The 150 minute Reasoning through Language Arts portion of the GED test is organized into three skill groups: reading ability, writing ability, and the ability to edit and understand written English in context.
The 35-minute reading comprehension section tests the student's ability to comprehend what is written and draw inferences or conclusions that correspond to the text. It also requires responses to questions about the point of view, main idea, word or phrase meanings, and other contextual inferences.
The writing portion of the test is a 45 minute essay and, since this is a computer-based test, keyboarding skills are part of this test. The student will be assessed on the quality of his or her analysis of the argument presented and the used of evidence, how the ideas and structure of the writing is developed, and clarity and command of the English language. While there is no required word count for the essay, the test-taker is encouraged to write enough to fully respond to the prompts given.
The third portion covers language conventions, including testing the test-taker's command of grammar, usage, capitalization and punctuation. The test-taker has 60 minutes to complete this part of the test.
75% of the texts used in the exam are informational non-fiction excerpts and 25% are literature. Excerpts range from 450 to 900 words. Some required documents include U.S. Founding documents and The Great American Conversation. Other documents used are general in nature and not specific to any one discipline. The complexity of the texts are considered to be at the career or college-readiness level.
