GED Exam Secrets
The General Educational Development (GED) exam is a standardized test given to certify that a person has achieved a high school level of proficiency in five subjects: math, reading, science, social studies and writing. Acing the GED exam is possible once you learn the secrets to taking this exam and have an arsenal of test-taking strategies to help you during the exam.
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Directions
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Become familiar with test directions prior to the day of the exam. Once the exam has begun, you will have little time to devote to reading the directions and understanding how to apply them to the different test components. Since the directions stay the same from exam to exam, you can save valuable time by reviewing and comprehending them prior to the test day so that you can devote all of your time to answering the questions.
Time
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The GED is a time-pressured exam that requires test takers to not only be aware of the time allotted to each portion of the exam but also to know how to use that time wisely. For example, the social studies portion of the exam consists of 50 questions to be completed in 70 minutes. This means that, ideally, 1.4 minutes should be devoted to each question to complete all 50 questions within the allotted time.
Learn the amount of time given to each section of the exam and the number of questions to be completed in that time, and then practice taking prior GED exams wearing a watch so that you become familiar with and confident in your ability to work quickly and accurately.
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Elimination
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Using the process of elimination is a valuable way to choose the correct answer choice especially when a question is particularly challenging to you. Eliminating answers that are way off base allow you to reduce the number of answer choices to choose from and at the same time increase the odds that you will select the right answer.
Another option is to determine the answer prior to looking at the answer choices. If you see the answer you came up with listed among the choices, choose that answer and move on to the next question.
Practice
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Taking as many practice exams as possible prior to the actual GED exam is the best way to prepare for the big day. In addition to becoming familiar with the exam questions and time constraints, practice exams allow you to pinpoint your strengths and weaknesses. The results from practice exams enable you to study efficiently and devote energy to subjects that need more attention and to refrain from wasting time on subjects in which you are already proficient.
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References
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