Social Studies
(90 minutes)
- Section 1 (65 minutes)
- Section 2 (25 minutes)
The GED® Social Studies Test focuses on the fundamentals of social studies reasoning, striking a balance of deeper conceptual understanding, procedural skill and fluency, and the ability to apply these fundamentals in realistic situations.
The Social Studies Test will also focus on four major content domains:
- Civics and government
- United States history
- Economics
- Geography and the world
There are several different item types used in the test, including multiple choice, drag-and-drop, hot spot, and fill-in-the-blank. Additionally, the Social Studies Test features one extended response task that requires test-takers to analyze arguments and use evidence found within brief excerpts from primary and secondary source texts.
Given these priorities, the GED® Social Studies Test follows these specifications:
- Approximately 50 percent focuses on civics and government, 20 percent focuses on United States history, 15 percent focuses on economics, and 15 percent focuses on geography and the world.
- Approximately 50 percent of the test items are based on scenarios in which a single stimulus (textual, graphic or a combination of both) serves to inform two or three items; the remaining approximately 50 percent of the items are discrete stand-alone items.
CONTENT TOPICS
The social studies content topics describe key concepts that are widely taught in a variety of high-school level social studies courses and are relevant to the lives of GED® test-takers. They focus, in particular, on American civics and government. The are two themes within social studies portion of the GED test.
- Development of Modern Liberties and Democracy, the first theme, explores the development of current ideas about democracy as well as human and civil rights from ancient civilizations to the present. It examines contemporary thinking, policies and structures, major events that have shaped our democratic values, and major thinkers who contributed to American ideas of democratic government.
- Dynamic Responses in Societal Systems, the second theme, explores how the systems, structures and policies that people have created respond to each other, conditions, and events. For example, societies and civilizations have developed and changed in response to particular geographic features and natural events. National economies respond to both governmental policies and natural laws of economics—such as supply and demand—around which policies are built. Similarly, countries respond to both internal and external changes and challenges in ways that are beyond the ability of any one person to control.
Here is a sample question of what you may see:
Comments (0)
You don't have permission to comment on this page.