Now, people ask me about the 5-paragraph essay structure, and I say, if you’ve got it down, use it. But you don’t need 5 paragraphs exactly. 4 or 6 paragraphs is just as good. You also don’t need to follow a special structure for your introduction. And one thing I notice, a lot of people who learned the 5-paragraph essay, learned by rote: I’ll write a thesis that lists 3 things I’ll talk about later, etc. Then, the essay sounds stiff and repetitive, a lot of the time. I mean, that’s okay. You’re not going to fail or anything for being a little repetitive, but to me, it’s more important that you write an essay that’s logical, interesting, makes sense, and answers the question.

The Beginning, or Introduction of a GED Essay

The beginning of your essay will be an introduction. Your introduction needs to tell what you’re going to write about and get the reader’s interest in what you have to say. You’ll need to get across your main idea, or thesis, in the introduction. You don’t need to restate the question. Think about the essay topic given above. Now, think about a typical GED essay reader, with a stack of dozens of essays to sift through. How many of those essays begin:

An event from my childhood that taught me an important lesson that I use today is…

As soon as the reader starts reading this exact same sentence for the twentieth or thirtieth time, he or she has already decided that this definitely isn’t a 4 essay. It’s copying the essay prompt instead of stating something in your own words. Now, it’s important to actually answer the prompt, but that doesn’t mean copying the prompt word-for-word.

A better approach is to briefly summarize the event (or at least give a hint about what it’s about) and tell that it taught you an important lesson.

The Middle, or Body

The middle of your essay is the body. In a 5-paragraph essay structure, the middle has 3 paragraphs. Each paragraph addresses one point or argument that you want to make, and each point or argument relates to the main idea in the beginning of the essay. In the GED essay, 2 to 4 paragraphs is a good length for the middle of your essay, so the 5-paragraph essay structure falls right in the middle. Making three points, and then talking about each of them in one paragraph, is a good approach. But it’s not always the best or easiest way to write about a particular topic.

Sometimes, you can tell a story about what happened, what you learned, and how you use that today. Those three things could become your three middle paragraphs. Or, you could write your middle paragraphs as story, starting at the beginning of what happened, and continuing to the end. That’s an easy structure to write and follow, for most people.

Either type of body works. Both versions answer the question and keep to the main point. For many students, it’s easier to tell a story about themselves than to break up the question into two or three different points. Either way, the middle of the essay needs to contain details about what you know or what you experienced.

The Ending, or Conclusion

The last paragraph of your essay needs to be a conclusion. Many students think of a conclusion as just restating what you’ve said before. But the truth is, a conclusion is much more effective if you’ve got something new to say. Ask yourself:

• What did I learn? Why is this important?
• How does this affect other people? What can other people learn from this?
• Can I apply what I learned to bigger ideas and issues?

If you can think of something new and interesting to say about your experience, you’ll have a great conclusion, and you’ll leave the GED reader with a great last impression. If you use the storytelling route to write the body, you’ve got a lot of material for your conclusion. You need to tell what you learned and how to use it today. In either case, you need to say something interesting that wraps up what you think.

Hey, try it yourself!

Read More: http://www.passged.com/student_blogs/elizabeth/category/ged-essay-start-to-finish/

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.