Top 5 GED Test-Taking Secrets
By Michael Ormsby
39 million American adults never earned a high school diploma--a fact that holds them back from higher-paying jobs and higher education. Earning a GED is a solution, but many undereducated adults lack test-taking skills.
The 39 million adult Americans who have no high school degree earn lower wages and aren’t eligible for many career and educational opportunities. That’s why more than 800,000 people take the GED each year. Unfortunately, many of them don’t pass on their first try. Adults who never completed high school often struggle with school-related skills, and test-taking is a skill just like anything else. If you know a few secrets, taking tests like the GED becomes a lot easier.
Whenever questions are based on a reading or picture, read the questions first. The questions tell you what to look for in the reading or picture. Knowing what to look for helps you focus your attention--and find the answers more quickly.
2. Don’t look for tricks or traps.
There are no trick questions on the GED. The questions are designed to be clear and easy to understand. Don’t spend time looking for a hidden meaning or a loophole. If an answer seems obvious, then it’s correct.
3. Try to answer the question before looking at the choices.
When you read a question, think about it without looking at the answer choices. When you come up with an answer, you’ll know for certain that it’s correct if it’s one of the choices listed. If your answer isn’t listed, you’ll need to look at the question again.
4. Eliminate wrong answers.
Even when you’re not certain that you have the right answer, you can usually eliminate one or more wrong answers. Narrowing down your choices makes it easier to figure out the correct answer. When you’re choosing between two answers instead of four, you’re more focused.
5. Know how to guess.
Guessing is not just picking an answer. You can use some logical deduction to figure out what’s probably the right answer, even if you don’t know for sure. Techniques like focusing on key words and phrases, estimating, and comparing answers to each other can help make more of your guesses correct answers.
Michael Ormsby is the president of The GED Academy and oversees software and curriculum for adult learners and people with educational challenges. For more information, visit passGED.com. Michael can be contacted by telephone at 800-460-8150.
