TIPS ON HOW TO PASS GED SOCIAL STUDIES TEST

1. Practice identifying and analyzing words, events, and ideas. The main idea of every passage you read is the most important point in a piece of writing. If it is a long passage, identify the main idea in each paragraph, also take note of specific information like date, year, event, etc.
2. Practice drawing conclusions, making inferences, determining central ideas, and hypothesizing, that is looking for specific evidence to support inferences or make valid claims. (Inferences questions may use words like suggest, imply in the place of infer).
3. Practice determining the author’s purpose, point of view, reasoning, and evidence, that is finding and using textual evidence to evaluate an author’s claim or conclusion. (Words that start a conclusion statement which can guide you in identifying the author’s conclusion in a text includes, therefore, thus, and so).
4. Practice determining relationships within and between texts and graphic information, that is looking for evidence to support or counter claims between different sources of information’ e.g., graphs and charts.
5. Interpreting data: Practice understanding data statistics presented in graphs or charts and determining the average(mean), median, and mode in data sets. When reading a graph be sure to read the title, all labels, its vertical and horizontal axe to see what kinds of data are shown. Also make connections between the passage and the data presented in the graph that is with the passage.
6. Political Cartoons Interpretation; Practice finding out the main idea of the cartoon and the cartoonists point of view.
7. The skills mentioned above are used to answer questions from the texts of the different parts of the GED Social Studies which includes; United States History (20% of the test), Civics and Government (50% of the test), Economics (15% of the test), and Geography and the World (15% of the test).
8. United States History: Do make sure to read and understand events on the following texts: European Colonization of North America, The American Revolution and the War of 1812, Westward Expansion, The Civil War, Industrialization, World War II, The Cold War, the Civil Rights Era, and Post 9/11 Foreign Policy.
9. Civics and Government: Do make sure to read and understand the following texts: United States Constitution, Democracy, Modern Government, Structure/level/Branches of the United States Government, The Electoral System, and the Roles of the Citizens of United States Government. You can try this free practice test on civics and government – https://www.dtwgedprep.com/free-ged-social-studies-practice-test-on-civics-and-government/
10. Economics; Do make sure to read and understand the following: Economics Principles and Concepts (Demand and Supply), the U.S. Government and the Economy and, Labor and the Economy.
11. Geography and the World: Do make sure to read and understand events in the following texts: Early Civilizations, Global Expansion, Resources Affect Where People Live, and Humans and the Environment.
12. Other text and speeches to read include Declaration of Independence, The Bill of Rights, Speeches from presidents, Letter from a Birmingham Jail, Equal rights speeches from Martin Luther King, Jr., Rosa Parks, and JFK.
13. General tips: To know the meaning of an unfamiliar word in a text be sure to look for clues before and after the word. A fact can be proven to be true from evidence in the text while an opinion is a judgement based on someone’s belief or feeling.
14. Practice summarizing, that is expressing the main idea of a text in your own words, your summary should answer the questions Who, What, When, Where, Why, and How of the text.
15. Question answering tip; First get rid of those options that are likely to contradict what is given, which are usually two options that are out of sync with the question, so you can carefully decide between the two left options. Make sure to study your options before choosing any answer.