If you're looking for help with the GED extended response section on the GED Reading and Language Arts test, then you're in the right place! 

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In this article, you'll learn:

1. A step-by-step approach you can use to minimize the pain of writing the essay

2. How much time you'll have, how long your essay should be, how many words you’ll need to include, and what the essay must be about 

3. A basic writing formula you can easily use to maximize your score

4. Other tips and tricks along the way 

You will be given two passages to read. Each passage will be written by a different author who wants to convince you that his or her position is correct.

Your job is to read each passage, and then decide which author’s position is best supported by the evidence in the passage. From there, you will write your essay to explain why the position you selected is best supported. 

In total, you will have 45 minutes to read both passages and write the essay. Each paragraph should be 4 - 7 sentences in length. Aim to write 3 - 7 sentences per paragraph, with 70 - 80 words in each paragraph.

Want to learn a proven 4-phase formula to writing your essay? Then you’re in luck.

Keep reading, because that’s what you’re about to learn! It’s best to construct your essay in 4 different phases:

1. Read
2. Plan
3. Write
4. Edit

The reading phase is hopefully self-explanatory--you’ll read both passages and think about which author is making the strongest case. If you’re unsure of how to do this, then don’t worry! I’ll explain this more shortly.

The goal of the planning phase is to decide in advance what you’re going to write about in each paragraph, so you don’t get stuck as you write and waste time. 

The planning phase is often misunderstood. But if you get it right, brilliant words will easily flow from your fingertips as you write. Not planning at all is a mistake, but so is spending too much time planning. If you don’t take the time to come up with a game plan, then you’re much more likely to get stuck as you write. With the clock ticking down and your GED RLA score at stake, you don’t want to get stuck!

On the other hand, over planning will also sabotage your score. You only need to spend a few minutes on your planning. Don’t go overboard or you’ll run out of time to write a complete essay.

Also, note that there’s a lot of bad advice out there about how to plan your essay. Many prep books and GED classes will tell you to draw out an idea map or flowchart to plan your writing. 

Ignore this advice at all costs!!! It’s just not practical. You’re going to run out of time if you try to do this on your test. What you should do instead is just write some bullet points down on your dry erase board about what you’re going to say in your intro and for each body paragraph. More on this in just a moment. 

The writing phase is what’s going to make or break your score, plain and simple. The bulk of your time will be spent actually writing your essay. Like I said, if you read carefully and plan well, the writing phase will be much simpler. 

The editing phase is where you’ll re-read all or at least some of your essay, depending on how much time you have left, to make any changes needed to boost your score. Budgeting even just a few minutes of time after your write to check your work will have a large impact on your score. 

But how do you manage your time on the essay? Keep reading…

If you’re worried about how you’re going to manage your time on the GED extended response, then STOP RIGHT NOW! 

Know that there are 3 different strategies you can use to effectively handle the time pressure. Each one is setup differently, so pick whichever one you think best fits your writing style.

The first plan is what I call the balanced plan. In the balanced plan, you prioritize 10 minutes to read and plan, 25 minutes to write, and 10 minutes to edit your work. This plan provides the best balance between the phases and is a great plan to pick.

The second choice for a time management plan is what I call the reading focused plan. This plan consists of 15 minutes to read and plan, 25 minutes to write, and 5 minutes to edit your work. I set this plan up to give you the maximum time for reading and planning. If you think you’ll need extra time to read and plan, go with this one.

The last choice is what I call the writing focused plan. Here’s how it works: give yourself 10 minutes to read and plan, 30 minutes to write, and 5 minutes to edit. If you think you’ll need  a lot of time to write, then use this plan. 

Confused about which plan to pick? Don’t sweat the choice too much. Just go with whichever one your gut tells you will work best for you. Or better yet, experiment with different plans while you practice.

The key point here is to have some kind of strategy for managing the time during the GED extended response so you don’t panic as the clock runs down. 

Your score GED Extended Response score depends on how well you can identify strong and weak arguments.

While you write, you must explain why one author’s argument is stronger than the other author’s. To do this, you must assess both the evidence and logic presented by each author. Stronger reasoning and stronger evidence equal a stronger argument. But determining which passage contains the strongest arguments is not always easy...

For example, both passages will usually contain at least some pieces of both strong and weak evidence for the claims. Your job is to pick the passage that has the MOST pieces of strong evidence. Luckily, there are some clues you can use to whip through this section. 

Strong arguments:

1. Contain specific examples

2. Are backed up by research studies,facts, data, statistics, and survey results

3. Have expert/authority opinions

4. Use sources with recent dates

5. Use “common sense” and logic

In contrast, weak arguments:

1. Are based on opinions, NOT facts

2. Cite unnamed experts and unreliable sources

3. Use outdated sources 

4. Bandwagon (everybody knows ____, etc.)

To understand the difference, consider an example. Let’s suppose you’re walking down the street one day, and a random person who’s a total stranger to you comes up to you and tells you to switch to a new brand of toothpaste.

Imagine that you ask the person why you should switch, and he or she says you should switch because everybody knows this brand of toothpaste is the best. Back in the year 1830, a research study proved this brand is the best for preventing cavities.

If this scenario happened to you, ask yourself how likely you’d be to switch the brand of toothpaste you use based off of this conversation? Let me guess. Not very likely! On the other hand, consider this scenario:

During your 6-month teeth cleaning, your trusted dentist tells you that you should switch to a new brand of toothpaste. Imagine that your dentist presents you with a written pamphlet that quotes other dentists and cites cutting-edge research studies done at prestigious universities to support their claim.

Ask yourself, how much more likely would you be to switch brands of toothpaste? Probably much more likely, right? And why? Because an expert (your dentist) tells you to do so and provides evidence for how effective the new brand is in the form of quotes and results from recent research studies. 

Are you starting to see more and more clearly the difference between strong and weak arguments? Fantastic. As you read both passages, pay attention to cases in which the authors use both strong and weak evidence in their arguments. 

One valuable tool you can use on your test is the highlight feature. While you’re reading the passages, know that you can highlight text right on your computer screen. If you don’t want to highlight, then you can jot some bullet points down on your erasable whiteboard, which will be given to you instead of scratch paper. 

As you spot places in the passages where an author makes a good argument, highlight them or jot down a bullet point. I don’t recommend writing out complete sentences on your dry erase board, because you might find yourself running out of time.

Remember, jumping into writing without planning is a mistake. But so is taking up too much time crafting your plan. The best way to achieve a balance is to start formulating your plan as you read. 

As you read, consider the following:

1. What’s the topic of the essay (for example, best age to give kids a cell phone, etc.)?

2. What’s each author’s stance on the issue (for example, author A believes kids wait until 16 to get a cell phone, but author B believes kids should get cell phones at age 10, etc.)

3. Where do you see the authors making strong and weak arguments throughout their writing? 

Again--jot down a few bullet points or highlight the text as you read. Try not to juggle too much of this stuff in your head so that you can use your brain power to focus on writing and not trying to remember specific details. There’s no need to try too hard to remember the details. Look back at the passages as often as you need to while you right.

If you can discipline yourself to focus on these aspects as you read, you’re going to be far ahead of the game when it comes to planning. The only other thing you should do before you jump into the writing is to think about the 3 best reasons why one author’s position is better supported than the other. 

To maximize your GED essay score, use the proven 5 paragraph essay system! 

Your essay should consist of 5 paragraphs, each with about 3 - 5 sentences, where the first paragraph is an introduction followed by 3 body paragraphs. Lastly, you'll write a conclusion that basically restates the main points you've already talked about in your essay. 

Knowing how to write a winning introduction will boost your score on the GED Extended Response essay. 

Luckily, there’s a simple strategy you can use to easily maximize your score. A good introduction should consist of the following:

1. A topic sentence 

2. A summary of the main argument in both passages

3. Your own claim about which position is best supported by the evidence (also called a thesis statement).

In your topic sentence, state what the essay is about. Don’t worry about adding anything fancy into the topic sentence! Just tell the reader what the topic is and move on. The goal is to summarize what each author believes so that the reader will know what the different viewpoints are.

You can do this in one big sentence if you want to, but I recommend writing two sentences, with one viewpoint per sentence. Lastly, you must state which position is best supported by the evidence. This is the most important part!