About the ged writing exam 7 pps

On this basic level of main idea → support, every-thing in the passage or paragraph should support or develop that main idea.. When sentences or paragraphs lose focus or stray from that

On this basic level of main idea → support,

every-thing in the passage or paragraph should support or

develop that main idea When sentences or paragraphs

lose focus or stray from that controlling idea, the passage

or paragraph loses its effectiveness

Writers can use several different strategies for

organ-izing their support One of these strategies often serves as

the overall organizing principle for the text, while

indi-vidual sections may use other techniques as well For

example, imagine an essay comparing and contrasting

two film versions of Frankenstein The support will be

organized by comparison and contrast But the writer

may also use other organizational techniques within that

comparison and contrast structure For example, he or

she may use order of importance when explaining what

makes one version better than the other

The four most common organizational patterns are:

1 chronological order

2 order of importance

3 comparison and contrast

4 cause and effect

To answer many of the questions about organization

on the GED, you will need to be able to determine the

writer’s purpose and to recognize organizational patterns

on both the essay and paragraph levels By identifying the

organizational pattern, you can determine where to

insert sentences or paragraphs and whether any

sen-tences or paragraphs are misplaced, such as a sentence

that is out of chronological order

Chronological Order

When writers use time as their main organization

prin-ciple, it is called chronological order They describe events

in the order in which they did happen, will happen, or

should happen Much of what you read is organized in

this way, including historical texts, instructions and

pro-cedures, and essays about personal experiences

Passages organized by chronology typically use a lot of

transitional words and phrases to help us follow the

pas-sage of time The transitions help us see when things

happened and in what order They help us follow along

when the passage shifts from one period of time to

another Transitional words and phrases keep events

linked together in the proper order (Transitions are

cov-The following is a list of some of the most common chronological transitions:

first, second, third, etc before

later in the meantime at last

The third paragraph of the Batman text from page 30 uses this organizational pattern The transitions are underlined:

Kane’s Batman was a big success right from the start The masked hero soon moved from comic books to its own newspaper strip, and in 1943, Bat-man episodes were aired on the radio In 1966, live-action Batman shows hit the TV screen The series was wildly popular, and the syndicated show still airs today on channels like the Cartoon Network.

Order of Importance

With this organizational pattern, ideas are arranged by

rank instead of time What’s most important comes first

or last, depending upon the writer’s purpose

Organizing ideas from most important to least important puts the most essential information first Many writers do this when they are offering advice or when they want to be sure readers get the most impor-tant information right away Newspaper articles, for example, generally use this structure They begin with

the most important information (the who, what, when, where, and why of the event) so readers don’t have to

read the whole article to get those key facts Details and background information come later in the article When writers move from least to most important, they save their most important idea or piece of infor-mation for last Writers often use this approach when they are presenting an argument That’s because this kind of structure is usually more convincing than the most-to-least organizational pattern The more

contro-Many writers “save the best for last” because that’s where

“the best” often has the most impact

Transitions are very important for this organizational

pattern, too Here’s a list of the most common transitions

writers use with the order of importance structure Most

of these work for both the most-to-least important and

least-to-most important formats:

first and foremost most importantly

more importantly moreover

above all first, second, third

last but not least

Comparison and Contrast

When you show how two or more things are similar, you

are making a comparison When you show how two or

more things are different, you are contrasting them As an

organizational technique, this pattern allows you to place

two (or more) items side by side and see how they

meas-ure up against each other How are they similar or

dif-ferent? And why does it matter? For example, a writer

comparing and contrasting the 1931 and 1994 film

ver-sions of Frankenstein might aim to show that the 1994

version is far truer to the book because it portrays Victor

Frankenstein as just as much of a monster as the creature

he creates

Like other organizational patterns, a key to a good

comparison and contrast is strong transitions Here are

some words and phrases that show similarity:

similarly in the same way likewise

like in a like manner just as

The following words and phrases, on the other hand,

show difference:

but on the other hand yet

however on the contrary in contrast

Cause and Effect

The fourth most common organizational pattern is

cause and effect A cause is a person or thing that makes something happen (creates an effect) An effect is an

event or change created by an action (or cause) A

pas-sage about cause explains why something took place You

might ask, for example, “What caused the Cold War?” A

passage about effect, on the other hand, explains what happened after something took place What happened as

a result of the Cold War?

Just as certain key words indicate whether you are comparing or contrasting, other key words indicate whether things are causes or effects Here is a partial list

of words and phrases that indicate cause and effect:

WORDS INDICATING CAUSE

WORDS INDICATING EFFECT therefore so hence consequently

as a result

 E f f e c t i v e P a r a g r a p h s

Sentences are the building blocks of paragraphs, and paragraphs are the building blocks of essays Effective organization in an essay depends upon unity within those paragraphs

In an essay, all paragraphs should work together to support one main idea The same is true of a paragraph

A paragraph is, by definition, a series of sentences about

one main idea If there’s more than one main idea, you should have more than one paragraph

A paragraph is one or more sentences about

one main idea Indicate a new paragraph by skipping a line or by indenting the first line

A topic sentence is a sentence that states the

main idea of a paragraph

–O R G A N I Z AT I O N–

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In an essay, the controlling idea is usually expressed in

a thesis statement On the paragraph level, this

control-ling idea is often expressed in a topic sentence The topic

sentence is commonly found at the beginning of the

paragraph, but it can also be at the end Less frequently,

the topic sentence is found somewhere in the middle of

the paragraph or is simply implied In the first paragraph

below, the topic sentence is at the beginning; in the

sec-ond example, the topic sentence is at the end

Many people are afraid of snakes, but most snakes

aren’t as dangerous as people think they are.

There are more than 2,500 different species of

snakes around the world Only a small

percent-age of those species is poisonous, and only a few

species have venom strong enough to kill a

human being Furthermore, snakes bite only

1,000–2,000 people in the United States each

year, and only ten of those bites (that’s less than

1%) result in death Statistically, many other

animals are far more dangerous than snakes In

fact, in this country, more people die from dog

bites each year than from snakes

There are more than 2,500 different species of

snakes around the world Only a small

percent-age of those species is poisonous, and only a few

species have venom strong enough to kill a

human being Furthermore, snakes bite only

1,000–2,000 people in the United States each

year, and only ten of those bites (that’s less than

1%) result in death Statistically, many other

animals are far more dangerous than snakes In

fact, in this country, more people die from dog

bites each year than from snakes So although

many people are afraid of snakes, most snakes

aren’t as dangerous as people think they are.

In addition to a logical order and controlling idea,

strong paragraphs also need focus Is there a piece of the

passage that seems to digress? Would removing a

sen-tence or paragraph improve the focus of the text? Would

adding another sentence make it clear how a certain

sen-tence relates to the main idea of the passage?

For example, notice how the following paragraph loses focus:

(1)Electronic mail (e-mail) is very convenient, but it should not be used for every business occasion and must be carefully managed (2)E-mail messages should be concise and limited to

one topic (3)The Subject line should clearly

state what the e-mail is about, and the first sen-tence or two of the e-mail should clearly convey the main point of the message (4)It is impor-tant to be concise in business (5)It is also important to be very polite (6)Say what you need to say as succinctly as possible (7)When complex issues need to be addressed, phone calls are still best

Sentences 4, 5, and 6, while true, do not fit the focus

of this paragraph about e-mail The paragraph would be much stronger if these sentences were omitted

 Tr a n s i t i o n s

Transitions are the words and phrases used to move from

one idea to the next They help words flow smoothly and show readers how ideas relate to one another Transi-tional words and phrases connect ideas within sentences and between sentences, within paragraphs and between paragraphs They are essential to good writing Notice, for example, the difference between the two paragraphs below In the first version, the transitions have been omitted In the second version, they are underlined

Why do we punish those who commit crimes? There are two main theories of punishment: ret-ribution and deterrence Retret-ribution argues that people who commit crimes deserve to be pun-ished and that the punishment should fit the crime It is an “eye for an eye” philosophy

Deterrence theory posits that punishing offend-ers will help prevent future crimes

Why do we punish those who commit crimes? There are two main theories of punishment: ret-ribution and deterrence The first, retret-ribution,

–O R G A N I Z AT I O N–

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argues that people who commit crimes deserve

to be punished and that the punishment should

fit the crime In other words, it is an “eye for an

eye” philosophy Deterrence theory, on the other

hand, posits that punishing offenders will help

prevent future crimes

With the appropriate transitions, the second para-graph reads much more smoothly and makes its ideas more clear

Certain transitions work best for specific functions

For example, for example is a great transition to use when

introducing a specific example Here’s a brief list of some

of the most common transitional words and phrases:

IF YOU WANT TO: USE THESE TRANSITIONAL WORDS AND PHRASES:

in other words in particular specifically

in fact first (second) of all

acknowledge another point of view although though granted

On Part II of the GED Language Arts, Writing Test, you will be asked to write a short essay about a

general topic, such as whether there is too much violence on television or what makes a good par-ent You will have 45 minutes to demonstrate how effectively you can express your ideas in writing

A strong GED essay will have these five key elements:

1 Response to prompt (Does your essay present a well-developed main idea and a focus that responds to

the assigned prompt?)

2 Organization (Have you presented your ideas and support in a logical order?)

3 Development and details (Have you explained your ideas?)

4 Conventions of EAE (Have you followed the conventions of Edited American English?)

5 Word choice (Is the word choice accurate, diverse, and appropriate?)

As a general guide, you will need to write about four or five paragraphs to have a sufficiently developed essay That includes an introductory paragraph that states your main idea, two or three paragraphs developing and sup-porting that main idea, and a brief concluding paragraph Your essay should be approximately 250 to 300 words

C H A P T E R

Writing an Effective Essay

PART II of the GED Language Arts, Writing Test has only one

ques-tion—an essay prompt But this test is just as important as Part I, and you must pass the essay test to pass the writing exam This chapter will teach you how to write an effective essay for the GED You will learn six steps to take during an essay exam, including how to brain-storm and organize ideas and how to write with style

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