What is the GED?

The General Education Diploma (GED) test is an alternative to a high school diploma. The GED began during World War II to help prepare the members of the military who enlisted prior to finishing high school show that they had the education and skills to enter civilian jobs after the war. Since then it has become a standardized test offered throughout the United States and Canada.

The GED consists of 5 subtests on the following topics: reading, science, social studies, mathematics and language arts/writing. Each test takes 60 to 90 minutes; in addition the language arts/writing test will have you write a 45-minute essay. You can take the tests all at once, or take them one at a time.

There are more than 3,200 testing centers across the United States and Canada. You can usually find one at local community colleges or some school districts. To find the testing center closest to you, call 1-800-62-MY-GED. Once you find a testing center call and find out their procedure. Some may have pre-tests, some may require taking a free or low cost preparation class or other requirements.

The reading GED test has several passages, both fiction and nonfiction, that you read and then answer question about the passages. The fiction passages can be portions of a play, poem or excerpts from works of literature. The nonfiction passages can be newspaper or magazine articles, biographies, or informational text similar to what you would find in a textbook. The questions assess both the comprehension of the passages and you ability to analyze or us the information in other situations. You will have 65 minutes to answer the 40 reading questions.

The Science GED test is similar to the reading test in that you will see some passages with information followed by questions. Other questions will deal with graphs, charts, pictures and tables that you will have to interpret or analyze to answer the questions. The test questions are 35% on physical science (physics and chemistry), 45% on life science, and 20% on earth & space science. You will have 80 minutes to answer 50 questions.

The Social Studies GED test again has passages, graphs, charts, and pictures to accompany the multiple-choice questions. The content includes American history, world history, civics, government, economics and geography. You will have 70 minutes to answer the 50 questions.

The Mathematics GED test has two parts, one that you can use a calculator during and the other is without calculator use. The calculator will be provided by the testing center and no other calculators will be allowed. This test will include questions on number operations (addition, subtraction, multiplication and division), measurement, geometry, data analysis, probability, statistics, and algebra. You need to be familiar with using factions, percents and decimals in all operations. The majority of the questions will be in word problem format. Some of the questions will be in a non-traditional answer format and the test administrator will explain how to fill those sections out before the test begins. You will have 90 minutes to answer 50 questions.

The language arts/writing GED test also has two parts. The first part focuses on grammar and sentences structure and usage. You will have to identify sentences that don't belong in a paragraph, put paragraphs in the correct order and answer some questions about which word or pair of words will fit into a sentence. Other questions will deal with correct punctuation and other language mechanics. The second part of the test will be writing an essay. The essay will be scored on organization, development of ideas, and staying on topic. Things like sentence structure, punctuation, grammar and word choice will have an impact on scoring as well. The topic will be assigned and is usually an opinion essay so you don't have to have any special knowledge going into the test. You will have 75 minutes to complete the 50 questions in the first part and then 45 additional minutes to write the essay. If you finish the questions in less than 75 minutes, you can use the additional time to write the essay.

Each of the GED tests is scored individually and has a minimum passing grade of 410. However, the total of the five scores must be 2,250, which is an average of 450 per test. If you do get a 410 on one test, you need to have a higher score on another test to bring that up to the average of 450. If you don't pass a test, you can take only that one test over instead of having to start the whole series of tests again.