ABE urges adults to take GED test now
Adults working on the completion of their General Education Diploma are reminded they only have until Dec. 31, 2001 to pass the tests, according to ABE Director Fe Y. Calixterio.
Any GED candidate who has not successfully completed the GED Tests by the deadline set must start again with the 2002 Series GED Tests to qualify for a GED diploma.
“The obsolete scores cannot be “converted” to scores on the new tests,” warned the GED Testing Services in Washington.
Modified general education development tests effective January 2002 will incorporate the most up-to-date, widely used curriculum standards and standardized assessment practices covering different areas of discipline.
Confirming reports that the new of GED test items will be tougher than the existing one, GED Testing Service Executive Director Joan Auchter said the types of test questions will mirror not only tasks students are being asked to perform in the kindergarten through 12th grade environment.
Ms. Auchter explained that the assessment is also tailored to match the ways adults must function as effective workers, parents, students, and citizens.
New test materials will include editorial cartoons, graphs of economic data, and business memoranda cut across traditional classroom subject areas that will require GED candidates to process information in multiple disciplines simultaneously.
Test content and design specialists also said the 2002 series GED tests will introduce the use of calculator on its mathematics portion.
Beginning January 2002, GED candidates will be issued a Casio fx-260 solar calculator during the math test.
“Traditional high school students at every level are using calculators. In addition, the calculator’s presence allows us to introduce more realistic questions into the test,” according to GED Test Development Director Lyn Shaefer.
But examinees will also be required to demonstrate their mathematical abilities without aid from the counting devices.
Meanwhile, changes to the language arts, writing test will affect the way the essays are scored and combined with the multiple-choice portion of the test.
“In the past, candidates who know their grammar, but had difficulty expressing themselves in writing could leverage a poor essay with excellent performance on the multiple choice. To pass the new writing test, they will have to demonstrate better all-around communication skills,” explained Ms. Schaefer.
GED tests were created nearly 60 years ago to gauge people’s high school level academic skills and knowledge outside the traditional classroom.
“We’ve entered an age where the ability to find and use information is becoming more important than the ability to merely own it.
By reflecting the changing needs of society, the GED Tests retain their value to the individual and to educational, business, and trade organizations as an authoritative measure of high school-level skills and knowledge,” she added.
The new GED Tests will continue to measure the major and lasting outcomes of a four-year high school course of study in English language arts, social studies, science, and mathematics.
Graduating high school seniors will continue to set the benchmark by which passing scores are set. Test content and test design specialists working on the new tests recommended against permitting combination of old and new scores because the GED Test will differ significantly from the current GED Tests. (MM)
