How this works
This diagnostic shows what you already know on the GED Language Arts test, and what to work on first. It has three parts, laid out the way the test is:
- Part One, reading. A story, a science article, a speech by Frederick Douglass, and a letter that argues. 25 questions.
- Part Two, language. A work memo and a notice, with places to choose the correct version of a sentence. 18 questions.
- Part Three, the extended response. Two articles that disagree, and 45 minutes to write about which one is better supported.
It is long, and you do not have to do it in one sitting. Your answers are kept in this browser, on this device, so you can stop and come back. When you finish a passage, press its Check button. The results table at the bottom fills in as you go and tells you where to go next.
There is no time limit on Parts One and Two. On the real test, the reading and language questions are split into two timed sections, with the essay between them.
Part One · Reading
Four passages, 25 questions. Read each passage before its questions, and go back to it as often as you need.
Part One · passage 1 of 4
The Last Pair
This is a whole short story, about 500 words. Read it once straight through, then answer the questions. Go back to the story as often as you like. Questions 1 to 7.
Passage 1 · a story
The Last Pair
1The key still stuck. For forty-one years her father had jiggled it twice to the left before it turned, and now Rosa did the same, standing on Roosevelt Avenue at seven in the morning while the elevated train shook the air above her. She told herself this was the last week she would have to do it.
2Inside, the shop smelled the way it always had, of leather and glue and the oil he rubbed into the old machines. The shelves behind the counter were still full. Each pair of shoes wore a paper tag, tied on with string, with a name and a date in her father’s square handwriting. Some of the dates were from before he got sick. Nobody had come for those.
3Her son, Danny, had made it sound simple on the phone. “A phone store will pay twice the rent, Ma. You keep the building, you get a check every month, and you stop getting up in the dark.” He was right about the money. He was usually right about money. She had not argued. She had only said she needed to clean first.
4She took down a box and began to sort the shoes into a pile for the church donation bin. Halfway through she found a pair of black work boots, resoled but never picked up. The tag said “Ferreira — Tues.” There was no year.
5At a quarter past nine the bell over the door rang. A man in a transit worker’s jacket stood there with his hat in his hand, as if he had walked into a church.
6“I don’t know if you still have them,” he said. “I left boots here. A long time ago. Your father said Tuesday, and then I got moved to the night shift in the Bronx, and then—” He lifted his shoulders. “I was ashamed to come back so late.”
7Rosa held up the boots. The man laughed, a short, surprised sound, and took them from her as carefully as if they were a sleeping child.
8“He did the heels too,” the man said, turning them over. “I didn’t ask for the heels.”
9“He did that,” Rosa said. “He used to say a man who asks for soles needs heels. He just doesn’t know it yet.”
10The man asked what he owed. She looked at the tag, which gave no price, and said nothing, and he put a twenty on the counter anyway and would not take it back. After he left she stood for a long time with the bill in her hand, listening to the trains pass overhead, one after another, as they had all her life.
11Then she took the shoes off the donation pile and put them back on the shelf, one by one, in the order he had kept them. She found his apron on the hook behind the curtain. It was too big for her. She tied it twice around her waist.
12When Danny called that night, she told him she needed more time to clean.
1. What do paragraphs 1 and 2 tell you about the setting of the story?
The train passes above the street. She is at the door of a shop, not in a station.
The church appears only later, in a comparison and a donation bin.
The train shaking the air overhead and the avenue tell you it is a city, and seven in the morning is not night.
The answer is A. Roosevelt Avenue, seven in the morning, an elevated train overhead, and a key her father used for “forty-one years.” The setting is a city street, early, at a place with a long history.
2. According to paragraph 6, why did the man never come back for his boots?
He pays twenty dollars and will not take it back. Money was not the problem.
He is delighted with the work, even the heels he did not ask for.
He was moved to a different shift and borough, not out of the city.
The answer is C. He says so himself: “I got moved to the night shift in the Bronx, and then—” and “I was ashamed to come back so late.”
3. Paragraph 3 says of Danny: “He was right about the money. He was usually right about money.” What does this suggest about how Rosa sees her son’s plan?
She says he is right. Nothing suggests a lie.
The plan lets her keep the building. And she is quiet, not angry.
The last paragraph shows she has not decided. She asks for more time.
The answer is B. She admits he is right, twice. But “usually right about money” hints that money is what he knows best, and that this question may be about more than money. And she “had not argued,” only asked for time. The rest of the story shows what the money leaves out.
4. In paragraph 5 the man stands “with his hat in his hand, as if he had walked into a church.” What does this comparison show?
This takes the comparison literally. “As if” tells you it is not a real church.
He knows exactly where he is. He has come for his boots.
Nothing in how he stands or speaks is angry.
The answer is D. People take off their hats and speak quietly in a church. The comparison shows how he enters: with respect, and some shame, which he admits a moment later.
5. Rosa remembers her father saying, “A man who asks for soles needs heels. He just doesn’t know it yet” (paragraph 9). What does this tell you about her father?
The saying shows the opposite: he did the extra work on purpose.
He never knew about the night shift. The man was moved after leaving the boots.
The tag “gave no price.” Nothing suggests he overcharged anyone.
The answer is A. He fixed the worn heels without being asked, because he could see they needed it. The saying shows a man who took care beyond the job.
6. At the end, Rosa puts the tags back on the shelf, ties on her father’s apron, and tells Danny she needs “more time to clean.” What can you infer?
She takes the shoes back off the donation pile. That is the opposite of finishing up.
She takes them out of the donation pile.
The visit moves her. Nothing suggests anger.
The answer is D. Putting the tags back “in the order he had kept them” and tying on the apron are what someone does who is staying, not leaving. “More time to clean” is what she tells Danny, but her actions say something different. The story leaves the final decision open.
7. Which statement best expresses a theme of the story?
Danny is Rosa’s son, and the story is not about obeying.
Danny thinks so about the rent, but the story does not end by agreeing.
The man is late, and the story treats his lateness kindly. This misses the point.
The answer is C. A theme is an idea about life that the whole story shows. The boots, repaired with care years ago, bring a stranger back and make Rosa think again. The money is real, but the story shows something it cannot measure.
Part One · passage 2 of 4
Shade on the Block: How Trees Cool a City
About 520 words. Questions 8 to 13.
Passage 2 · science
Shade on the Block: How Trees Cool a City
1On a July afternoon, a black tar roof can be hot enough to burn your hand, while the grass in a park a few blocks away stays cool to the touch. The air over a whole city is warmer than the air over the farms and forests around it. Scientists call this difference an urban heat island.
2A heat island forms because of what a city is made of. Asphalt, concrete, brick and dark roofs soak up the sun’s energy during the day and hold on to it. After sunset they give that heat back to the air slowly, so a city stays warm long into the night, when the body most needs to cool down. Cars, air conditioners and machines add more heat. And a city has fewer plants to cool it.
3Plants cool the air in two ways. The first is shade. A tree’s leaves block sunlight before it reaches the sidewalk or the wall of a building. According to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), shaded surfaces can be 20 to 45 degrees Fahrenheit cooler than the hottest unshaded surfaces.
4The second way is less obvious. A tree pulls water up from the ground through its roots and releases it as vapor through tiny openings in its leaves. Water also evaporates from the soil around it. Scientists call these two processes together evapotranspiration. Turning liquid water into vapor takes energy, and that energy comes from the heat in the surrounding air. The air is left cooler, the same way your skin cools when sweat dries. The EPA reports that evapotranspiration, alone or together with shade, can lower peak summer temperatures by 2 to 9 degrees Fahrenheit.
5Those degrees are not only a matter of comfort. New York City’s Health Department estimates that about 500 New Yorkers die early each summer because heat made them sick or made an illness worse. The deaths do not fall evenly. A smaller number die of heat stress itself, such as heat stroke. According to the department’s 2026 report, almost half of those were exposed to the heat inside their own homes, often with no air conditioning or with air conditioning turned off, where the air can stay hotter than it is outdoors through the night. Black New Yorkers die of heat stress at three times the rate of white New Yorkers. Neighborhoods with more trees and green space are at lower risk.
6Trees also save money. When they shade a building, the people inside run their air conditioners less, which lowers electric bills and the pollution from power plants. A study of five American cities, reported by the EPA, found that each dollar spent planting and caring for trees returned about $1.50 to $3.00 in benefits.
7Trees are not the whole answer. A young tree takes years to grow a wide canopy, and a tree planted in a small square of packed dirt beside a bus stop may not survive at all. Cities are also painting roofs white, planting gardens on rooftops, and opening cooling centers during heat waves. But of all the tools a city has, the tree is the one that does several jobs at once: it shades, it cools, it cleans the air, and it soaks up rainwater before the rain can flood the street.
8. Which statement best expresses the main idea of the article?
Air conditioners add some heat (paragraph 2), but they are one cause among several, and not the article’s subject.
Paragraph 6 says the opposite: $1.50 to $3.00 back for every dollar.
Too narrow, and the article never calls for a ban. The roof is one example in the first sentence.
The answer is B. The article explains what a heat island is (paragraphs 1 and 2), how trees cool the air (3 and 4), why it matters (5 and 6), and ends by calling the tree the tool “that does several jobs at once.”
9. According to paragraph 2, why does a city stay warm long into the night?
The sun sets at the same time over a city and a farm.
Lights are not mentioned. Machines and air conditioners are, but they are not the reason given for the nights.
The article says trees cool the air, not that they heat it.
The answer is B. “After sunset they give that heat back to the air slowly, so a city stays warm long into the night.” The cause is what the city is made of.
10. In paragraph 7, “A young tree takes years to grow a wide canopy.” What does canopy mean here?
A canopy can be a cloth roof over a market stall, which is why this tempts. Here the canopy belongs to a tree.
Roots are underground. A “wide canopy” shades a street.
The sentence is about how the tree grows, not how it is measured.
The answer is C. A young tree needs years to grow it, and it has to be “wide.” Everything in the article about trees cooling a street depends on shade from leaves. A canopy is that spreading roof of leaves and branches.
11. What is the main purpose of paragraph 5 in the article?
That was paragraph 4.
Air conditioning is mentioned, but the paragraph gives facts; it does not argue for anything.
The department is only the source of the numbers.
The answer is D. Its first sentence says the degrees “are not only a matter of comfort.” Then it gives deaths, where they happen, and who is hit hardest. It turns the science into a question of life and fairness, which gives the reader a reason to care about trees.
12. Which two details from the article support the claim that trees cool the air around them? choose two
This explains what makes a city hot, not what cools it.
This is a different way to cool a city, not evidence about trees.
This is a limit on trees, not evidence that they cool.
The answer is A and C. These are the two measured effects of trees: shade makes surfaces cooler, and evapotranspiration lowers the air temperature.
13. In paragraph 4 the author writes that the air is left cooler “the same way your skin cools when sweat dries.” Why does the author include this comparison?
Nothing in the paragraph warns about sweating.
A comparison can explain an idea, but it cannot prove a number.
This takes the comparison too literally. The article says the process works “the same way,” not that trees sweat.
The answer is A. Evapotranspiration is a long word for something familiar: water drying takes heat away with it. Comparing it to sweat lets the reader feel the idea before understanding the science.
Part One · passage 3 of 4
from “What to the Slave Is the Fourth of July?”
The test includes readings from what it calls the “Great American Conversation”: the founding documents and the speeches and writings that argued over them. Douglass’s spelling is kept. About 520 words. Questions 14 to 19.
Passage 3 · a founding voice
from “What to the Slave Is the Fourth of July?”
1Fellow-Citizens—Pardon me, and allow me to ask, why am I called upon to speak here to-day? What have I, or those I represent, to do with your national independence? Are the great principles of political freedom and of natural justice, embodied in that Declaration of Independence, extended to us? and am I, therefore, called upon to bring our humble offering to the national altar, and to confess the benefits, and express devout gratitude for the blessings, resulting from your independence to us?
2Would to God, both for your sakes and ours, that an affirmative answer could be truthfully returned to these questions! […]
3But, such is not the state of the case. I say it with a sad sense of the disparity between us. I am not included within the pale of this glorious anniversary! Your high independence only reveals the immeasurable distance between us. The blessings in which you this day rejoice, are not enjoyed in common. The rich inheritance of justice, liberty, prosperity, and independence, bequeathed by your fathers, is shared by you, not by me. The sunlight that brought life and healing to you, has brought stripes and death to me. This Fourth of July is yours, not mine. You may rejoice, I must mourn. […]
4But I fancy I hear some one of my audience say, it is just in this circumstance that you and your brother abolitionists fail to make a favorable impression on the public mind. Would you argue more, and denounce less, would you persuade more and rebuke less, your cause would be much more likely to succeed. But, I submit, where all is plain there is nothing to be argued. What point in the anti-slavery creed would you have me argue? On what branch of the subject do the people of this country need light? Must I undertake to prove that the slave is a man? That point is conceded already. Nobody doubts it. […]
5At a time like this, scorching irony, not convincing argument, is needed. Oh! had I the ability, and could I reach the nation’s ear, I would to-day pour out a fiery stream of biting ridicule, blasting reproach, withering sarcasm, and stern rebuke. For it is not light that is needed, but fire; it is not the gentle shower, but thunder. We need the storm, the whirlwind, and the earthquake. The feeling of the nation must be quickened; the conscience of the nation must be roused; the propriety of the nation must be startled; the hypocrisy of the nation must be exposed; and its crimes against God and man must be proclaimed and denounced.
6What to the American slave is your Fourth of July? I answer, a day that reveals to him, more than all other days in the year, the gross injustice and cruelty to which he is the constant victim. To him, your celebration is a sham; your boasted liberty, an unholy license; your national greatness, swelling vanity; your sounds of rejoicing are empty and heartless; your denunciations of tyrants, brass-fronted impudence; your shouts of liberty and equality, hollow mockery […].
Words in this passage
- embodied
- contained, given a body in
- affirmative
- yes
- disparity
- difference, inequality
- within the pale of
- inside the limits of
- bequeathed
- left to someone after death
- stripes
- here, the marks of a whip
- abolitionists
- people working to end slavery
- denounce, rebuke
- to condemn, to scold sharply
- fancy
- imagine
- creed
- set of beliefs
- submit
- here, put forward an idea
- conceded
- admitted, granted
- quickened
- brought to life
- propriety
- good manners, respectability
- sham
- something fake
- license
- here, freedom used to do wrong
- brass-fronted impudence
- shameless nerve
14. Douglass opens with a series of questions (paragraph 1). What is their main effect?
He knows perfectly well why he is there. The questions are a strategy.
Nothing in them is joking. The tone is grave from the first line.
He is not asking for facts. He is making a point.
The answer is B. These are rhetorical questions: asked for effect, not for an answer. Douglass already knows the answer, and he makes the audience answer them silently, in their own minds. Paragraph 3 says the answer out loud: “such is not the state of the case.”
15. Which sentence from the speech best states Douglass’s central claim in paragraph 3?
This is the opening question, which leads toward the claim. It does not state it.
This is about what kind of speech is needed, not the central claim of paragraph 3.
This comes later and is about how he wishes he could speak.
The answer is C. Every sentence in paragraph 3 builds to it: the blessings are “not enjoyed in common,” the inheritance is “shared by you, not by me.” “This Fourth of July is yours, not mine” is the claim in its shortest form.
16. In paragraph 4, Douglass imagines someone in the audience saying abolitionists should “argue more, and denounce less.” How does he answer this counterclaim?
He does the opposite. Paragraph 5 calls for “fire,” not gentleness.
He never insults the audience’s intelligence. He says they already know the truth.
He stays on the objection and answers it directly.
The answer is D. “Where all is plain there is nothing to be argued.” “Must I undertake to prove that the slave is a man? That point is conceded already.” He answers the objection by saying it asks him to prove what nobody honestly doubts.
17. In paragraph 5 Douglass says, “it is not light that is needed, but fire; it is not the gentle shower, but thunder.” What does he mean?
This takes the figures literally. They are about the kind of speech needed.
Again literal. “Light” means understanding, which he says the nation already has.
Nothing in the speech is about the seasons.
The answer is A. “Light” here means information and explanation, and “fire” and “thunder” mean force that cannot be ignored. The next sentences say it plainly: the conscience of the nation “must be roused,” its hypocrisy “exposed.”
18. Which word best describes Douglass’s tone in the last paragraph?
There is no hope in this paragraph. It is a list of charges.
He says “I answer,” and answers without a moment’s doubt.
He speaks of “irony” and “sarcasm,” but his purpose is anger at injustice, not amusement.
The answer is D. He calls the celebration “a sham,” the nation’s liberty “an unholy license,” its shouts of equality “hollow mockery.” Each phrase is a charge against the listeners. The tone accuses.
19. How does Douglass use the Declaration of Independence in his argument?
He never criticizes the Declaration itself. He criticizes the nation for not living by it.
The Declaration is the reason there is a Fourth of July, and he names it in his first paragraph.
He says the opposite: the blessings are “not enjoyed in common.”
The answer is B. He asks whether “the great principles of political freedom and of natural justice, embodied in that Declaration,” are extended to enslaved people. His whole speech measures the country by its own founding words and finds it guilty.
Part One · passage 4 of 4
Keep Carroll Avenue Moving
About 220 words. Read it the way you would read any letter that wants something from you: ask what it claims, and whether it proves it. Questions 20 to 25.
Passage 4 · an argument
Keep Carroll Avenue Moving
1The city’s plan to put a protected bike lane on Carroll Avenue is a mistake, and I urge every reader to say so at next Tuesday’s community board meeting.
2Here are the facts. The plan would remove 38 parking spaces on Carroll Avenue between Fifth Street and Eleventh Street. The lane would run on the north side of the avenue, and construction would take about four months.
3Now think about what that means. Either we keep our parking, or we lose our small businesses. There is no middle ground. Customers who cannot park will simply drive to the mall.
4Everyone I talk to on this block is against the lane. I have lived here for thirty-one years, and I have never heard my neighbors agree so completely about anything.
5We have seen this before. My cousin owned a hardware store in Queens. A year after the city put a bike lane in front of it, the store closed. That tells you everything you need to know about bike lanes.
6And who is pushing this plan? Mostly people who moved here in the last few years, who ride expensive bicycles and do not even own cars. They have no idea what this neighborhood needs.
7Carroll Avenue has worked for a hundred years. Let’s keep it that way.
8— Walter Brennan, Carroll Avenue
20. Which sentence from the letter states a fact rather than an opinion?
This is a judgment about other people’s understanding. It cannot be checked.
The avenue may be a hundred years old, but whether it has “worked” is a judgment.
“A mistake” is a judgment. That is the writer’s opinion, and his main claim.
The answer is A. A fact can be checked: you could look at the plan and count the spaces. The others are judgments that people could disagree about.
21. Paragraph 3 says: “Either we keep our parking, or we lose our small businesses. There is no middle ground.” What is wrong with this reasoning?
This paragraph has no numbers at all.
It is a prediction and a judgment. Nothing in it has been checked.
That happens in paragraph 6, not here.
The answer is C. This is a false dilemma, also called either-or thinking: it pretends there are only two possibilities so the reader will pick the one the writer wants.
22. In paragraph 5, the writer says his cousin’s store closed a year after a bike lane went in, and “that tells you everything you need to know.” Why is this weak evidence?
Nothing in the letter tells us the cousin is untrustworthy. The problem is the reasoning, not the person.
The letter does not say when it happened. The timing is not the flaw.
That may be true, but it is not the main problem. Even on Carroll Avenue, one example would not prove the cause.
The answer is B. This is false cause: because one thing happened after another, the writer assumes the first caused the second. It is also one example, which cannot stand for all bike lanes.
23. Which paragraph attacks the people on the other side instead of answering their argument?
Paragraph 4 has its own weakness: the neighbors one person talks to are not a fair sample of everyone. But it does not attack anyone.
Paragraph 7 is a closing appeal to tradition, not an attack on people.
Paragraph 2 gives facts about the plan.
The answer is A. Paragraph 6 says the supporters are newcomers who “ride expensive bicycles” and “have no idea.” It says nothing about their reasons. Attacking the person instead of the argument is a named mistake in reasoning.
24. The letter takes something for granted without ever saying it. Which assumption does the writer’s argument depend on?
Cost is never mentioned.
Nothing depends on where the cousin lives now.
The writer urges people to speak at the meeting, so he assumes the opposite.
The answer is C. The whole argument (lose parking, lose businesses) only works if most shoppers drive. The writer never shows that, and in many city neighborhoods, many shoppers walk or take the bus.
25. Which new information, if true, would most weaken the writer’s argument?
The writer already told us this, and it does not affect the argument either way.
Another store closing would, if anything, seem to support the writer, though it would be just as weak as his cousin’s.
The color of the lane has nothing to do with his argument.
The answer is D. If most shoppers do not drive, losing 38 parking spaces would not cost the businesses most of their customers. It would knock out the assumption the whole letter rests on.
Part Two · Language
Two documents, 18 questions. On the test these are drop-down menus inside the text. Here you choose below the document, and your choice appears in the text.
Part Two · document 1 of 2
Memo: new sign-up sheet for extra shifts
A memo from the morning supervisor at a bakery in Queens. Each number in brackets is a place where you choose the version that is correct and clear. Choose below, and your choice appears in the memo so you can read it in place. Questions 26 to 34.
Document 1 · a workplace memo
TO: All morning staff
FROM: Marisol Vega, Morning Supervisor
DATE: October 6
RE: New sign-up sheet for extra shifts
Starting next Monday, we will use a new sign-up sheet for extra shifts. [26]
The sheet will hang by the time clock. Each week, Mr. Okafor and I [27] which extra shifts are open. [28] you want one, write your name and phone number in the box for that shift. The first person to sign up gets the shift, unless that person already has five shifts that week.
In the past, extra shifts went to whoever happened to be standing near Mr. Okafor when he needed someone. [29]
The new sheet is meant to be fair, simple, and [30] . If you need to give up a shift after you sign up, cross out your name and tell me the same day. [31]
Each of us [32] responsible for checking the sheet. If you have a question, bring it to Daniela at the counter or to [33] .
Thank you all for a strong summer.
26. At [26]: Choose the version of this sentence that is correct.
Two complete sentences run together with nothing between them. That is a run-on.
Two fragments. “To explain how it works” has no subject or verb of its own.
“Because this is a change.” is a fragment: it starts with because and never finishes the thought.
The answer is A. “Because this is a change” has a subject and a verb, but it cannot stand alone as a sentence, because the word because makes it depend on something more. Joined with a comma to “I want to explain how it works,” which can stand alone, it becomes part of a complete sentence.
27. At [27]: Choose the verb that agrees with the subject.
“Marks” goes with one person: “he marks.” Two people joined by and are plural.
“Has” is singular, and “each week” calls for something that happens regularly, not something already done.
“Is” is singular. Two people would be “are marking.”
The answer is C. “Mr. Okafor and I” is two people, a plural subject, so it takes the plural verb: “Mr. Okafor and I mark.”
28. At [28]: Choose the word that best connects the ideas.
“Although” sets up a contrast, and there is no contrast here.
“Unless” means the opposite: sign up only if you do not want a shift.
“Because of” must be followed by a noun (“because of the rain”), not by “you want one.”
The answer is D. The sentence gives a condition: if you want a shift, here is what to do. “If” states a condition.
29. At [29]: Choose the version that is correct.
A comma alone cannot join two complete sentences. That is a comma splice.
Two complete sentences with nothing between them: a run-on.
The second part starts with because and never finishes. It is a fragment.
The answer is B. Two complete thoughts, “That was not fair” and “Some of you worked…,” each get their own sentence.
30. At [30]: Choose the words that complete the list correctly.
This adds a whole sentence to a list of describing words. The list stops matching.
“Using” is an action word, not a describing word like “fair” and “simple.”
Wordy, and it leaves the sentence unfinished: “everyone who” what?
The answer is D. “Fair, simple, and easy to use”: three describing words in a row, all the same kind. Items in a list should match. That is parallel structure.
31. At [31]: Choose the sentence that is clear and correct.
This says you are “posted every Friday.” The describing phrase is attached to the wrong word. That is a dangling modifier.
“It” has nothing to refer to, and the phrase “posted every Friday” again seems to describe the time clock.
The words are all there, in an order English does not use.
The answer is C. This says plainly what is posted, where, and when.
32. At [32]: Choose the verb that agrees with the subject.
“Us” is right next to the verb and sounds plural, which is the trap. The subject is “each.”
“Each of us be” is not standard written English.
Plural, and in the past. The memo is about now.
The answer is B. The subject is “each,” which means each one, and it is singular. “Of us” does not change that: “Each of us is.”
33. At [33]: Choose the correct word.
“Myself” is used when the same person does and receives the action (“I asked myself”). Here someone else is bringing the question.
“Mine” means “belonging to me.”
“I” can sound formal, which is why it tempts. But after “to,” the right form is “me.”
The answer is A. After a word like “to,” use the object form: “bring it to me.” Never “bring it to I.”
34. According to the memo, when would the first person to sign up for a shift not get it?
That was how it worked in the past. The memo is replacing it.
Nothing in the memo limits the days you can sign up.
Daniela is someone to ask questions. She has nothing to do with who gets a shift.
The answer is A. “The first person to sign up gets the shift, unless that person already has five shifts that week.” Workplace questions on the test often turn on one small word, like unless.
Part Two · document 2 of 2
Notice from the Tenants’ Association
A notice posted in the lobby of an apartment building. Choose the version that is correct and clear at each number. Questions 35 to 43.
Document 2 · a notice
148 GROVE STREET TENANTS’ ASSOCIATION
Meeting about heat and hot water
Our next meeting will be held on [35] at 7 p.m. in the community room on the first floor.
The landlord’s office has told us that [36] planning to replace the boiler, but no date has been set. Meanwhile, several [37] complaints have gone unanswered. Last winter, the heat [38] off for three days in January, and some families on the top floor used their ovens to stay warm.
[39] Every call creates a complaint number, and those numbers are our record.
Please bring three things to the meeting[40] a copy of your lease, any letters from the landlord, and your complaint numbers.
[41] We will decide together what to do next.
We hope to see you there. [42]
35. At [35]: Choose the version with correct capital letters.
Days of the week are capitalized: Thursday.
Months are capitalized: October.
Two missing capitals and a missing comma.
The answer is D. Days of the week and months are names, so both take capital letters. A comma separates the day from the date.
36. At [36]: Choose the correct word.
“Their” means “belonging to them”: their boiler.
“There’re” means “there are,” which does not fit: “there are planning.”
“There” is a place, or starts a sentence like “there is.”
The answer is B. “They’re” is short for “they are”: “they are planning.” Test it by saying the long form aloud.
37. At [37]: Choose the correct form.
This is the possessive of one tenant. “Several” tells you there are many.
This is plural but not possessive. The complaints belong to the tenants, so you need an apostrophe.
A plural ending in s does not take another s.
The answer is C. The complaints belong to several tenants. For a plural that ends in s, the apostrophe goes after the s: tenants’.
38. At [38]: Choose the correct verb.
Future tense, but this already happened.
The correct form would be “has gone,” and even that does not fit “last winter.”
Present tense, but the sentence is about last winter.
The answer is A. “Last winter” puts it in the past, and the second half of the sentence (“used their ovens”) is in the past too. “Went” keeps the tense consistent.
39. At [39]: Choose the version with correct punctuation.
A comma right after “When” breaks the clause in half.
The comma separates the subject, “the heat,” from its verb.
The comma splits “call” from what to call.
The answer is B. When a sentence begins with a clause like “When the heat goes off,” a comma marks where it ends and the main part begins.
40. At [40]: Choose the correct punctuation.
A semicolon joins two complete sentences. The list is not a sentence.
A period would leave the list standing alone as a fragment.
“Such as” means “for example,” but these are all three things, not examples; and a colon after “such as” is not correct.
The answer is D. “Three things” announces a list, and a colon introduces a list after a complete sentence.
41. At [41]: Choose the version that best shows how the two ideas are related.
A comma splice: two sentences joined by a comma alone.
Grammatical, but it says the need is the reason the repairs were not made. That is correct grammar, but it gives the wrong meaning.
Also grammatical, and also wrong: “and so” makes one idea cause the other.
The answer is C. The two ideas pull against each other: the repairs are needed, but they have not been made. “Although” shows that contrast.
42. At [42]: Choose the sentence that best fits the notice.
Too casual for a posted notice. Fine in a text to a friend.
Insulting. A notice that wants people to come should not call them names.
Wordy: “utmost” and “most essential” say the same thing twice, and so do “each and every.”
The answer is B. Short, clear and respectful: the right tone for a notice asking neighbors to come to a meeting.
43. What is the main purpose of this notice?
The notice says no date has been set for the new boiler.
The boiler is the problem, not the subject of a lesson.
The opposite: it asks them to call, because the calls create a record.
The answer is C. It gives the time and place, explains the problem, and tells tenants what to bring. Everything in it serves one goal: a well-prepared meeting.
Part Three · The extended response
Two articles, one prompt, 45 minutes.
Part Three
The extended response
On the test, this is its own section, with 45 minutes on the clock. You read two articles that disagree, and you write about which one is better supported. It is not scored here by the page. Write it in the box below, send it to Myles, and he will read it.
Do it in one sitting if you can, with the clock running, the way the test will ask you to.
The question the articles disagree about
Should voting be required by law?
Article 1
Make Every Citizen a Voter
1In the 2020 presidential election, about two-thirds of eligible Americans voted. According to the Pew Research Center, that was the highest turnout in more than a century, and it still left roughly one eligible voter in three at home. In midterm and local elections, the numbers are far lower. A city council seat can be decided by a small fraction of the people it represents.
2The people who stay home are not a random slice of the country. They are more often young and poorer. Pew found that Americans under 30 made up 20 percent of the people old enough to vote in 2024, but only 15 percent of the people who actually voted. When one group votes and another does not, the officials we elect answer mainly to the first group.
3Australia shows another way. Since 1924, Australians have been required by law to vote in national elections. Before the law, turnout ranged from under half of eligible voters to a little over three-quarters. Since then, it has usually been above 90 percent. The penalty is small: a fine of 20 Australian dollars, and anyone with a real reason, such as illness, is excused.
4Required voting does not force anyone to choose a particular candidate. An Australian must go to the polls and have his or her name checked off. Because the ballot is secret, no one can see how, or whether, a person marks it.
5We already require citizens to serve on juries and to answer the census, because a democracy needs all of us. Voting matters at least as much. A law that asks every citizen to take part, with a small fine and an easy excuse for those who cannot, would give us a government chosen by the whole public, not only by the part of it that has the time and the habit to vote.
Article 2
Keep Voting a Free Choice
1The right to vote includes the right not to vote. Staying home is a choice, and sometimes it is a message: that none of the candidates deserves support, or that the system has stopped listening. A law that fines people for sending that message turns a right into a chore.
2Forcing people to the polls will not make them informed. In my twenty years as a poll worker, I saw voters who did not know which offices were on the ballot. If we drag millions more people into the booth, many will simply pick the first name they see. Everybody knows that a vote cast at random is worse than no vote at all.
3Supporters of required voting point to Australia. But Australia is not the United States. It is a much smaller country with one national election agency, while our elections are run by thousands of counties and towns. A fine that works there would be a nightmare to collect here. And the people least able to pay it, the poor and young citizens that required voting claims to help, would be the ones punished.
4There are better ways to raise turnout. Make Election Day a holiday. Mail every voter a ballot. Keep polling places open longer. These steps invite people in instead of threatening them.
5Voting should be something citizens do because they believe it matters. Once it becomes one more bill to pay or fine to avoid, we will have more voters, but not a better democracy.
The prompt, in the test’s own words
In your response, analyze both positions presented in the articles to determine which one is best supported. Use relevant and specific evidence from both articles to support your response.
You should expect to spend up to 45 minutes planning, drafting, and editing your response.
You are not being asked which side you agree with, and you will not be judged on which one you choose. You are being asked which article argues better, and why.
When you have finished: check your own response
The test scores the essay on three traits: how well you build an argument from the two articles, how well you organize it, and how clearly and correctly you write. These five checks cover all three. Check each one you think your response does. This is for you; it is not sent anywhere.
Scoring the essay explains the three traits in plain words, with a response that earns a 6 and one that earns about a 2.
Results
Where to go next
Each row is one family of skills from the Map of the Terrain. It fills in when you check a passage. Start with the rows that are not full.
| Skills | Questions | Right | Where to go next |
|---|---|---|---|
| I. Reading: understanding what a text saysmain idea, details, summary, inference, evidence, how ideas connect | 2, 8, 9, 12 | not checked | Quizzes 1 to 6: main idea, supporting details, summarizing, inference, citing evidence, and how ideas relate. |
| II. Reading: how writers make their effectswords in context, tone, figurative language, structure, purpose | 4, 10, 11, 13, 14, 17, 18 | not checked | Quizzes 7 to 9: words in context, connotation and tone, figurative language. The story pages practice all of these. |
| III. Reading: arguments and evidenceclaims, evidence, fact and opinion, faulty reasoning | 15, 16, 20, 21, 22, 23, 24, 25 | not checked | No quiz yet. The essay sets teach how to weigh two arguments, which uses every one of these skills. |
| IV. Reading: storiesplot, character, theme, setting, narrator | 1, 3, 5, 6, 7 | not checked | Stories, with questions. Start with “The Story of an Hour.” |
| V. Reading: kinds of textsfounding documents, workplace documents, paired passages | 19, 34, 43 | not checked | Rights on Paper for the founding documents; the paired stories and essay sets for reading two texts together. |
| VI. Language: sentencesfragments, run-ons, combining, parallel structure, modifiers | 26, 29, 30, 31, 41 | not checked | Quizzes 31 to 36: clauses, fragments, run-ons, combining, parallel structure, modifiers. |
| VII. Language: grammar and usageagreement, verb tense, pronouns, confused words, word choice | 27, 32, 33, 36, 38, 42 | not checked | No quiz yet. Khan Academy, grammar, is free and covers every one of these. |
| VIII. Language: punctuation and capitalscommas, semicolons, colons, apostrophes, capital letters, transitions | 28, 35, 37, 39, 40 | not checked | Quiz 43 (commas), Quiz 44 (semicolons and colons), Quiz 47 (transitions). |
| IX. The extended responsereading two arguments and writing about which is better supported | Part Three | not written | Send it to Myles from the writing box, and he will read it. Scoring the essay shows what a strong response looks like, and the essay sets give more practice. |
The key prints only when it is showing, and it starts on its own page.
The answer key
Each answer names the skill it tests, so you can find it on the Map.
The Last Pair
- A. Setting. Roosevelt Avenue, seven in the morning, an elevated train overhead, and a key her father used for “forty-one years.” The setting is a city street, early, at a place with a long history.
- C. Supporting details. He says so himself: “I got moved to the night shift in the Bronx, and then—” and “I was ashamed to come back so late.”
- B. Character. She admits he is right, twice. But “usually right about money” hints that money is what he knows best, and that this question may be about more than money. And she “had not argued,” only asked for time. The rest of the story shows what the money leaves out.
- D. Figurative language. People take off their hats and speak quietly in a church. The comparison shows how he enters: with respect, and some shame, which he admits a moment later.
- A. Character. He fixed the worn heels without being asked, because he could see they needed it. The saying shows a man who took care beyond the job.
- D. Inference and the ending. Putting the tags back “in the order he had kept them” and tying on the apron are what someone does who is staying, not leaving. “More time to clean” is what she tells Danny, but her actions say something different. The story leaves the final decision open.
- C. Theme. A theme is an idea about life that the whole story shows. The boots, repaired with care years ago, bring a stranger back and make Rosa think again. The money is real, but the story shows something it cannot measure.
Shade on the Block: How Trees Cool a City
- B. Main idea. The article explains what a heat island is (paragraphs 1 and 2), how trees cool the air (3 and 4), why it matters (5 and 6), and ends by calling the tree the tool “that does several jobs at once.”
- B. Cause and effect. “After sunset they give that heat back to the air slowly, so a city stays warm long into the night.” The cause is what the city is made of.
- C. Word in context. A young tree needs years to grow it, and it has to be “wide.” Everything in the article about trees cooling a street depends on shade from leaves. A canopy is that spreading roof of leaves and branches.
- D. Why a paragraph is there. Its first sentence says the degrees “are not only a matter of comfort.” Then it gives deaths, where they happen, and who is hit hardest. It turns the science into a question of life and fairness, which gives the reader a reason to care about trees.
- A and C. Evidence. These are the two measured effects of trees: shade makes surfaces cooler, and evapotranspiration lowers the air temperature.
- A. Comparison used to explain. Evapotranspiration is a long word for something familiar: water drying takes heat away with it. Comparing it to sweat lets the reader feel the idea before understanding the science.
from “What to the Slave Is the Fourth of July?”
- B. Rhetorical technique. These are rhetorical questions: asked for effect, not for an answer. Douglass already knows the answer, and he makes the audience answer them silently, in their own minds. Paragraph 3 says the answer out loud: “such is not the state of the case.”
- C. The central claim. Every sentence in paragraph 3 builds to it: the blessings are “not enjoyed in common,” the inheritance is “shared by you, not by me.” “This Fourth of July is yours, not mine” is the claim in its shortest form.
- D. Claims and counterclaims. “Where all is plain there is nothing to be argued.” “Must I undertake to prove that the slave is a man? That point is conceded already.” He answers the objection by saying it asks him to prove what nobody honestly doubts.
- A. Figurative language. “Light” here means information and explanation, and “fire” and “thunder” mean force that cannot be ignored. The next sentences say it plainly: the conscience of the nation “must be roused,” its hypocrisy “exposed.”
- D. Tone. He calls the celebration “a sham,” the nation’s liberty “an unholy license,” its shouts of equality “hollow mockery.” Each phrase is a charge against the listeners. The tone accuses.
- B. Founding documents. He asks whether “the great principles of political freedom and of natural justice, embodied in that Declaration,” are extended to enslaved people. His whole speech measures the country by its own founding words and finds it guilty.
Keep Carroll Avenue Moving
- A. Fact and opinion. A fact can be checked: you could look at the plan and count the spaces. The others are judgments that people could disagree about.
- C. Faulty reasoning. This is a false dilemma, also called either-or thinking: it pretends there are only two possibilities so the reader will pick the one the writer wants.
- B. Faulty reasoning. This is false cause: because one thing happened after another, the writer assumes the first caused the second. It is also one example, which cannot stand for all bike lanes.
- A. Faulty reasoning. Paragraph 6 says the supporters are newcomers who “ride expensive bicycles” and “have no idea.” It says nothing about their reasons. Attacking the person instead of the argument is a named mistake in reasoning.
- C. Unstated assumptions. The whole argument (lose parking, lose businesses) only works if most shoppers drive. The writer never shows that, and in many city neighborhoods, many shoppers walk or take the bus.
- D. Evaluating evidence. If most shoppers do not drive, losing 38 parking spaces would not cost the businesses most of their customers. It would knock out the assumption the whole letter rests on.
Memo: new sign-up sheet for extra shifts
- A. Fragments. “Because this is a change” has a subject and a verb, but it cannot stand alone as a sentence, because the word because makes it depend on something more. Joined with a comma to “I want to explain how it works,” which can stand alone, it becomes part of a complete sentence.
- C. Subject–verb agreement. “Mr. Okafor and I” is two people, a plural subject, so it takes the plural verb: “Mr. Okafor and I mark.”
- D. Transitions and connecting words. The sentence gives a condition: if you want a shift, here is what to do. “If” states a condition.
- B. Run-ons and comma splices. Two complete thoughts, “That was not fair” and “Some of you worked…,” each get their own sentence.
- D. Parallel structure. “Fair, simple, and easy to use”: three describing words in a row, all the same kind. Items in a list should match. That is parallel structure.
- C. Misplaced and dangling modifiers. This says plainly what is posted, where, and when.
- B. Subject–verb agreement. The subject is “each,” which means each one, and it is singular. “Of us” does not change that: “Each of us is.”
- A. Pronoun case. After a word like “to,” use the object form: “bring it to me.” Never “bring it to I.”
- A. Reading a workplace document. “The first person to sign up gets the shift, unless that person already has five shifts that week.” Workplace questions on the test often turn on one small word, like unless.
Notice from the Tenants’ Association
- D. Capital letters. Days of the week and months are names, so both take capital letters. A comma separates the day from the date.
- B. Words that are often confused. “They’re” is short for “they are”: “they are planning.” Test it by saying the long form aloud.
- C. Apostrophes. The complaints belong to several tenants. For a plural that ends in s, the apostrophe goes after the s: tenants’.
- A. Verb tense. “Last winter” puts it in the past, and the second half of the sentence (“used their ovens”) is in the past too. “Went” keeps the tense consistent.
- B. Commas. When a sentence begins with a clause like “When the heat goes off,” a comma marks where it ends and the main part begins.
- D. Colons and semicolons. “Three things” announces a list, and a colon introduces a list after a complete sentence.
- C. Combining sentences. The two ideas pull against each other: the repairs are needed, but they have not been made. “Although” shows that contrast.
- B. Word choice and tone. Short, clear and respectful: the right tone for a notice asking neighbors to come to a meeting.
- C. Purpose of a document. It gives the time and place, explains the problem, and tells tenants what to bring. Everything in it serves one goal: a well-prepared meeting.