- Prepare to take your GED exam.young woman image by MAXFX from Fotolia.com
Taking the General Educational Development (GED) exam can be scary, but a passing score can earn you better opportunities for your future. The test consists of writing, reading, social studies, science, and math sections and you must pass each in order to get your GED. Proper preparation is the key to doing well. - Take a course to prepare for the GED. This is a smart move because you'll be able to learn all of the material that you need to know for the test, ask questions about things that you don't understand, and meet other students who may want to study together. Many community colleges offer free or low-cost GED courses each semester. If there isn't a course location in your area, you can try an online GED course.
- Pick up a few GED prep books if you're going to go the self-study route or simply want to supplement what you're learning in classes or online. Some feature practice exams in each of the sections, which you can use to get experience taking the test. The Princeton Review's "Cracking the GED" offers tips on not only how to answer questions, but how to guess correctly when you don't know the right answer. These types of test-taking skills can help you handle pressure in taking the test.
- Read questions first in the reading comprehension section. The GED features a reading comprehension section. It's important to remember that all the answers must come directly from the passage that you just read and not from any other sections or from information that you know to be true from other sources. It's helpful to read the questions before you read the passage so that you have an idea of what to look for as you're reading.
- Don't do it all in one day. You can take all five sections of the GED in one day, but it may be helpful to schedule the test on multiple days. This way, you can focus your studies on only a few subjects. You'll also feel less stress when you don't have to spend the entire day taking a test.
- Move on to the next question if you don't know the answer. The GED is a timed test. You have 45 minutes for each of two math sections, 70 minutes for the social studies section, 80 minutes for the science section, 65 minutes for reading comprehension, 75 minutes for the multiple-choice grammar section, and 45 minutes to write an essay. Don't spend too much time on any one question. When you don't know the answer to a question, skip it and come back to it if you have time after answering all the other questions.
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