Is the GED Hard? An Honest Answer, Subject by Subject

If you’ve been out of school for years, “Is the GED hard?” usually means something else: can I do this?

The catch? “Hard” means something different on each of the four tests. One is hard for most people, and two are mostly careful reading.

We went through GED Testing Service’s own test guides and data to sort out which is which. If school went badly the first time, that history can make this feel bigger than it is.

The short answer: hard in places, and mostly in one

The GED is four separate tests: math, Reasoning Through Language Arts (RLA, the reading and writing test), science and social studies. You need 145 out of 200 on each one, and you can take them one at a time.

So which ones are hard? GED Testing Service’s own data gives a clear answer. In a presentation for educators, it looked at 77,000 people who had passed three of the four subjects, and at the one they still had left:

That’s a lopsided picture. Science is rarely the test that holds people back. Math usually is, and language arts comes a distant second.

How high is the bar? GED Testing Service set the passing score by giving the test to a national sample of high school graduates from the class of 2013. It based the pass mark on how they did.

So the bar comes from what new graduates could do. You don’t need to be a star student.

How many people pass the GED?

GED Testing Service doesn’t list a pass rate on its main test pages. The newest figure we found on ged.com is in a September 2024 article on its news page for educators. Writing about Arkansas, it puts the national pass rate at 75% in 2023.

That article doesn’t say what it counted, such as each subject test or each person, so treat it as a rough guide. An older ged.com post gave 80% for 2018.

Subject by subject: what makes each one hard

Here’s what each test asks of you, based on GED Testing Service’s own descriptions. For the full topic lists, see what’s on the GED test.

Math: the test most people have left

The topics, in ged.com’s words, are basic math, geometry, basic algebra, and graphs and functions. Three things make it hard:

• Skills you haven’t used in years. Fractions, negative numbers and percents come back, but slowly at first, like a language you haven’t spoken since school.
• Word problems. ged.com says you should be familiar with “applying math concepts to solve real-life problems.” The math might be one step. Turning a story about a phone plan into that step is the hard part.
• No calculator at the start. The first part is short (about 5 questions), and you do it by hand. The on-screen calculator comes on for the rest.

The good news? You get a formula sheet, and the calculator covers most of the test. For the math-only answer, with worked examples, read Is GED Math Hard?

Language arts (RLA): long passages and a 45-minute essay

RLA checks how well you read and write. It’s the longest test at 150 minutes, and three things make it hard:

• Long passages. Reading passages run 400 to 900 words, about the length of a full news article. Three in four texts are nonfiction, drawn from science, social studies and the workplace.
• Less time than it looks. The 150 minutes include a 10-minute break and 45 minutes for the essay. By our math, that leaves about 90 minutes for all the reading and grammar questions.
• The essay. You read two passages, decide which argument has more convincing evidence, and explain why.

The essay matters more than people expect. In a 2018 workshop, GED Testing Service said it’s worth about 20% of the RLA points. You can pass with a zero on it, but GED Testing Service calls that “NOT good test strategy.”

Its essay guidelines suggest 4 to 7 paragraphs, which adds up to about 300 to 500 words. A much shorter essay risks a 0. They also remind you that the better-supported side “is not necessarily the position you agree with.”

Think of it like a referee’s call. You side with the stronger evidence, whichever team you’d root for.

Science: reading charts and experiments

If you remember science class as a pile of terms to learn, here’s some relief. ged.com says you should be familiar with “reading and analyzing graphs and data sets” to understand scientific information.

It also says, “You do not need to memorize formulas.” Each question gives you the information you need to answer it.

The hard part is careful reading: a graph, a table or the setup of an experiment. It’s a lot like comparing two nutrition labels at the store. You get 90 minutes and an on-screen calculator.

Social studies: documents and graphs, with no dates to memorize

ged.com is blunt about this one: “The social studies test is not a memorization test!” You “won’t need to memorize the capitals of countries or dates that events occurred.”

What you do need is reading and reasoning. You read documents, charts and graphs, then draw conclusions. In one sample question, you read part of a government report and pick the detail that supports a conclusion.

Think of reading a news story with a chart beside it. Social studies is the shortest test at 70 minutes, and there’s no essay.

Bottom line: science and social studies are mostly careful reading. The hard parts are math and the essay, so that’s where most of your study time should go.

What 145 means (and why it isn’t a percent)

Each subject is scored on a scale of 100 to 200, and 145 passes. It’s a scaled score: GED Testing Service turns your right answers into a point on that scale, and it doesn’t share the conversion.

So 145 doesn’t mean 145 right answers, and it doesn’t mean 72.5%. Picture a ruler that runs from 100 to 200, with a line drawn at 145.

Each subject has to reach 145 on its own. A great score in RLA can’t make up for a low one in math. Our guide to GED scores explains every level, and the GED math passing score page estimates how many math questions 145 takes.

Where people lose points: the clock, blanks and the essay

Knowing the material is only part of it. These three habits cost points too, and each one gets better with practice.

1. The clock. In math, you have about two and a half minutes a question (115 minutes for about 46 questions). If one question eats five minutes, pick your best answer and move on. The times for all four tests are in how long the GED test is.
2. Blanks. A blank can’t earn a point, and a guess might. Before time runs out, put an answer on every question.
3. The essay. Skipping it gives up a part worth about a fifth of the RLA points. One way to split the 45 minutes: about 5 to plan, 35 to write and 5 to check.

How to tell you’re ready (before you pay to test)

You don’t have to guess. GED Ready, GED Testing Service’s official practice test, gives each subject one of three results:

GED Ready costs $7.99 per subject, or $25.99 for all four, and it’s half the length of the real test. To test online, you need a Likely to Pass (“green”) result in that subject from the last 60 days.

One catch for RLA: GED Ready doesn’t score the essay. You get guidance and a copy of your essay to take to an adult education center, where a trained educator can score it.

Want a free look first? GED Testing Service has free test previews in all four subjects, each a quarter of the length of the real test. Our own free practice covers math only.

For math, start with our free GED math practice test: 46 questions in 115 minutes, with every answer explained. Once you score in the passing range two or three times in a row, it’s a good time to buy GED Ready.