Here’s the GED practice essay question:

Sometimes, we don’t know in advance how we’ll react to a new situation.

Describe a time when you were faced with a new or difficult situation and explain your reaction. Do you wish you’d acted differently? Why or why not? Use your personal observations, experience, and knowledge to support your essay.

And here’s my GED essay so far:

The unhappiest time in my life was when I didn’t talk to my son for a year. The reason was that I reacted bad to my son getting engaged. His engagement was surprising and shocking to me, and I wish I had reacted differently.

My son came over one day for dinner, and he bought a girl I never met before. He didn’t even tell me he was bringing anyone. Than he told me they were getting married. I was very upset! I thought he was too young. When he saw I wasn’t happy, my son got very angry at me, we had a fight.

Because I couldn’t be happy about their getting married, my son wouldn’t talk to me. He said he would talk to me, if I accepted him getting married. But I got stubborn. I thought he was making a big mistake. Finally, though, his wedding date came up. I was sad that I might miss his wedding, and I called him. It was hard for him to trust me, after how angry and stubborn I was. But we both wanted to get along. I spent some time getting to know the girl he was engaged too and I figured out that I liked her. I was able to go to their wedding, and now, I love my extended family.

Now, it’s time for an ending. In GED terms, that’s the conclusion. You want to have a good conclusion, because that’s the last thing the GED exam reader reads. You want them to have a good impression.

When I did my prewriting (really important on the GED), here’s what I came up with:

Conclusion

• Now, I love my daughter-in-law
• Nearly spoiled relationship with son
• Need to think before I react

Hmmm… seems like I kind of mentioned some of that in my last paragraph. Well, I want to wrap up everything and give it a real ending by saying what it all means. I mean, what’s the point? That’s the biggest GED question, I think… what’s the point? Anyway, here’s what I wrote for my GED essay conclusion:

Because of my own bad reaction to being surprised, I almost missed my son’s wedding and missed out on having a new daughter-in-law who I love. It teached me that I need to think before I react and not let my feelings get in the way of what’s important. I really wasn’t looking at things from my son’s point of view, because I was so sure I was right. By stopping and listening to my son, I could have made all of our lives happier.

Another good way to think of the conclusion for your GED essay is to ask: what did it teach me? What did I learn because of whatever I’m writing? That’s like saying, what’s the point? That’s why I put in what I learned.

Well, that’s it so far… a whole GED essay, or at least a draft. The next step is to go through it and make it better. I’ll talk about that next time. Meanwhile, have fun with your GED studying!

To find out more about the GED test and GED test preparation, visit The GED Academy at passGED.com.

Sometimes, we don’t know in advance how we’ll react to a new situation.

Describe a time when you were faced with a new or difficult situation and explain your reaction. Do you wish you’d acted differently? Why or why not? Use your personal observations, experience, and knowledge to support your essay.

And here’s the first paragraph of my GED essay (at least, so far)…

The unhappiest time in my life was when I didn’t talk to my son for a year. The reason was that I reacted bad to my son getting engaged. His engagement was surprising and shocking to me, and I wish I had reacted differently.

Now I’ve got to turn my outline of the middle part of the GED essay into a draft. I planned out two paragraphs. The first one tells a story:

Second paragraph: Story of my son telling me he’s engaged.

• I didn’t know the girl
• Thought he was too young
• Was upset
• He got angry

That’s easy. I just want to tell the story: begin at the beginning, go on to the end, and then stop…

My son came over one day for dinner, and he bought a girl I never met before. He didn’t even tell me he was bringing anyone. Than he told me they were getting married. I was very upset! I thought he was too young. When he saw I wasn’t happy, my son got very angry at me, we had a fight.

Here’s the outline of my next paragraph…

Third paragraph: what happened next

• Son wouldn’t talk to me
• Hard to get friendship/trust back
• Getting to know daughter-in-law

It’s more storytelling, so I’ll go on with my story…

Because I couldn’t be happy about their getting married, my son wouldn’t talk to me. He said he would talk to me, if I accepted him getting married. But I got stubborn. I thought he was making a big mistake. Finally, though, his wedding date came up. I was sad that I might miss his wedding, and I called him. It was hard for him to trust me, after how angry and stubborn I was. But we both wanted to get along. I spent some time getting to know the girl he was engaged too and I figured out that I liked her. I was able to go to their wedding, and now, I love my extended family.

I know a lot of people teach a five paragraph essay for the GED test, but you don’t need five paragraphs. I’ve got four in my GED essay.

The middle part needs to have details in it, and the good thing about telling a story like this is that it gives a lot of details. You just tell what happened. Next time, I’ll show you the draft of the GED essay conclusion. That’s the other important part… you want to start with a good impression and then leave off the GED test reader with a great impression!

To find out more about the GED test and GED test preparation, visit The GED Academy at passGED.com.

Sometimes, we don’t know in advance how we’ll react to a new situation.

Describe a time when you were faced with a new or difficult situation and explain your reaction. Do you wish you’d acted differently? Why or why not? Use your personal observations, experience, and knowledge to support your essay.

I used my outline to put together my ideas. The first thing I did was draft my first paragraph. For the first paragraph, I need: (1) an interesting introduction; (2) my main idea; and (3) any background or other information that’s part of the beginning, like tying it all back to the question. Here’s all I had in my outline:

Main idea: I reacted bad to my son’s engagement

I guess thinking of an interesting introduction is the biggest challenge. I want those GED test readers to have a good first impression! I thought maybe I’d say something surprising…. something that sums up why the whole situation was bad… something like… “The unhappiest time in my life was when I didn’t talk to my son for a year.” That sounds pretty good, right? Then, I figured I’d need to explain the reason, that I reacted bad to my son getting engaged. Then, maybe explain how it goes with the question… Here’s what I wrote.

The unhappiest time in my life was when I didn’t talk to my son for a year. The reason was that I reacted bad to my son getting engaged. His engagement was surprising and shocking to me, and I wish I had reacted differently.

The beginning paragraph is pretty important. Like I said, making a good first impression! Next time, I’ll show you how I drafted the middle of my GED essay.

Sometimes, we don’t know in advance how we’ll react to a new situation.

Describe a time when you were faced with a new or difficult situation and explain your reaction. Do you wish you’d acted differently? Why or why not? Use your personal observations, experience, and knowledge to support your essay.

The first thing I did when prewriting was a list. I just jotted down stuff I thought of.

New/difficult situation:

• finding out I was pregnant
• being proposed to
• getting divorced
• son’s engagement

When I had a few ideas, I decided which one I wanted to talk about. I thought learning about my son’s engagement was the best one. Then, I tried to put together an outline about my son’s engagement:

Main idea: I reacted bad to my son’s engagement

Second paragraph: Story of my son telling me he’s engaged.

• I didn’t know the girl
• Thought he was too young
• Was upset
• He got angry

Third paragraph: what happened next

• Son wouldn’t talk to me
• Hard to get friendship/trust back
• Getting to know daughter-in-law

Conclusion

• Now, I love my daughter-in-law
• Nearly spoiled relationship with son
• Need to think before I react

I think I’m ready to write it with this outline… next time I’ll show you how I write my draft.

I came up with a list of ways you can prewrite:

Questions

A good way to get ideas is to ask a lot of questions. What would you want to know, if you were reading the essay? What questions does the issue raise for you?

Brainstorm

Brainstorming means to just write down whatever comes into your head, anywhere on a piece of paper. It’s easier to do with a friend, but you can practice brainstorming on your own. Some people even like to doodle in their brainstorming!

Freewriting

Freewriting means that you just pick up your pencil and start writing on the topic. Write anything that comes to mind! Then, you can use your freewriting as ideas to write an organized draft.

Visualizing

If you’re a visual person like Dwaynee and like pictures, you can close your eyes and try to picture things related to what you’re writing about. You can draw pictures or sketches about what you want to say, and then use that to help you find the right words!

List of Ideas

This is just writing down your ideas in a list. Then, you can organize them later. You can put your ideas in an outline or an idea web…

Outline

An outline gives structure to what you’re going to write. You might write:

1. Introduction: (then your ideas for the introduction.)
2. Paragraph 1: (main idea)

• a. (detail a)
• b. (detail b)

… and keep going like that until you get to the end. I like outlines, because you can just follow down the whole outline as you write. It’s already got the structure!

Idea Web

An idea web is more visual, so Dwayne likes it a lot. You can start with your idea in a circle in the center, and then use lines to connect it to related ideas. Then, you can connect other ideas to those related ideas… so you end up with a web. Here’s more information on idea webs: http://www.inspiration.com/vlearning/index.cfm?fuseaction=webs

Remember, it doesn’t matter how you prewrite… do what works for you. So, practice a few different ways and find out what you like best.

The most important thing to me now that my children are all grown up is to have good relationships with my children, who are away in several places far from me.

I just had to sit down and think about what I was really trying to say. What’s the center of it? What’s the real point? I guess it’s about wanting good relationships with my kids.

The most important thing to me now that my children are all grown up is to have good relationships with my children, who are away in several places far from me.

I noticed how it starts out “The most important thing is…” That sounds kind of like the “There is…” “There are…” and “It is…” openings that Mr. Williams doesn’t like, doesn’t it? So, I figured that I should get rid of that…

The most important thing to me now that my children are all grown up is to have good relationships with my children, who are away in several places far from me.

Now that my children are all grown… what about good relationships? I want to have them, right? That’s what I’d say if I was just saying it. I want to have good relationships with my kids.

The most important thing to me now that my children are all grown up is I want to have good relationships with my children, who are away in several places far from me.

What about the end? “who are away in several places far from me…” that’s just too long. But I kinda want to say about how they’re spread out all over. Maybe I can put it in the beginning, with the part about how my kids are all grown up? I mean, both parts are talking about my kids…

The most important thing to me now that my children are all grown up and spread out all over, is I want to have good relationships with my children, who are away in several places far from me.

So, the final thing reads…

Now that my children are all grown up and spread out all over, I want to have good relationships with my children.

Better, I think. But wait. It says “my children” twice. Sounds redundant… maybe the second one should say “them.”

Now that my children are all grown up and spread out all over, I want to have good relationships with them my children.

And I say “all” twice, too. The same words just slip in over and over… maybe I’ll take out the first one.

Now that my children are all grown up and spread out all over, I want to have good relationships with them my children.

That’s sounding good. But wait. I don’t want to really say “have.” That sounds kind of like I mean I didn’t have a good relationship already. I mean to keep up…

Now that my children are all grown up and spread out all over, I want to keep up have good relationships with them my children.

So now it reads…

Now that my children are grown up and spread out all over, I want to keep up good relationships with them.

What do you think? Do you have a better way to say it?

One thing Mr. Williams taught me is that good writing sounds natural. It doesn’t sound formal or forced… so whenever I feel like I’m just getting caught up in a bunch of words, I sit back and ask myself… what do I really mean? What am I trying to say? Then I try to say it like I think it, as simply as possible.

Here’s an example of something I wrote when I got all caught up in the words…

The most important thing to me now that my children are all grown up is to have good relationships with my children, who are away in several places far from me.

It’s just too long, isn’t it? Or something. I have to think about what I really mean, and then rewrite it. How would you rewrite it? I’ll let you know what I did next week.

I started out by using writing exercises, like the ones I’ve been talking about, and writing a little bit every day. Say, take 5 or 10 minutes and write the whole time. That helps you write faster, so you’re not stuck on a blank page, like what happens to me all the time.

Then, the next step is figuring out how to write an organized GED essay in just a little bit of time. Well, I guess it’s not too little. The GED test gives you 45 minutes to write an essay. You only need to write 4-5 paragraphs… so I guess it’s not too bad. But you don’t want to write just anything, so that makes it harder.

For the GED essay test, I tried to make a time plan. So, I thought, 10 minutes to read the question and brainstorm some ideas. 5 minutes to organize them. Then 20 minutes to write the essay. And 10 minutes to read it over and make any changes.

Maybe you need more time to brainstorm, or more time to write. But you’ll only know that by practicing. So, after you’ve been freewriting for a little bit, try a timed writing practice for the GED test. Here’s a GED practice question to get you started, from the people who put the GED test together:

What is one important goal you would like to achieve in the next few years?

In your essay, identify that one goal and explain how you plan to achieve it. Use your personal observations, experience, and knowledge to support your essay.

Give this test question a try, and see how it goes.

im going to go take my GED test again tomorrow, i only have to do the writting part and social studies. When i write any kind of paper, i write as if i was talking to the person face to face. i dont mean to but i guess a cant grasp that i have to make it sound “pro.”

Sounding like a pro can be hard, especially if you spend a lot of time reading stuff on the internet. There’s so many blogs and journal posts out there, and they’re all written pretty informally. Most of the time, when I’m writing something myself, it’s a letter to my kids or a journal entry that’s meant for my friends or something. I don’t think too much about sounding formal. So, just like with math, it’s difficult to do something you’re not practicing all the time.

First of all, why should you sound professional when writing an essay? Is it just ’cause the GED judges are snobs? I don’t think so. It’s more about making sure people can understand you. I mean, that’s what writing and talking is about in the first place, letting people know what you think, right? Sounding professional just means getting your ideas across in the best possible way by using a straight version of English that everyone can understand.

Here’s my list of a few things to avoid in order to make your writing sound a little better:

Avoid Slang

You shouldn’t use slang when writing a formal essay. Even words like, cool or lame are slang.

“I think that snowboards are sick ’cause you can tear up the mountain like a maniac.”

This could be something you’d say to your friends, but is it going to make sense to everyone? Maybe you could write more like this.

“I think that snowboards are great because you can slide down mountains at neck-breaking speeds.”

Keep to Traditional Contractions

The internet has created a lot of new contractions that seem normal, but might not be appropriate for an essay. Words like gonna, ’cause, I’mma, and shoulda don’t seem wrong ’cause you see them online a lot. In fact, the first three words in that list didn’t even come up as “wrong” in my spell check! But they might not be the best choice for an essay. Stick with traditional contractions like it’s, you’re, don’t, and I’ll. If you’re not certain what’s “official” and what’s not, just don’t use the contraction. You’re not gonna be docked points for saying “I will” instead of “I’ll.”

Leave out Filler Words

When you talk, you use a lot of filler words. You say things like so, like, well, and anyway. These words just fill an essay up with fluff and can usually be left out all together. If you want to join two thoughts together, it’s ok to put words like, “however” or “therefor” when the ideas connect to each other. However, saying, “anyway” is more like you got off the topic and are trying to get back to it, which doesn’t make for a very well constructed essay in the first place.

Write with Certainty!

Writing prompts often ask you what you think about something. Formal writing should sound certain about its answer. Starting an essay with, “I think that snowboards are great…” is immediately less certain than just saying, “Snowboards are great.” Leave out words like maybe, and possibly.

Avoid the Second Person

What’s the “second person?” It’s one of the “points of view.” The “first person” is I, the “second person” is you, and the “third person” is he, she, or it. When you’re writing a formal essay, the word “you” kinda makes it informal ’cause you’re suddenly talking directly to the person who’s reading it. I’ve found that using “we” is a good substitute. For instance:

“If you find it difficult to sleep at night, you can take a sleeping pill to help.”

This is kind of like getting into the private life of the reader. It’s making assumptions about the reader’s sleeping habits. If you just replace you with we then it immediately takes a step back and makes it feel a little more formal.

“If we find it difficult to sleep at night, we can take sleeping pills to help.”

Just remember that “we” is plural while “you” isn’t, so make sure to make any changes necessary, like how I changes “pill” to “pills.” After all, we all can’t take one pill between us!

Here’s a prompt and answer from CanTeach:

What is a good neighbour?

I think a good neighbour is someone who’s friendly, but not overly friendly, you know? Like, it’s ok if a neighbour comes over for a cup of sugar or something, but if the neighbour’s coming over all the time and using up all your sugar, then that’s way too friendly. A good neighbour has to be like a yin-yang. They have to keep to their space, but also not only keep to their space. ‘Cause then they’re just a recluse, and not really a neighbour at all. And if you’re like, “Hi neighbour!” and they just ignore you, then that’s just rude!

So, how could you fix this paragraph? I’ll see if I can clean it up myself in my next blog. Good luck with your GED! And keep writing!

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

hi here is my sentence

I am a good cook. I can cook lots of things like lasagna which can be hard to get right and I can make my own pesto sauce or also some desserts too. I learn how to cook from when I was a child. My mother had five children so she cooked a lot and thats where I learned it from. Lots of people tell me I am good at cooking now and that makes me happy. My mom would be proud.

That’s a great paragraph, Lauren. You brought up different kinds of things that you could cook, and talked about your mom, which could end up being two main ideas in an essay. You might think about a third thing if you ever wanted to turn this into an full essay, but it’s a great start!

I noticed you had a few run-on sentences, so I thought I might talk about that a little.

Run-ons are pretty hard to catch. When we talk, we say a lot of “ands” and “buts” without really pausing sometimes. Our brains don’t think like an essay, they just kinda run and run. Just like run-ons.

“I can cook lots of things like lasagna which can be hard to get right and I can make my own pesto sauce or also some desserts too.”

This sentence can be split up. They best thing to do to split it is to find the verbs and the conjunctions (joining words). I’ll mark the verbs in green and the conjunctions in red.

“I can cook lots of things like lasagna which can be hard to get right and I can make my own pesto sauce or also some desserts too.”

A good rule to follow is to have two verbs at the most in each sentence. Since there’s three verbs in this sentence, it can be cut down to two sentences by removing the and. I would also replace the “or” with “and” because “or” means that you can cook pesto sauce or desserts, not both.

“I can cook lots of things like lasagna which can be hard to get right. I can make my own pesto sauce and also some desserts too.”

It might have been better to list off the foods first to keep things clear, too.

“I can cook lots of things like lasagna, pesto sauce, and some desserts. Lasagna is especially hard to get right.”

Here’s another run-on sentence:

“My mother had five children so she cooked a lot and thats where I learned it from.”

Again, this can be cut down to two sentences.

“My mother had five children, so she cooked a lot. That’s where I learned it from.”

or

“My mother had five children. She cooked a lot, and that’s where I learned it from.”

If you want to read more about run-on sentences, I wrote a post on comma splices a while back.

Here’s the writing topic for today:

What is your favourite room in your home and why?

I just love my kitchen. The walls are spring green, and when the sun comes in, it feels so bright and cheerful. It’s also the place where everyone always comes together. When my boys come to visit, we’re always chatting away in the kitchen, especially in the morning. We’ve leaned against the counters with our mugs of coffee or tea and talked lots of mornings away in my kitchen. It’s also the place where all the best smells come from. Whether I’m cooking up dinner, or boiling homemade potpourri, the smells always fill up the whole house.

Leave a comment with your own answer to the question, or just if you need any help with writing at all.

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