What Do GED Test-Takers Need to Know?
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by Leonard Williams
Education has become a critical issue in America. 39 million Americans lack the most basic educational achievement: a high school diploma. What skills do these Americans need in order to earn their GED and move ahead in today’s economy?
The GED Academy guides hundreds of test-takers through the GED program. “We see the same stories over and over,” President Michael Ormsby says, “The first questions everyone asks are: What can I expect? What will the GED test be like? What do I need to know for the GED?”
The GED is a sophisticated test that measures the most important skills that people should learn in high school. The test is divided into five sections: mathematics, social studies, science, reading, and writing. Most of the sections are in a multiple choice format, and the writing section includes a timed essay. The questions are formulated to test essential real-life skills: problem solving, critical thinking, evaluation, information processing, and making inferences. “The GED,” Ormsby states, “is a thinking test. I call it a thinking marathon because the GED takes eight hours of almost non-stop thinking.”
The analogy is not a bad one. A person who planned to run a marathon would need to train his or her body, and in much the same way, GED test-takers need to train their minds to think in specific ways. Training for a marathon takes time, and runners spend time building up their muscles and lungs every day. In much the same way, Ormsby recommends that GED test-takers should set aside some time each day to practice. The amount of time adult learners spend in test preparation depends on their current level of learning. “GED test preparation is for a specific purpose. You’re learning a well-defined set of skills,” says Ormsby. “Not facts and figures, but skills, like how to think through a problem to come to the right conclusion. It may take a few weeks or a couple of months, but with the right preparation, adult learners are amazingly successful [at the GED].”
Just like running a marathon requires specific strategies to go all the way, passing the GED also requires strategies for pacing yourself and test-taking skills as well as specific thinking skills. The emphasis of the GED is on measuring test-takers’ ability to reason, observe, and think clearly…skills that Ormsby insists adults can learn using the right tools.
The benefits of the GED are difficult to deny. GED graduates can qualify for better jobs and higher education. With a GED, an adult will on average earn $350,000 more throughout a lifelong career. Adults who go on to higher education earn even more. Ormsby credits this, in part, to the real-life skills that students learn to pass the GED. “It’s more than just a paper,” he says. “The GED represents essential knowledge and understanding.”
For more information about GED online study programs, visit: www.passged.com
Additional GED Test Information:
http://www.dtae.org/adultlit/Perspectives9/testtips.html
http://adulted.about.com/cs/ged/a/GED2002.htm