General Educational Test (GED) is a common standardized test. One in every seven US residents has taken this exam. This test has been developed with a mission to provide opportunities of higher education to students who dropped out or were unable to attend high school due to one or the other reason. You can easily get admission to a two years college program after qualifying the exam and obtaining ‘certificate of general educational development’ or GED diploma. Often, these two year courses could be extended to four years college programs. The diploma holders are regarded equivalent to high school graduates and can avail similar job opportunities that are open for high school pass outs. Many jobs in which, you might not be eligible before, you become eligible after passing this exam. Most of the successful candidates pursue regular college courses after GED while, many, because of their financial responsibilities, prefer distance learning courses, at the same time continuing their jobs.
For taking this exam, you must be 18 years of age and should not have enrolled in a high school or should be a dropout. You can take the test even if you are 16 years of age, but then also, you will receive your diploma after crossing 18th of age. The exam is delivered at more than 3400 testing centers in United States, Canada, and some international testing sites. You can apply and take the exam any time in a year. There are no scheduled dates and registrations are open year round. In USA, most of the testing centers are of American Council on Education (ACE), the body which has developed and administers the test time to time, while assessment centers of Prometric are used for international testing.
The exam may be delivered in one or two days depending upon your state. There are five sub-tests- science, mathematics, social science, language arts reading, and language arts writing. Science test is administered in 1 hour and 20 minutes. Mathematics test is allotted a time period of 1 hour and 30 minutes. Social science exam is delivered in 1 hour and 20 minutes. The duration allotted to language arts reading and language arts writing tests are 1 hour, 5 minutes and 1 hour, 15 minutes respectively. All these tests together require 6 hours and 30 minutes of testing time excluding breaks between different subtests. Generally, those states where this test is administered in a single day, test duration is 7 hours and 30 minutes including breaks between subtests.
You should select a test date considering when you will be prepared for the exam. Most of the states take a pretest before they allow sitting in actual test. A pretest of mathematics is mandatory in most of the states. If you do not pass the pretest, you will be asked to go through a review course. Hence, you should register the test when you are well prepared. You should not have any liability that may hinder you taking the exam on a registered date. Like, you must ensure that you will get a leave from your job on a desired test date. There can be other personal liabilities which must not come in way. In an emergency, you can cancel a test appointment two days prior registered date. You can take the test at any test site. If you are not getting a desired date at one center, it may be available at other nearby testing location.
You can find a testing location by entering your postal code at an application available on official website of American Council on Education. You will have to contact a test center for registering the exam. You can also register by calling on toll free number (800) 626-9433/800-62-MY GED. Learn more about GED testing and registration.
ACE is dedicated towards its mission. It provides special accommodation to candidates with any kind of disability. There may be some candidates who have a physical disability or suffering from other diseases that they are unable to test in normal testing conditions. ACE facilitates various aids like audio cassettes, talking calculators, Braille, sign language interpreters, etc to deliver test to such candidates.
You must be aware that this exam is never delivered online. Some fraudulent websites claim to offer GED test. This exam is always offered on a testing center and can not be taken on internet.
The exam fees vary from state to state. In some states, it may be free of charge while in other, exam fee can be as high as $100.
You will be awarded GED diploma after you have passed all five subtests. A minimum score of 410 is required to pass an individual subtest and an average of 450 per subtest (2250 in whole test) is required to qualify entire assessment. You can retake a subtest only when you have failed in it, securing a score less than 410. An appointment to a failed subtest can be made after six months from previous test date. If you have passed in all subtests but missed to get an average of 450 per subtest, you will be allowed to take a subtest in which you have less than average score after 30 days from previous testing if total score lies between 2150 and 2250, or after 90 days from previous testing if total score is less than 2140. If you have passed all subtests and scored at or more than 2250, then you will not be allowed to retake any subtest. Your scores will be your final GED scores.