What’s on the GED® Reasoning Through Language Arts Test?
You will need to be familiar with various reading and writing concepts as well as the practical application of English grammar and punctuation.
You will have to read passages of between 450-900 words, drawn from a wide variety of sources and show your reading comprehension skills and the ability to draw conclusions.
You will have to show the ability to write clearly in an argumentative essay. You have to read and analyse two texts which present opposing points of view. Then you have to type an essay explaining which text contains the most convincing evidence of the two and why.
The test is a total of 150 minutes and includes a 10-minute break between Parts 2 and 3.
GED Reasoning Through Language Arts Questions
The questions on this test will be structured as follows:
- multiple choice
- fill-in-the-blank
- drop-down
- drag-and-drop questions
- extended response (essay)
Part 1 – Reading
This section will test reading comprehension of texts.
- 75% are informational, non-fictional texts from the work-place, community-based documents and non-fiction related to social studies and science topics.
- 25% are literary texts from works of fiction
There is no poetry. You will have to read, analyse and apply the information from the texts.
Part 2 – Writing
This the extended response question in which you have 45 minutes to type a well-planned, argumentative essay. You will need to develop an argument and support your ideas with evidence from the text. To score well, you will need to learn how to structure a good essay.
Your essay will be graded according to
- how well you analyse the arguments presented and use the evidence in the given texts
- how you structure your ideas and develop your arguments
- how clearly you are able to express yourself in standard English
Do not use informal language and abbreviations such as those commonly used in text messages.
The essay will be graded by a proctor and so the scores for your GED Reasoning Through Language Arts test may only be uploaded to your account profile in up to 48 hours after your test.
Most students battle most with essay writing skills. Their essays fail as they are not well-constructed.
Click here for an additional short course to give you a strategy and extra practice at Acing the Argumentative Essay on the GED Reasoning Through Language Arts Test.
Part 3 – Language
This will test your language usage skills and the ability to edit texts to ensure correct sentence structure, concord agreement, capitalization, punctuation, use of homonyms, appropriate vocabulary and correct formal language usage of standard English in context.
You will not be asked to give definitions of grammatical concepts or memorise any information.
Questions may require any of the following:
- Analyze the structure of a text and how ideas, characters, and events develop in the text.
- Recognize the author’s point of view and any prejudice
- Evaluate arguments and claims in the text
- Compare and contrast texts on similar topics
- Correct use of conjunctions and transitional words and phrases
- Eliminate run-on sentences, fused sentences, and sentence fragments.
- Avoid dangling or misplaced modifiers or ensure logical word order.
- Ensure parallelism and correct subordination and coordination.
- Correct agreement between subjects and verbs in a sentence.
- Eliminate errors in subject-verb or pronoun-antecedent agreement
- Demonstrate correct use of capitalization, punctuation, apostrophes etc
- Correct errors involving frequently confused words
- Eliminate non-standard or informal use of English
The best way to prepare for the GED Reasoning Through Language Arts test is by reading high-quality materials that will develop and improve your critical thinking and analytical skills.
Go Prep’s online GED prep study programme will give you plenty of practice and provide you with samples of the kinds of textual information that you will need to read and analyse.
What’s on the GED® Test?
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