Fourteen more, from outside

What these are

Fourteen more extended-response tasks, free on other people’s sites. Nine come from the people who write the GED. Five come from adult educators in Florida who built a packet for students leaving prison.

Our own five sets, on the essay page, were written to teach: each one folds away a full account of what the two articles offered and where each is weak. These fourteen teach nothing. That is their value. Do ours to learn the judgment; do these to find out whether you can make it cold.

The readings stay where they are, on the sites of the people who wrote them. Each set below has a page here with the link, the prompt, a 45-minute clock, and a box that saves your writing under your code. Read there, write here.

Nine from the test maker

The people who write the GED publish two free documents of real extended-response tasks — both articles and the prompt exactly as it appears on the test. No GED.com account is needed, and there is nothing to pay. (The GED Ready practice test itself is a separate, paid product. These documents are only the reading and the writing task from it.)

No order is built into these. Take whichever question you would least like to be handed on test day.

1. 1
   Should diamond mining be banned?

   Two articles on whether the industry has cleaned itself up.GED Ready source texts

2. 2
   Should the city require reusable bags?

   A newspaper editorial and a shop owner’s letter.GED Ready source texts

3. 3
   Should the town install red-light cameras?

   A councilman’s speech and a newspaper reply.GED Ready source texts

4. 4
   Are professional athletes overpaid?

   A sports promoter and a high school math teacher.GED Ready source texts

5. 5
   Are tweens ready for cell phones?

   Two speeches, on what age is old enough.Sample Extended Response

6. 6
   Does game-based learning work?

   Two professors, in two journal articles.Sample Extended Response

7. 7
   Should parenting classes be required?

   Two guest columns, on first-time parents.Sample Extended Response

8. 8
   Should the company filter the internet at work?

   Two emails inside one workplace.Sample Extended Response

9. 9
   Should the city bid for the Olympics?

   A developer and an economist, in two guest columns.Sample Extended Response

Five from Leon County

From ACE Leon Transitions, Unit 9-A: Evidence-based Writing Practice, put together by Leon County Schools Adult & Community Education in Tallahassee, Florida, for students moving from prison back into work and school. It is free, and there is nothing to sign in to.

These five ask the GED’s question — which position is better supported — but they were written by teachers, not by the test maker, so read each prompt carefully. Two of them invite you to bring in your own knowledge of the issue. The GED never does that, and on the real test evidence from outside the passages earns nothing. Where those two appear below, they are marked.

1. 1
   Should the minimum wage be raised to $15?

   One newspaper article carrying both sides.

2. 2
   Should marijuana be a medical option?

   Doctors and officials, for and against — with one doctor on both sides, seven years apart.

3. 3
   Should people be allowed to carry concealed weapons?

   The Second Amendment, four advocates, and one news story. Asks for outside knowledge; the GED does not.

4. 4
   Should work requirements for public assistance be increased?

   One newspaper article, officials and critics quoted inside it. Asks for outside knowledge; the GED does not.

5. 5
   Is DACA good for America?

   Background on the Dreamers, then both sides.

Three in the same packet that are not this task

The Leon County packet holds three more sets, and they ask something different. They put a position beside a founding document — the Fifteenth Amendment, the Declaration of Independence, the Emancipation Proclamation — and ask how well the one answers to the other.

• The right to vote for people with felony convictions. The Fifteenth Amendment, Section 1, with speeches by two attorneys general on opposite sides.
• Selma to Montgomery, 1965. What conditions made the march necessary, and whether it answered them.
• “I Have a Dream,” the Declaration, and the Emancipation Proclamation. How King’s speech answers the two documents it quotes.

That is real writing and worth doing, but it is not the GED essay, and practising it as though it were will teach you the wrong reflex. It belongs beside Rights on Paper, which works the same way: a reading, with the Constitution’s own words next to it.