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Hola! I got another GED reading practice question for you, to help you study for your GED. You know, the important part is not just guessing the right answer, but figuring out the best way to get there. That’s why I always put an explanation of how to think through which answer is right… that’s what you’ll need to do on the GED test.

The GED practice question is another one from the Study Guide Zone, and you can go there to read the whole passage and all the practice test questions. Remember, the real GED test mostly won’t have such long readings. To find answers in a long reading on the GED test, you can skim and scan to find the answer you need.

Here’s the part of the reading for this question:

At the time that the Declaration of Independence was issued, many colonists were opposed to complete separation from England. Many of them still considered themselves Englishmen, and were afraid to be branded as traitors. They also realized that they were in uncharted waters: no revolt had ever been successful in winning independence. Finally, many colonists feared that even if they were successful in winning independence, the result would be chaos in America. The minds of many of these reluctant colonists were changed, however, by the Battle of Bunker Hill, which was won by the British. After this battle, King George II declared that the colonists were in a state of rebellion. Furthermore, the British labeled the members of the Second Continental Congress as traitors, and ignored the Olive Branch petition. Confused colonists were further inflamed by the British use of Hessian mercenary soldiers. The writings of Thomas Paine also converted many colonists to the revolutionary cause.

Now, the GED practice question:

5. Thomas Paine was most likely:
A: a French poet
B: an American publisher
C: an American propagandist
D: the author of the Declaration of Independence

Now, this one doesn’t give you a lot of information. So you’re gonna need an important GED skill: inference. Inference is when you read something, and decide what information it doesn’t say upfront but that you can tell is true based on what it does say. The reading only gives one sentence about Thomas Paine:

The writings of Thomas Paine also converted many colonists to the revolutionary cause.

So, this is the only sentence that you need to worry about for this question. That’s good, right, cuz you can focus on just one thing. So, what’s it saying? “The writings of Thomas Paine…” is the beginning. That tells you he’s a writer. But it’s not that easy, because A, C, and D are all writers. B, a publisher, has to do with writing, but it’s not really a writer. A publisher prints books and things, he doesn’t write them. So I’m going to cross off B for now.

Then, it says what he wrote “converted many colonists to the revolutionary cause.” That means, he convinced people to join the revolution. So, what you need to figure out is which kind of writer would convince people to join the revolution.

Answer A is a French poet. A French poet might convince people to join the American revolution, but there’s no real reason to believe that he would. The GED questions always have a reason why they’d be right…so that’s probably not the answer. The GED doesn’t expect that you know something about Thomas Paine. It wants to know how well you think about what you read. So if there’s no real reason in the question or reading to choose an answer, it’s probably wrong.

Answer C is an American propagandist. What’s a propagandist? You can see the word “propaganda” in it, so if you know what propaganda is, you’ll know that a propagandist is someone who makes propaganda. Well, “propaganda” is the same in Spanish as English, so that helps me out. Propaganda is writing that tries to convince you of something…so if Thomas Paine was a writer who convinced people to join the revolution, he was probably an American propagandist. But, if you didn’t know what propaganda means, you could see if you can eliminate the other answer as wrong…

Answer D is the author of the Declaration of Independence. Well, there’s no real reason to think Thomas Paine wrote the Declaration of Independence. If that’s what convinced people, wouldn’t they say the Declaration of Independence convinced people? I mean, the Declaration of Independence is pretty important, and writers usually put down the most important stuff. Even if I didn’t know what “propaganda” meant, I’d probably choose answer C.

And C is the correct answer! So, now you know how to make an inference…it’s pretty simple. It’s the most obvious conclusion you can make from the information in the writing. And believe me, it’s important for the GED!

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