About the ged writing exam 8 docx

On Part II of the GED Language Arts, Writing Test, you will be asked to write a short essay about ageneral topic, such as whether there is too much violence on television or what makes a

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

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

10

 G e n e r a l W r i t i n g S t r a t e g i e s

To do well on the essay exam, you need to have a solid

grasp of general writing strategies These strategies are

those basic techniques writers use to develop a readable

and engaging text They include:

■ writing in a way that is appropriate for audience

and purpose

■ providing appropriate and sufficient support

■ crafting effective introductions and conclusions

■ using effective transitions

■ revising for more effective writing

Audience and Purpose

At its core, effective writing has a constant awareness of

and attention to audience and purpose Good writers are

always thinking about their readers: Who are they? What

do they know about the subject? What prejudices or

pre-conceived notions might they have? What will keep their

attention?

Good writers are also always thinking about purpose

Is their goal to teach a lesson? Provide information?

Entertain? Answer a question? Convince or persuade?

WRITING FOR YOUR AUDIENCE

Knowing your audience will help you make a couple of

key writing decisions First, it helps you determine your

level of formality Will you use slang or very formal

lan-guage? It depends upon your relationship with your

reader On the GED, you will be expected to write for a

general audience That is, you should assume your

read-ers are “everyday” people with a wide variety of interests

and backgrounds You will need an appropriate level of

formality for this audience Treat your readers with

respect, but do not put them off by sounding too formal

or pretentious Avoid slang (too informal) or jargon

(technical or specialized language) Let your writing be

natural without being too informal

Your audience also determines the level of detail and

specificity in your essay Because you are writing for a

gen-eral audience and not friends, you cannot assume that

readers know the context of your ideas and experiences

For example, if you are arguing that Internet sites should

be censored, do not assume that readers have seen the

kind of sites you are talking about—or even that they

have been on the Internet You will need to briefly

K NOWING Y OUR P URPOSE

As important as knowing whom you are writing for is

knowing why you are writing What is the goal of your

essay? What are you hoping to convey through your writ-ing? The more clearly you can articulate your purpose while you outline your essay, the more effective your writing and revising states will be

Here are some verbs you might find helpful for describing your purpose:

Of course, your specific goals will be guided by the prompt you receive on the GED In a narrative essay, for example, your main purpose will be to describe In a per-suasive essay, your main purpose will be to convince In

an expository essay, you may aim to inform, compare, propose, or explain, depending upon your topic

As you think about how to write your essay, think about how you would fill in the blank in the following sentence:

Beginnings, Middles, and Ends

As you know, essays have three distinct parts:

■ beginning (introduction)

■ middle (body)

■ end (conclusion)

You will be expected to have all three parts in your GED essay

I NTRODUCTIONS

First impressions count, and that’s why introductions are

so important in writing A good introduction:

1 indicates what the essay is about (its topic) and

what the writer is going to say about the topic (its

main idea)

2 grabs the reader’s attention.

3 establishes the tone of the passage.

Techniques to grab attention include opening with:

■ a question

■ a quotation

■ a surprising fact or statement

■ an imaginary situation or scenario

■ an anecdote

■ interesting background information

■ a new twist on a familiar phrase

For example, a more attention-grabbing introduction

to the Batman passage in the pretest might be something

like the following:

Pow! Bam! Zap! Batman triumphs again, saving

the citizens of Gotham City from evil.

This opening plays upon a convention of comic strips

and the Batman television series And because it is

unique and action-filled, it generates interest and

excite-ment in the reader

C ONCLUSIONS

Conclusions, too, should be powerful After all, people

tend to remember most what comes first and last, and

the final words have the power to ring in readers’ ears for

a long time afterward A good conclusion will:

1 restate the main idea.

2 provide a sense of closure (not “open a new can

of worms” by introducing a new topic)

3 arouse readers’ emotions to make the ending and

main idea memorable

The Batman text, again, provides a good example

In Batman, Kane gave us an image of our own

superhero potential.

This concluding sentence sums up what makes Batman

so popular, rounding out the passage in a way that makes

readers think about their own similarities to Batman and

what sort of superheroes they could be

Many of the same introductory techniques can be used to help make conclusions memorable:

■ a quotation

■ a question

■ an anecdote

■ a prediction

■ a solution or recommendation

■ a call to action

For example, the conclusion to an essay about a healthy diet might end with a call to action:

Take a good, long look in your refrigerator and pantry What unhealthy foods call your icebox and cabinets their home? Find them, get rid of them, and stock up on foods that will help you live a longer, healthier life.

 E f f e c t i v e E s s a y s a n d

t h e W r i t i n g P r o c e s s

Experienced writers know that good writing doesn’t hap-pen all at once Rather, it develops in stages That’s

because writing is a process, not just a product And it’s

difficult to get a good product without going through each step in the writing process

The writing process can be divided into three steps:

1 planning

2 drafting

3 revising and editing

When you are under pressure to write a winning essay

in just 45 minutes, you may be tempted to skip these

steps and just write your essay in one shot You may end

up with a successful essay with this approach But your chances of doing well on the GED Writing Test—or, on any writing task—will increase dramatically if you take the time to work through each step Even though you only have 45 minutes, the ten minutes you spend plan-ning and proofreading your essay will be time well spent

In fact, for essay exams, the planning stage is so impor-tant that it has been divided into six separate steps in the following section

How to Divide Your Time

on an Essay Exam

When your time is limited, how long should you

spend on each step in the writing process?

On an essay exam, use this general rule for

dividing your time:

41of the time: planning

21of the time: writing

41of the time: revising and editing

Your 45 minutes on the GED can be divided as

follows:

10 minutes planning

25 minutes writing

10 minutes revising and editing

 S i x S t e p s t o a S t r o n g E s s a y

These six steps will help you write a strong, effective essay

on the GED

Step 1: Understand the Writing

Prompt

Before you can begin to plan your essay, you need to be

sure you understand the kind of essay you need to write

As noted earlier, it is essential that you respond

accu-rately to the writing prompt you are given on the exam

If you write about a different topic, you will not receive

credit for your essay It’s therefore critical to understand

exactly what the prompt is asking you to do

Earlier in this section, we divided the essay prompts

into three types: narrative, persuasive, and expository

How do you know which kind of essay the prompt is

ask-ing for? Each prompt will have key words that can help

you understand what to do These key words include

terms such as:

tell describe identify explain

Notice, for example, the underlined key words in the two prompts below:

The Internet includes many websites with images and content that are inappropriate for children Other sites on the Internet promote violence or intolerance against certain groups of people Should websites like these be censored?

In your essay, state your position on this issue and explain why you take that position Use your personal observations, experiences, and knowledge to support your essay

Sometimes, events take an unexpected turn and things turn out differently than we imagined Tell about a time when something unexpected happened to you In your essay, describe what was supposed to happen and how things actu-ally turned out Use supporting details through-out your essay

You are on your way to a successful essay if:

1 You understand what kind of essay to write:

narrative (tell a story), persuasive (make an argu-ment), or expository (explain an idea or respond

to a situation or scenario)

2 You follow the directions exactly and directly answer the questions in the prompt In the first

example, you must state your position on the issue raised in the prompt—censorship of cer-tain types of Internet sites In the second exam-ple, you must tell a story about a specific kind of experience—a time when something unexpected happened

Step 2: Formulate a Clear Thesis

Before you begin to write, you need to decide what you are going to write about Once you are sure you under-stand the prompt, how will you answer its question? Your answer will form the core of your essay It will be the main idea that controls everything you write and deter-mine the kind of support you will provide In other words, your answer to the question in the prompt is your

thesis—your main idea It is the “argument” that you are

going to make and the idea you need to support

A thesis does not just repeat or paraphrase the

ques-ments about the topic or state how others might respond

to the question A good thesis takes a clear, personal

posi-tion For example, look again at the following prompt:

Our relationships with our neighbors are very

important Sometimes, these relationships are

the source of great joy in our lives; other times,

they can be the source of great trouble In your

opinion, what makes a good neighbor? In your

essay, identify the characteristics of a good

neighbor and explain why these characteristics

are important for people living side by side Use

your personal observations, experiences, and

knowledge to support your essay

The following sentences are not thesis statements

(they do not answer the question)

■ There are all kinds of neighbors

■ What makes a good neighbor?

■ There are many characteristics of a good

neighbor

These, however, are thesis statements They respond

directly to the question

■ Good neighbors are helpful and kind

■ The best kind of neighbors help when asked and

otherwise mind their own business

■ Good neighbors are friendly, helpful, and

respect-ful of boundaries

Step 3: Brainstorm Support for

Your Thesis

Once you have decided how to answer the question(s) in

the prompt, decide how you will support your answer.

On your piece of scrap paper, list at least three to five

rea-sons, examples, or specific details to support your thesis

or events to develop your story

Because you are still in the planning stage, write down

whatever comes to mind You don’t have to include

everything you list in your essay And the more ideas you

put down, the more freedom you will have to pick the

best (strongest) support for your thesis

For example, here’s how you might brainstorm sup-port for the previous prompt:

Thesis: Good neighbors are friendly, helpful, and respectful of boundaries

Why?

Friendly neighbors are pleasant to have around, make it nice to live where you live

Helpful is important—know you can count on them for small favors, when you are in need Need to respect boundaries, not take what

is yours, not get too involved in your life—

otherwise, they will not be welcome

Examples:

Friendly—my neighbor Selma and her family— always saying hello, often chatting, cookies at Christmas

Helpful—lending tools to Dad, borrowing sugar etc., babysitting

Respecting boundaries—don’t just walk in, don’t be nosy; they’re your neighbors, not your family

Listing is just one brainstorming strategy You can also

map your ideas This is especially effective if you are a

visual learner, as shown on the map on the following page

Freewriting

If you are totally stuck and can’t think of how to answer your question or how to support your

thesis, try freewriting This brainstorming tech-nique is what it says—free writing Write down

whatever comes to mind about the question or topic Don’t worry about grammar or structure

Write in your own language if you like Just

write If you keep your hands moving for even

two or three minutes, you are bound to come

up with some good ideas

a garden

Accepting pac

ugar T

Mind own bu