GED Number Practice: 25 Questions to Get Sharp Without a Calculator

If it’s been years since you did math without a calculator, those first few questions can feel like a pop quiz you didn’t study for.

But this is math you already use. You check a bank balance that dipped below zero, split a bill, or work out when two buses line up. The test puts the same arithmetic on the screen.

The catch? Small slips cost points here. Work 8 + 5 × 3 from left to right and you get 39 instead of 23, and 39 will be one of the choices. Every other topic leans on these skills, so this is a good place to start.

On this page you’ll get:

• 25 practice questions (scroll up), new ones every time
• Negative numbers, explained with a thermometer
• Order of operations, and why 2 + 3 × 4 isn’t 20
• Quick estimating to catch your own mistakes

Skills in this set: Order of operations · Evaluating expressions with integers · Adding and subtracting signed numbers · Sign rules for signed numbers · Absolute value and distance on a number line · Rounding and estimating · Least common multiple and greatest common factor · Converting units within a measurement system

What GED number questions look like

The settings are ordinary: a temperature below zero, an overdrawn bank account, a diver below sea level, a crowd size to round, a board measured in feet and inches. Many questions take two or three steps.

Negative numbers make the most sense on a thermometer. Zero sits in the middle, warmer is up and colder is down. If it’s −8° and it warms up 15 degrees, you climb 8 to reach zero and 7 more, so it’s 7°.

The thermometer also explains the odd rule about two minus signs. Subtracting a negative, as in 5 − (−3), is like taking away 3 degrees of cold. Take cold away and it gets warmer, so 5 − (−3) = 8.

Order of operations is the rule that makes everyone get the same answer. Parentheses come first, then exponents, then multiplying and dividing, then adding and subtracting. So 2 + 3 × 4 is 14: do 3 × 4 = 12 first, then add 2.

Here’s why 20 is wrong. Say you have $2 in your pocket and then earn 3 tips of $4 each. You have 2 + 12 = $14. Going left to right (2 + 3 = 5, then 5 × 4) gives $20, money you never earned.

Estimating is your safety net. Round the numbers and get a rough answer before you work it out. A temperature that starts near −10, goes up about 15 and down about 10 should end a little below zero, so an answer of 12° tells you a sign slipped.

You’ll also see rounding, factors and multiples (like two bus schedules lining up again), absolute value (how far a number is from zero) and unit conversions, such as feet to inches.

The first five or so questions have no calculator. GED Testing Service doesn’t say which topics go there, but arithmetic like this is exactly what you can do by hand, and its math content specialist lists those no-calculator questions among the four areas where test-takers struggle most. The calculator is on for this whole practice set, so try some questions by hand.

How many questions? There’s no official count per topic. This one shares the numbers-and-percents area of the test (about 25%) with fractions, percents, ratios and exponents, so our estimate is two to four questions out of about 46.

The topics and area weights come from GED Testing Service’s official test guide. It doesn’t publish a question count per topic, so any count here is our estimate.

The 4 mistakes that cost the most points

Each wrong answer in the practice set is the result of one specific slip, and the explanation names it. These are the ones that come up most in this topic.

One problem, worked out step by step

How to get better at this, fast

1. Before you work an expression, number the steps in the order you’ll do them (the order many people remember as PEMDAS), and cross each one off as you go. It feels slow at first and turns automatic quickly.
2. Sketch a quick thermometer for signed-number problems until you don’t need it. Mark the start, move up for each increase and down for each decrease, and read where you land.
3. Estimate before you choose. Round the numbers, get a rough answer, and cross off any choice that’s far away or on the wrong side of zero. For conversions, check the direction too: feet to inches should make the number bigger, and minutes to hours should make it smaller.
4. In a factors-or-multiples word problem, decide what’s being asked first. Two schedules lining up again calls for the least common multiple. Splitting one pile into equal groups calls for the greatest common factor.