GED Math Study Guide: What to Study, and in What Order

Questions

About 46

Time

115 minutes

No calculator

First ~5 questions

Passing score

145 of 200

Math is the subject that holds people up

GED Testing Service publishes no pass rate per subject, so nobody can honestly tell you math fails more people than science. What it does publish is more useful. A GED Testing Service mathematics content specialist looked at 77,000 people who had passed three of the four subjects: 82% of them still needed Mathematical Reasoning. Reading and language arts accounted for 11%, social studies 5%, science 2%. A separate ged.com deck put the figure at 80% of 178,651 three-subject passers in June 2024.

The subject is not unusually hard. It is the one that gets left until last — and the one most people still need when everything else is done.

Read that as a warning about order, not difficulty. Math is the subject to start on. Both figures are on ged.com: Math Knowledge & Skill Gaps and Mastering Math Skills.

What is on the test

The specification splits the test two ways. The wide split is about 45% quantitative and 55% algebraic problem solving. The one that matters is what your score report uses: four reporting categories, each with a published share.

The percentages are official. The question counts are our arithmetic against a 46-question test, because GED Testing Service publishes only the shares. One number matters most: expressions and equations plus graphs and functions is 55% of the test. If algebra is what you dread, it holds more than half the marks.

What is not on the test

The specification also names what is not assessed, which is a real saving if you work from a general math book. No trigonometry, no geometric proofs, no logarithmic or exponential functions, no graphing quadratics, no two-variable inequalities, no lines of best fit, no spatial transformations, no direct or indirect variation. Skip those chapters.

How the test is built

Mathematical Reasoning is about 46 questions in 115 minutes, including two minutes of instructions and a three-minute break in the middle. GED Testing Service says “about 46” because forms differ, so treat any exact count with suspicion.

Part 1 has no calculator

The test opens with roughly five questions and no calculator. After the break an on-screen TI-30XS MultiView appears for the remaining questions, about 41. Plan as though Part 1 closes once the calculator arrives. GED Testing Service publishes no rule, but test-prep publishers report you cannot return.

Those five are the most under-practiced stretch of the test: arithmetic most people have not done unaided in months. Do the first ten minutes of every study session with the calculator closed.

The five ways it asks a question

• Multiple choice: four options, A to D.
• Fill in the blank: you type a number or equation.
• Drop-down: you pick a word or number from a menu inside a sentence.
• Select an area: you click a spot on a grid, number line or dot plot.
• Drag and drop: you move numbers or words onto targets.

There is no essay on math. A skill you can do on paper still costs a mark if you have never typed an answer into a box, so practice all five. Our practice test uses them all.

What you are given on the day

At a test center you get three erasable note boards and a marker. There is no paper, so write small and erase as you go. The formula sheet and a calculator reference sheet are there on every question. You may bring a handheld TI-30XS MultiView to a center; online, only the on-screen one.

The 39-skill checklist

The specification lists 62 content indicators: single sentences saying what a question may ask you to do, and the most precise answer there is to “what is on the GED math test”. Below are the 39 that carry the most weight, grouped by reporting category and rewritten as statements you can answer yes or no to.

Tick a skill only if you could answer a question on it right now, with no notes. Then look at the four bars: any category under half ticked is where your next two weeks go.

How to study each category

“Do more practice” is not a method. Each category has one technique that recovers most of the marks lost in it, worked through with real numbers.

Rational numbers: build percents from 10%

Fractions, decimals, percents, ratios, rates, scale and roots. Percents move scores most, and the reliable method is building the number from 10% blocks.

A jacket costs $68 and is 35% off. What do you pay?

1. 10% of 68 is 6.80 (move the decimal one place left).
2. 30% is three of those: 20.40.
3. 5% is half of 10%: 3.40.
4. 35% = 20.40 + 3.40 = 23.80. That is the discount.
5. You pay 68 − 23.80 = $44.20.

Now the check that earns the mark. 35% is a bit more than a third, and a third of 68 is about 23, so the price should land near $45. $44.20 fits. Answer $23.80 (the most common slip, because it sits in the working) and the estimate catches it. Estimate before you calculate.

Practice in fractions, decimals and percents, ratios, rates and proportions, number sense and operations and exponents, roots and scientific notation.

Measurement: two questions pick the formula

Volume formulas are printed on the sheet, so nobody loses these marks to memory. They lose them picking the wrong line. Two questions decide it.

1. Does it come to a point? A cone and a pyramid do, so their formulas carry a one-third. A box, a prism and a cylinder do not.
2. Is the base a circle? If yes, the base area is πr². If no, it is the area of the flat shape on the bottom.

A paper cup is a cone, radius 3 cm, height 10 cm. It comes to a point, so one-third; its base is a circle, so πr². V = ⅓ × 3.14 × 9 × 10 = 94.2 cm³. Forget the third and you get 282.6. That is three times too big, and it will be one of the options.

The sphere is the exception: V = (4/3)πr³, nothing to decide. This category also holds graphs, averages and probability, which are fast marks once the arithmetic is solid. Practice in geometry and measurement and data, statistics and probability.

Equations: put your answer back in

At 30% this is the biggest category, and the only one where you can check your own work.

Solve 3(x − 4) = 2x + 5.

1. Multiply the 3 into both terms of the bracket: 3x − 12 = 2x + 5.
2. Take 2x from both sides: x − 12 = 5.
3. Add 12 to both sides: x = 17.
4. Check: 3(17 − 4) = 39, and 2 × 17 + 5 = 39, so the two sides match.

Step 4 takes fifteen seconds and is the only step that tells you whether the first three worked. On multiple choice you can skip the algebra: put each option into the original equation and keep the one that balances.

For word problems, write the unknown on the note board first (let x = the number of hours), then build the equation around it. Most lost marks here are translation errors. Practice in expressions and polynomials and equations and inequalities.

Graphs: read a slope in two counts

Slope runs through this category: as a rate of change, as steepness, as the m in y = mx + b. Reading it off a graph takes two counts, no formula.

1. Find two points where the line crosses exactly on a grid corner.
2. Count squares up or down between them; that is the rise. Then count squares across for the run. Slope = rise ÷ run.

A line passes through (1, 2) and (4, 8). It rises 6 and runs 3, so the slope is 2. Then the direction check: the line goes uphill, so the slope must be positive, and it is. A downhill line must give a negative number; if it did not, you counted rise and run in opposite directions.

Read the axis numbers first. If each square is worth 2, six squares is 12, not 6 — and a slope you read as 3 is really 6. Practice in functions and graphing.

The mistakes that cost the most marks

These mistakes come from habit more than from missing knowledge, so every fix below is physical.

The fastest way to raise a math score is not to learn something new. It is to stop making the same mistake twice.

Keep an error log with three columns: what the question asked, what you did, and what you should have done. Re-read it at the start of every session. Most people find three or four repeat offenders.

The formula sheet and the calculator

What the sheet gives you

The formula sheet is on every question. It carries area for squares, rectangles, parallelograms, triangles, trapezoids and circles; perimeter and circumference; surface area and volume for prisms, cylinders, pyramids, cones and spheres; mean and median; slope, slope-intercept and point-slope form; the quadratic formula; the Pythagorean theorem; simple interest; d = rt; and total cost. Each entry is worked through on our formula sheet page.

The calculator, and the minutes without it

The on-screen calculator is a TI-30XS MultiView, with a reference sheet covering the percent key, scientific notation, the fraction key (answers come back reduced), mixed numbers, powers and roots, and the toggle that flips a fraction to a decimal. The toggle is the one to practice, because a box wanting 2.5 will not take 5/2. Our TI-30XS guide covers the keys that matter.

Your study plan: 8 weeks or 4

Both plans run in the same order: a cold diagnostic, the two algebra categories holding 55% of the marks, the rest, then a second timed test. Pick the one matching the time you have.

Count back from your test date and write the dates in. If your test is Saturday 14 November 2026, week 1 of the 8-week plan starts Saturday 19 September, and week 1 of the 4-week plan starts Saturday 17 October. A plan with real dates gets followed.

The 8-week version costs 30 to 45 minutes a day, five days a week, which comes to about 20 to 25 hours. The 4-week version covers the same ground in an hour a day. No official guidance exists on hours needed; this is what the plans cost.

The 8-week plan

The 4-week plan

If your test is next week

Do not cover everything. Take one timed test today and give the remaining days to the two categories where you lost the most marks, plus fifteen minutes a day of calculator-free arithmetic. Learn where each formula sits on the sheet. Leave untouched topics alone, because a skill half-learned in three days will not survive test-day nerves.

The last week, and test day

The last seven days

Learn nothing new. The final week makes what you have reliable. Take one full timed test five or six days out, in one sitting, at roughly the time your real test is booked. Spend the days after on the questions you got wrong, then re-tick the checklist.

The day before, do twenty minutes of material you are confident about, then stop. Check the practical things: where the center is, when you leave, and that your photo ID has not expired, because an expired ID forfeits the fee. Arrive 15 minutes early, or start check-in 30 minutes early online.

On the day itself

About 46 questions in 115 minutes is a bit over two minutes each, but do not spread it evenly. The calculator-free opening should take well under ten minutes. If a question has taken three minutes and is going nowhere, answer it anyway, flag it and move on. It usually takes 90 seconds on the second look.

A guess can be right. A blank never is.

Use the whole 115 minutes. With time left, go back to your flagged questions and to anything you typed into a box, where a slip of the fingers hides. Then check the two things that catch everyone: did you answer what was asked, and are the units right?

145 out of 200 passes. You do not need to be good at math; you need 145. Scores usually arrive within 24 hours, and our passing score page explains the bands. If it does not go your way, you may retest twice with no wait, and your other scores do not expire meanwhile.