Some Tips for taking the GED – from someone who just passed it!

Yesterday my son Gabe surprised me with the news that he had taken and passed the GED test on his first try! No small feat for a 19-year-old father of one who works 40+ hours a week and does his fair share of the cooking, cleaning and baby watching!

So I asked him quickly what things he felt helped and if he had any tips about the exam itself.

1.  Online Writing class. Gabe took an online writing class from CurrClick a few years ago, and he said that helped him a lot during the English portion of the test, particularly the writing.

2.  Reviewing with Instantcert helped him figure out his strengths and weaknesses and really work on the parts that needed extra study. The flashcard/fill in the blank approach really helped him to retain the information he needed for the test.

3.  Math tutoring. There was trigonometry on the math test!  Gabe never studied trig but he still got a B on that portion. His knowledge of algebra and finding variables was invaluable on this exam.

4.  Looking  at political cartoons and analyzing them was included in the social studies portion! We never got the daily paper and didn’t spend a lot of time looking at the political cartoons when Gabe was being homeschooled.  That might be something to go over with students before taking the GED.

The GED costs $140 now, so it makes sense to try to be as prepared as possible. It’s also a much more challenging examination and supposedly accepted more as high school equivalency.