The GED
If you are going to take the GED test, you may begin to wonder: Is the GED test difficult? Well, it depends on you! If you do not spend enough time preparing and getting acquainted with the test style, you may struggle with your GED. But with enough training, you can take the GED exam with the confidence that you will succeed.
Is the GED test harder than high school? It depends on you. In high school, you can get help from mentors until you graduate. The GED is self-advanced and requires a lot of learning. However, the GED incorporates less knowledge and is usually less academically demanding than high school tests.
Allow me to give you some hints on what a GED test looks like. After reading, you should understand the concept and what to expect when taking the GED test.
The GED Test
The GED suggests that the holder has equal knowledge in math, reading, science, writing, and social studies as a high school graduate. For those who do not hold a high school diploma, the GED offers a high school equivalency certification. This certificate can also be referred to as the product of a high school equivalency or a general equivalency diploma.
How Will You Take the GED?
The GED test is given only on a computer, not in a printed form. The sole exception to this is when the test taker wants accommodation because of an impairment. The GED test is not provided anywhere on the Internet. Instead, the test taker needs to take the test at one of the several test centers around the country.
Anyone looking to take the GED should be mindful that there has been a spike in the number of websites engaging in GED fraud. These schemes center on selling GEDs in an online exam. Remember that you are allowed to take the exam only in person at the test site.
How Is the GED Scored?
GED tests include four different parts.
- Reasoning through language arts
- Mathematics
- Science
- Social studies
You can choose to do all four of these exams at once, or you can stretch them out. You will need to complete and pass all four of them to earn your GED credential.
Each test subject will be scored individually on a scale of 100 to 200 points. This means that once you have completed all four subject exams, the cumulative score will be a total of 800 points.
GED Score Needed to Pass
You should get at least 145 out of 200 for each of the four subject exams to complete the GED. This means that the cumulative score for the whole series of tests would have to be at least 580.
Note: You need a GED score of at least 580 and a score of at least 145 per test subject. If you missed one of the tests but scored well enough on another to raise the overall score to 580 or more, this is NOT a passing score. You’re going to need to retake the subject exam that you failed.
Questions You Need to Pass the GED
To pass the GED test, you need to receive a scaled score of at least 145 out of 200. How many questions does this translate into? The response isn’t easy.
The number of questions on each test subject can differ marginally from test to test. For example, one day, you could take the Social Studies test and answer 35 questions. The next day, you could have a test version with 38 questions. What does not change, though, is the number of points for each test subject.
Not every question is worth the same number of points. Each answer to the test is worth one raw point, but some questions have more than one answer. A standard multiple-choice question with only one correct answer is worth one point. Other questions will require you to choose more than one correct answer. In these instances, one correct answer is one point. There are two points worth a single question with two correct responses, and so on.
Reasoning In Language Arts is a little different because it requires an essay. The scoring of the essay is different from the rest of the exam. It is worth 20% of the total test score, which is worth around 13 points. This leaves you with 52 answers to the other questions.
In the case of Mathematics and Social Sciences, the points are proportional to the number of potential responses to each test. This is also valid for Science except for the two brief answers to the questions, each worth three points.
The conversion from such raw points to your scaled score is not a clear formula. The GED Testing Service does not publish precisely how this score magic works. What they do say is that you need to get 60-65% of the available test points.
What Happens If You Fail the GED?
Unfortunately, not every student succeeds the first time taking the test but they can still retake the test. The good thing is that if you don’t pass all four subject exams the first time, you don’t need to take them all over again. You must retake only the parts that you haven’t passed.
Conclusion
High school allows students to draw on their academic base for four years. They study one subject at a time, and they take many exams along the way. If you are unable to finish the traditional high school curriculum, the GED will help you show the same qualities in the exams. Which is easier depends on your ability to study.
