Liz’s World

It’s really helpful to review GED essays from other students, and think about how you might grade them if you were a GED teacher. Can you understand the essay? Is it enjoyable? Does it seem to have a point? Is it saying something interesting?

Well, here’s another GED essay a student sent in to me, plus my comments. Here’s a good practice exercise: try rewriting the essay yourself to see if you can make it better.

Good luck with the GED! Here’s the essay…my comments are after:

What Is A True Friend?

A true friend is someone you can: trust, respect, and rely on. Friends could be more than a (brother or sister) family member. There are some feelings or thoughts in which no one would share with a family member. Thoughts can be a secret of a emotional feeling in which we can experience that have to share other than a family. A particular, true friend would give an advice when needed, in any time or day.

Friends would not tell any one of your secrets, e ven though; some secrets has to brake. Brake a secret can be broken especially in a life or death matter. For example, if a friend admits that he or she has a severe illness and that they would last short before death. This situation can be very stressful and confusing towards the person who is trying to help. It may escalate the relationship into a distrust.

I would suggest in this situation if you would like to help a friend is to share the problem in other aspect to a professional. This professional person must not know your other friend. Any friend would realize how much you cared about them by doing best for them. Any friend would forgive you after realizing how much you had to tell someone else about the secret.

In my aspect a true friend is characterized on how much care and attention was given through time. A true friend is not only make you laugh, but someone who makes you cry.

From this essay, I can tell that the writer definitely has a good idea of what a true friend is. This essay is probably around a 2–which is passing. But it can definitely be improved, and a 3 or higher score will help you pass the writing multiple choice exam and get a better overall GED score. When you’re writing an essay for the GED, I want you to think–how does something in my life fit with this essay? What person I know or thing that happened to me can I write about? The main thing you can improve in your essay is that it’s too general… you talk about people in general and friends in general. The GED essay asks you to give specific details and examples…and the best way to get those details and examples is from your own life.

Do you have a true friend? Was there a specific time that you shared an important feeling or secret with your friend? Or, when someone shared a feeling or secret with you…maybe even when you needed to tell a friend’s secret in order to help him? Maybe there’s nothing that dramatic in your life…maybe you just remember a great summer you had with a schoolfriend when you were young, or a friend who helped you through a difficult time.

Try making your essay about telling a story… a real story, with specific details. It will help you score higher–and it might even be easier to write.

Make sure the middle of your essay talks about all the different things you mention in the first paragraph. In your first paragraph you mention: trust, respect, reliability, sharing thoughts and feelings, and giving advice. In the middle paragraphs, you talk about trust and sharing secrets… but you don’t elaborate (give more detail about) respect, reliability, and giving advice. One good way to do this is to mention 2-3 things in your first paragraph…like, 2-3 qualities of a good friend. Then, write 1 paragraph about each in the middle paragraphs. Then, in your last paragraph, you can sum up everything you talked about. If you write your essay this way, you can think of a different example of each quality of friendship from your life. For example, if in the opening paragraph, you mention trust, reliability, and giving advice, maybe your second paragraph mentions a time you trusted a friend with a secret…your third paragraph might mention a time when a friend relied on you for help… and your fourth paragraph mentioned a time you gave one of your friends some good advice. You would use real details from life… so think of the details first, before you write the beginning of your essay. Then, a fifth paragraph would be a conclusion about what friendship means to you.

Another hint is to use simple sentences when you write…simpler sentences are easier to write and easier for the reader to understand.

One thing I really liked in this essay is the last sentence, that a true friend not only makes you laugh, but also makes you cry. I’d like to know more about that idea… I need to understand how it fits with the rest of the essay.

So, do you think you can rewrite this essay for the GED? Give it a try! It’s good practice.

For more information about the GED test and GED test preparation, visit The GED Academy at http://www.passGED.com.