GED Tip: Reading Passages on the GED Test
A lot of the GED test involves reading a short amount of text and then answering questions about it. You’ll find questions like this on the GED reading, social science, and math tests. Sometimes the passages are difficult to understand, and sometimes reading them can take up a lot of valuable time. So how can you get the right answer most quickly and easily?
Here’s an example of what can happen. In the movie Desk Set, Spencer Tracy asks Katharine Hepburn a question that goes something like this:
A train started out at Grand Central… with 20 passengers aboard and a crew of nine. At 17th Street, four got off and nine got on. At White Plains, three got off and one got on. At Chappaqua, nine got off and four got on. And at each successive stop thereafter… nobody got off, nobody got on until the train reached its next-to-the-last stop, where five people got off and one got on. Then it reached the terminal.
Now, this is a trick question. Why? Because people who start hearing the story start adding and subtracting numbers to find out how many people are on the train at the end. But that’s not the question! Spenser Tracy finally asks:
How many people got off on Chappaqua?
If you were listening to the story, and doing math in your head to figure out how many people were left on the train, you’d have forgotten how many people got off at Chappaqua. After you read the question, you need to go back and look for the answer, right?
The GED is exactly like this trick question. The question itself isn’t a trick… the reading says nine people got off at Chappaqua. But when you first read it, you didn’t know what information to look for!
The GED test shows the reading first, and the questions after it. It seems to make sense to read first, then try to answer the questions, right? But how do you know what to look for in the reading? Reading the questions first can help focus your attention when you read the passage and allow you to find the answers quicker.
Not only that, but reading the answer choices helps, too. You know that one of the answer choices is correct, so they give you even more hints about what to look for. You can look for text that sounds like the answer choices, and think about which of the answer choices makes the most sense while you read. It’s a really simple idea… but it can save you time and give you more correct answers.
Good luck passing your GED test! Hope this GED Tip helps!
Oh, by the way… if you’re looking for more tips on how to read more effectively, check out Maria’s blog at: http://www.passged.com/student_blogs/maria/Â
