GED Reasoning through Language Arts (RLA)

In alignment with career and college readiness standards, the GED® RLA assessment focuses on three essential groupings of skills:

  1. The ability to read closely
  2. The ability to write clearly
  3. The ability to edit and understand the use of standard written English in context

The strongest predictor of career and college readiness is the ability to read and comprehend complex texts, especially nonfiction.

Given these priorities, the GED® RLA Test adheres to the following parameters:

  • Seventy-five percent of the texts in the exam are informational texts (including nonfiction drawn from the science and the social studies as well as a range of texts from workplace contexts); 25 percent are literature.
  • U.S. founding documents and the “the Great American Conversation” that followed are required texts for study and assessment.
  • The length of the texts included in the reading comprehension component of the test vary between 450 and 900 words.

READING COMPREHENSION ON THE GED® RLA TEST

  • Determine the details of what is explicitly stated and make logical inferences or valid claims that square with textual evidence
  • Read and respond to questions from a range of texts that are from the upper levels of complexity, including texts at the career and college-ready level of text complexity.

WRITING ON THE GED® RLA TEST
The writing component integrates reading and writing into meaningful tasks that require candidates to support their written analysis with evidence drawn from a given source text(s) of appropriate complexity provided in the test.

  • Draw relevant and sufficient evidence from a literary or information text to support analysis and reflection.
  • Use technology to produce writing, demonstrating sufficient command of keyboarding skills.

Candidate responses are scored by a multi-trait rubric that focuses on three elements:
Trait 1: Analysis of Arguments and Use of Evidence
Trait 2: Development of Ideas and Structure
Trait 3: Clarity and Command of Standard English

LANGUAGE CONVENTIONS AND USAGE ON THE GED® RLA TEST
The language component of the GED® RLA Test measures a candidate’s ability to demonstrate command of a foundational set of conventions of standard English that have been identified as most important for career and college readiness by higher education instructors of post-secondary entry-level, credit-bearing composition courses. This core set of skills includes essential components of grammar, usage, capitalization and punctuation.

Check out GED Writing Tips
Practice Problems and Answers

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