are not available. Scratch paper is not allowed. However, the test has many features and functions that can improve the test-taking experience.
• Built-in clock: Keeping track of the time is easy because the test has a built-in clock that appears in the upper-right-hand corner of the screen.
• Erasable note boards: You cannot use scratch paper, but the test offers erasable note boards that work just as well. You will be given a pack of three erasable note boards and an erasable marker to use, and you will deliver the note boards to the test administrator after completing your test.
• Marking skipped items: In the past, when the GED® test was a paper-and-pencil exam, test-takers often marked skipped items on their answer sheets and returned to them as time allowed. The computerized GED® test allows you to either click “Flag for Review” at the upper right of the question screen or just skip questions without marking them, and it provides a Question Review Screen at the end of the test that lists all of the question numbers and indicates whether each one is answered or unanswered and shows a filled-in flag icon next to the questions you flagged for review. You can then click any question number to return to that question to review or answer it if desired. You can also click “Review All,” “Review Unanswered,” or “Review Flagged” at the bottom of the Question Review Screen to select which questions you wish to review.
• Highlighting: You can select a section of text and click the “Highlight” button to highlight that text. This may be of particular use on passages where you want to remember certain parts.
• Test customization: The GED® test has some features that allow you to customize your test-taking experience. You have a choice of eleven different background and text color combinations to make the computer screen easier to read. You can change the size of the font by using the “Custom Font” button. You can also zoom in on text to improve visibility.
• No separate answer sheets: One of the problems with conventional bubble-in answer sheets is that accidentally skipping one row on the answer sheet can throw off a test-taker’s entire score. On the computerized GED® test, you are presented with one question on the screen at a time, and you answer directly on that screen before moving on, so there is no chance of “bubbling in” on the wrong line of an answer sheet.
How the Tests Are Scored
Scores on the computerized GED® tests are determined based on the number of correctly answered questions. However, all questions are not weighted equally. Because of the new question types, some questions are worth more than others. The number of different question types will vary from one version of a test to another. This is one of the reasons why there is no way to know ahead of time how many questions you must answer correctly in order to pass.
When you complete each test section, the GED® Testing Service uses a statistical method to convert your raw scores (the number of points earned for answering questions correctly) into scaled scores. Scaled scores are used so that test-takers’ results on different versions of the test can be compared fairly. For example, you might take a version of a test that is hard while another person takes a version of the test that is a bit easier. You might both have the same raw score. But since you were taking the hard version of the test, your raw score would show a better mastery of the subject than the raw score of the person taking the easier test. Your scaled score would therefore be higher than the other person’s scaled score. This is another reason why we cannot know in advance how many questions must be answered correctly to pass a test: raw scores on different tests might show different levels of performance.
For each of the four test sections, the scaled scores can range from 100 to 200 points. The GED® Testing Service considers a scaled score of 145 on each test section to be the “Passing Standard.” To earn your high school equivalency credential, you must earn a scaled score of at least 145 points on each of the four test sections.
Your score may be further interpreted according to the following score levels:
• Below Passing: 100–144
• GED® Passing Score: 145–164
• GED® College Ready: 165–174
• GED® College Ready + Credit: 175–200
The Passing Score designation on a test means that you have demonstrated skills in that subject area that are equivalent to those of high school graduates. This gives you a high school equivalency credential.
The College Ready designation on a test means that you are ready for college-level work in that subject area, or are ready to begin a career. In addition to earning a high school equivalency credential, you may also be eligible to enroll directly in credit-bearing courses in a college or university, subject to the policies of the institution to which you apply.
The College Ready + Credit designation on a test means that you have demonstrated some of the skills that are taught in college-level courses in that subject area. This may make you eligible for up to 10 semester-hours of related college credit, subject to the policies of the institution to which you apply.
The tests are scored in their entirety by an automated scoring engine—even short-response and extended-response items are scored by computer. Scores are reported within three hours of the completion of the test.
Test-Taking Strategies
The best path to a good score on the GED® tests is simply knowing the material. However, no matter how hard you study, there will probably be some questions on the GED® tests that throw you for a loop. In those cases, you need to have some test-taking strategies ready.
Certain test-taking strategies have been proven to help test-takers, particularly in solving multiple-choice questions. The GED® test still relies mainly on multiple-choice questions, so keep the following in mind:
• The correct answer is staring you in the face. Remember, the great thing about multiple-choice questions is that the correct answer is right in front of you. You just have to identify it. You do not have to retrieve it from your memory or come up with it on your own. Use this fact to your advantage.
• Use the process of elimination. On the GED® test, there is no penalty for wrong answers, so if you don’t know the answer to a question, you have nothing to lose by guessing. And if you must guess, you can improve your chances of guessing correctly by using the “process of elimination,” or POE.
Think about it this way: on the GED® test, multiple-choice items have four answer choices. If you just guess randomly, you still have a one-in-four chance of being correct. But what if you know that one of the answer choices is definitely wrong? Go ahead and eliminate that option. Now you have a one-in-three chance of guessing correctly. Your odds have just improved considerably. If you can eliminate two options, you are up to a 50 percent chance of selecting the correct answer. That’s even better. Here is an example of how this works:
Who was the first person to fly an airplane solo across the Atlantic Ocean?
A. George Washington
B. Orville Wright
C. Charles Lindbergh
D. Amelia Earhart
Let’s say you are not sure of the answer. Write ABCD on your erasable note board. It seems clear that you can eliminate George Washington as a choice. He was the first at something, of course—the first president of the United States—but airplanes were not even invented when he was alive, so he is not an option. Cross off A and now you are down to three choices. Orville Wright might seem connected to airplanes somehow. You might remember that it was the Wright brothers who built the first airplane to successfully make a controlled, sustained flight. But neither brother flew across the Atlantic. So eliminate B. Now you are down to two choices. Both Charles Lindbergh and Amelia Earhart were famous pilots in the early years of aviation. But who was the first to cross the Atlantic? You have no idea? No matter. You are down to two options. Go ahead and guess. You have a 50 percent chance of being correct. (By the way, it was Charles Lindbergh who made the first trans-Atlantic solo flight in 1927. Amelia Earhart became the first woman to complete a solo trans-Atlantic flight five years later.)
• Keep an eye on the clock, and do not get hung up. It may be tempting to keep wrestling with a difficult question until you have it mastered, but remember that you do not have all day. You have a set amount of time, and your goal should be to at least attempt every single question on the test. If you do some quick math based on the time limits and question totals given in the previous section, you will see that the longest you should spend on any given question is about two minutes. If you have been struggling and coming up empty for five minutes, skip the question or guess the answer and click “Flag for Review” and move on. You probably have many questions ahead of you that you can answer correctly, so go get those points!
• Save the last five minutes for guessing . . . and always guess! Suppose that you have gone through every item on the test. You have returned to skipped items and applied the process of elimination and come up with an acceptable answer. If there are still a few questions that leave you completely stumped, don’t sweat it. Just guess. You still have a one-in-four chance of being right on multiple-choice items. The GED® test does not penalize you for wrong answers. They simply count as zeros. So why miss out on possible points? Pick something, even on one of the new question types. Put down some kind of answer. Never leave a question unanswered.
• Use short, simple sentences. On short-answer and extended-response questions, do not try to get too fancy. You can always make sure you are being grammatically correct if you keep your sentences simple and clear.
• Use your erasable note board to outline your extended response. Before just starting to write an answer to the extended-response question, think for a minute or two about what you want to say, in what order, and how you intend to support your opinions or assertions. Make a quick outline. It does not have to follow a formal format. Just know where you are going with a response before you start typing.
• Proofread your work. Once you finish your short answer or extended response, read through it carefully to make sure there are no obvious mistakes.
Test-Day Tips
This will all sound like very commonsense advice, but you would be surprised at how often people do not prepare properly for test day. So here is your pretest and test-day checklist:
1. Congratulate yourself for having used McGraw-Hill Education: Preparation for the GED® Test to prepare yourself thoroughly for your test. You are ready.
2. At least a day or two before the test, make a dry run at getting yourself to the test-taking facility. Are you sure you know exactly where to show up—not just which building, but which room on which floor? If you are driving, is there parking available? Where, and how far from the facility? How much does it cost? What is traffic like at the time your test is scheduled? Is there gas in the car? If you are taking public transportation, do you know the quickest, best route to your test-taking facility?
3. Plan to arrive 30 minutes early. Yes, that seems like it is very early. But the unexpected always happens, so be prepared. If you are early, so what? Sit down, relax, and visualize yourself acing the test. But if there is unexpected road construction or if the subway or bus is delayed, you will be glad you had a little time cushion. You do not want to arrive barely in the nick of time, and you definitely do not want to be late. At some facilities, you will not even be admitted if you are late.
4. Don’t stay up all night studying the night before the test. Go ahead and review a little, but a good night’s sleep is more beneficial than last-minute cramming.
5. Eat breakfast. Or lunch. Or whatever meal comes right before your test time. Just do not let yourself go into the test hungry and thirsty.
6. Dress in layers. Some testing facilities are as cold as freezers. Others are as hot as ovens. Be ready for anything so you can stay comfortable.
How to Use This Book to Set Up a Study Plan
This book features pretests and posttests in all four subject areas. Before you begin your course of study, take the pretest in the subject you plan to tackle first. Use the answer explanations and scoring rubric to see how well you performed. Your performance on the pretest will give you a good idea of which areas you need to work on and which areas you have already mastered.
How much time you decide to devote to each subject area depends completely on your own schedule and your level of mastery of each subject area. There is no set prescription. This book is broken into short, manageable chunks of information, so you can take it one step at a time at your own pace. Here is a sample study plan for each test that you can use or modify to meet your needs.
Reasoning Through Language Arts (RLA) One Month Study Plan
Mathematical Reasoning One Month Study Plan
Science One Month Study Plan
Social Studies One Month Study Plan
If you have a packed daily schedule with very little time to devote to studying and you find that you need a lot of review in a given area, you will probably need to give yourself plenty of time. For example, if you are a parent with a full-time job, you may find that by the time you get the children to bed, you only have enough energy for 30 minutes of studying. That’s fine. Just try to do one topic a night, and give yourself at least six weeks to finish your study for each test. You can extend the time allowed in the study plans to accommodate your busy schedule.
On the other hand, if you want to get through your series of GED® tests as quickly as possible in order to achieve some further goal (get a certain job or promotion, apply to college, or the like) and you have several hours or more of free time every day, you could conceivably prepare yourself for one test in two weeks. You can compress the study plans in order to shorten your preparation time.
You may find that you need more time for one subject than you do for another. Adjust the study plans accordingly. Whatever you decide, write down your plan on a calendar (how many pages per night, for example) and stick to it. It may take a lot of determination, but you can do it.
Finally, turn to family and friends for support and encouragement. What you are doing is important, hard work. You deserve plenty of praise and pats on the back.
We wish you the best of luck—on the test and beyond!