GED Exam Format

Everything You Need to Know about the GED Test Structure

GED, an abbreviation for General Education Development is a test that is administered for people who do not have an American high school equivalent certification. This test is administered by the American Council on Education (ACE) to provide the people with an opportunity to get a high school equivalent certificate, which is accepted by almost all the colleges and employers in the USA. The GED tests the ability of a test taker to perform in equivalence to a high school graduate. The test is specially designed to comply with the standards specified by the ACE in order to provide justification for all the test takers. Let us now know in detail about the  test structure, the sections and the number of questions it contains etc.Test ContentGED is a group of five different sections. The five different sections that form the structure include: Language Arts (Writing), Language Arts (Reading), Social Studies, Science and Mathematics. These five sections of the  test are designed to test the candidate’s abilities in all the crucial aspects of the high school syllabi. Hence, to take the current GED test structure with ease, a candidate should prepare well.Test Sections Explained in DetailThe test structure can be explained better through the following points that list out what the individual test sections of the GED contain. The following points would also explain to you the timings and the number of questions that each test section consists of.

  • The Writing section consists of two parts. The first part consists of 50 questions. These fifty questions cover various topics such as sentence correction, usage, sentence reorganization etc. The candidates have to read the given text and restructure it as instructed in the test. You will be allotted a total of 75 minutes for this part of the test. The second part of the section requires you to frame an essay. You will be assigned a topic, on which you will have to develop an essay within an allotted time frame of 45 minutes. Through this section, a variety of your skills like content development, organization, relevance and language related skills like grammar, punctuation, spellings etc are thoroughly tested.
  • The Reading test section extends for a total duration of 65 minutes and consists of 40 questions in all. This section consists of seven passages in all, each of which is followed by a set of questions based upon the given passage. The test takers are expected to read the given passage, analyze it and answer the given questions correctly.
  • The Social Studies test section consists of 50 multiple-choice questions to be attempted in a total time of 70 minutes. The questions in this section pertain to the different aspects of high school Social Studies syllabus.
  • The Science section consists of 50 multiple-choice questions to be attempted in 80 minutes. The branches of science covered in this section involve physical, life, earth and space sciences.
  • The Mathematics section consists of a total of 50 questions, which must be attempted within 90 minutes. Of the 50 questions, only 40 are multiple-choice type and the rest 10 questions requires you to answer them on a coordinate plane grid provided to you.

Important Points to NoteThe above points explain about the test format, in a rather brief way. However, it is advised that you visit the official website of the GED, which is run by the ACE to know about the detailed list of topics for each test section. Obtain the full list of GED test topics under each test section in order to get clear understanding of the test. Visit the following official link to know more about : http://www.acenet.edu/AM/Template.cfm?Section=GED_TS.