Ged Writing Essay Examples

The GED Reasoning Through Language Arts Writing Section

The essay portion of the GED RLA test asks you to read a passage and write a response that evaluates arguments presented in it. You get 45 minutes. You type it on a computer. The prompts are always sourced from real academic or professional writing, and they always involve two short passages that take opposing positions on something. Your job is not to pick a side and defend it. Your job is to identify which passage makes a stronger case and explain why using evidence from the text. Most people waste the first ten minutes trying to figure out what the prompt wants. The prompt tells you exactly what it wants in the first paragraph. It says something like "write an essay that evaluates the argument and uses evidence from both texts to support your analysis." That is the only thing that matters. Stop reading the passages before you have that sentence locked in.

Ged Writing Essay Examples

When I first started reviewing GED essays for a tutoring program, I noticed a pattern that had nothing to do with grammar or vocabulary. The students who scored a 1 were writing personal opinion pieces. They ignored the passages entirely and wrote about their own lives. A student once submitted an essay about how she felt about remote work after reading two passages on telecommuting. She never referenced a single claim from either text. She got a 1 out of 4. The rubric is brutal about this. Two out of four scoring points are based on whether you actually used evidence from the provided passages. Here is a realistic example of a high-scoring thesis written under exam conditions. The prompt asked test-takers to evaluate arguments about whether zoos serve an educational purpose or exploit animals. A strong thesis would look like this: The first passage presents a more convincing case for zoos because it grounds its claims in verifiable conservation data, while the second passage relies on emotionally charged but unverified anecdotes.

That thesis does three things at once. It names which passage is stronger. It gives a reason. It signals the structure of the essay without listing points mechanically. A weak version would say "Both sides have good points but I think zoos are bad." That tells the grader nothing about your analytical ability. The essay itself breaks into four paragraphs. The introduction opens with a brief summary of what each passage argues, followed immediately by your thesis. No fluff. No "In today's society" or "This is a controversial topic." The prompt does not care about context. It cares about your ability to evaluate argumentation. The body paragraphs each focus on one passage. You are not writing a compare-and-contrast essay in the traditional sense. You are evaluating each argument's strengths and weaknesses independently, then showing why one outweighs the other. The first body paragraph should cover the weaker passage's most compelling claim and then dismantle it with a flaw or missing evidence. The second body paragraph does the same for the stronger passage, but the focus is on what makes it stronger rather than just restating its points.

I ran into an edge case last year with a student who was handed a prompt where both passages were genuinely weak. One relied on a false analogy and the other used circular reasoning. He panicked and tried to argue that neither passage was valid. That approach scores poorly. The rubric does not give you an out. You must pick one and justify the choice. I had him write that Passage A was less flawed because, despite the false analogy, it still provided concrete examples of zoo revenue allocation, whereas Passage B offered zero supporting evidence beyond the premise itself. He got a 3 out of 4. Picking the lesser of two weak options is always acceptable on this test. The conclusion should restate your thesis in different words and summarize the key evidence you used. Do not introduce new information. Do not summarize the passages again. The grader already read what you wrote. One paragraph, four to six sentences, done. Scoring is based on three main dimensions. First is creation of arguments and use of evidence, which accounts for roughly half the grade. Second is clarity and structure. Third is convention and command of language. You can have decent grammar and still fail if you do not engage with the texts properly. You can have mediocre grammar and still pass if your argumentation is sharp and well-supported.

Time management is where most people fall apart. I recommend spending the first five minutes reading the prompt and highlighting claim-evidence pairs in each passage. The next twenty-five minutes are for writing. The final fifteen minutes are for revision. Twenty-five minutes is enough if you stop polishing sentences mid-draft. You will not finish an essay in twenty-five minutes if you are rewriting each paragraph three times. There is a common misconception that you need advanced vocabulary to score well. You do not. The rubric explicitly states that simple language is acceptable as long as the writing is clear and precise. Using words like "utilize" when "use" would do is not an upgrade. It reads as padding and sometimes introduces errors. Prefer clarity over sophistication every time. Here is a simplified template you can adapt during the actual test. The introduction should contain a one-sentence summary of each passage's main claim, followed by your thesis. The body paragraphs follow the pattern: claim from the passage, evidence from the passage, evaluation of the evidence, explanation of how this supports or weakens the argument. The conclusion restates the thesis and the two strongest pieces of evidence you discussed.

Common Mistakes That Tank Scores

The biggest mistake I see is treating the essay like a debate. Students write "I agree with passage one because" and then proceed to argue for a position. The prompt does not ask you to take a stance on the issue itself. It asks you to evaluate which author made a better argument. These are different tasks. An essay that argues passionately for one side without analyzing the other side's rhetoric will score in the bottom quartile. Another mistake is paraphrasing the passages instead of quoting or closely referencing them. The graders can tell when you are summarizing instead of using specific textual evidence. Instead of saying "the first passage talks about how zoos help animals," you should write "the first passage cites a 2021 study showing that captive breeding programs increased the population of endangered species by eighteen percent." Specificity is what separates a 2 from a 4. Sentence variety matters more than people expect. A string of short, choppy sentences reads like a middle school report. A string of long, winding sentences loses the grader's attention. Aim for a mix. Alternate between a straightforward claim and a supporting sentence that explains the mechanism behind that claim. This is the difference between "The second passage is weaker" and "The second passage is weaker because its central claim—that zoos cause psychological harm—depends on anecdotal observations from two unsourced visits rather than peer-reviewed behavioral studies."

Where This Approach Falls Short

The method I described works for the standard GED essay prompt. It does not work if you are given a nonstandard prompt that asks for a literary analysis instead of an argument evaluation. Those exist rarely but they do appear. They require a different structure focused on rhetorical devices and authorial choices rather than evidence quality. If your practice materials only cover argument evaluation, you will be unprepared for that variation. Another limitation is that this approach assumes you can read and comprehend the passages within the time limit. The passages are college-level in difficulty. Students with limited English proficiency or processing speed challenges sometimes cannot extract the key claims fast enough to plan a coherent response. For those test-takers, the best workaround is to practice extracting the main claim and two supporting pieces of evidence from each passage in under three minutes per passage using timed drills. That habit frees up mental bandwidth during the actual essay. If you want free practice materials, the official GED website at ged.com offers two free practice tests, each including one extended response prompt. Third-party sites like Khan Academy and GED.com's own resource library also have sample essays with scoring commentary. Reading actual scored essays at every level is more useful than any template because it shows you what the graders reward and penalize in practice.