GED Reading Comprehension Practice Test
Workplace documents, speeches, science and history texts, and some literature: main idea, detail, inference and how evidence supports a claim. Here are 10 GED reading comprehension questions, each with the answer and the reason.
Updated by the Tigertest team. Based on the assessment targets in the GED Testing Service Assessment Guide for Educators (October 2020 edition). Original questions; not affiliated with GED Testing Service.
Benefits summary for new hires
Welcome to Harbor Logistics. Full-time employees (30 or more hours a week) are eligible for health insurance on the first day of the month after 60 days of employment. Part-time employees are not eligible for health insurance but may join the retirement plan.
All employees earn paid time off at a rate of one hour for every 25 hours worked. Time off can be used after 90 days and rolls over at year end, up to a cap of 80 hours. Unused hours above the cap are lost.
The company matches retirement contributions dollar for dollar up to 4 percent of pay. Matching begins immediately, but the match becomes fully yours only after three years of service. If you leave before then, you keep your own contributions and a portion of the match based on your years of service.
1.A full-time employee is hired on April 10. According to the summary, when is that employee first eligible for health insurance?
- A.
June 9
- B.
July 1
- C.
June 1
- D.
October 10
Answer: B.Sixty days after April 10 is June 9, and coverage begins on the first day of the month after that, which is July 1. June 9 is the end of the waiting period, not the start of coverage.
- A.
What happens inside a compost pile
A compost pile is a feeding frenzy you cannot see. Bacteria and fungi break down leaves, vegetable scraps and coffee grounds, releasing heat as they work. A well-built pile can reach 140 degrees Fahrenheit at its center, hot enough to kill most weed seeds and disease organisms.
The microbes need two things in balance: carbon, found in dry "browns" like leaves and cardboard, and nitrogen, found in wet "greens" like grass clippings and food scraps. A pile with too many greens turns slimy and smells of ammonia. Too many browns, and it sits cold for months. Gardeners aim for roughly three parts brown to one part green by volume.
Air matters too. Turning the pile every week or two lets oxygen reach the center, so the fast, heat-producing bacteria keep working instead of giving way to slow ones that produce foul odors.
2.Which statement best expresses the main idea of the passage?
- A.
Compost piles can become dangerously hot.
- B.
Grass clippings are the best material to use for making compost.
- C.
Turning a compost pile is unnecessary work.
- D.
Composting works when microbes get the right materials and air.
Answer: D.Every paragraph is about what the microbes need: the right balance of browns and greens, and air from turning. The heat is presented as useful, not dangerous, grass clippings are only one example of a green, and turning is recommended.
- A.
From "The Night Shift" (fiction)
The bakery's ovens came on at three in the morning, and by four the whole block smelled of bread. Amal liked this hour best. The street outside was empty except for the newspaper truck, and the only sounds were the tick of the cooling racks and the radio she kept turned low.
Her sister thought the hours were a punishment. "Nobody is awake," she said. "You are missing everything."
Amal never argued. She could not explain that this was the point. By the time the first customer rang the bell at six, the hard part of her day was behind her, and she could hand over a warm loaf and a smile that cost her nothing. Daylight people, she thought, spent all day waiting for the moment that she had already had.
3.Which statement best describes how Amal feels about working at night?
- A.
She resents missing time with her friends.
- B.
She finds the quiet hours satisfying.
- C.
She agrees with her sister but needs the money.
- D.
She feels lonely but hides it from her sister.
Answer: B.Amal "liked this hour best," and the passage says the quiet is "the point." She does not argue with her sister because she disagrees, not because she agrees; there is no mention of money or loneliness.
- A.
Our town's farmers market moved from the park to the high school parking lot this spring. The new location has 200 parking spaces, compared with 40 at the park, and the market's organizers report that vendor sales rose 22 percent in May. Still, the move was a mistake. A farmers market belongs on grass, under trees, where neighbors linger and children run. Nobody lingers in a parking lot. The organizers should move the market back to the park next year and solve the parking problem some other way, perhaps with a shuttle from the school lot.
4.Which statement from the passage is an opinion?
- A.
The market moved to the high school parking lot this spring.
- B.
The new location has 200 parking spaces.
- C.
The move was a mistake.
- D.
Vendor sales rose 22 percent in May.
Answer: C.Calling the move a mistake is the writer's judgment, which the organizers clearly do not share. The location, the number of spaces and the sales figure are facts that can be checked.
- A.
Memo: new shift scheduling system
To all floor staff:
Beginning March 1, the store will move from the paper sign-up sheet to the ShiftBoard app for all scheduling. Each of you will receive a login by email this week. Please download the app and confirm your availability for March before February 20. Shifts will be posted two weeks in advance instead of one, which should make it easier to plan around classes and family commitments.
Trading a shift will work differently. Instead of writing a swap on the sheet and telling a manager, you will post the shift in the app, and any coworker with matching training can claim it. A manager still approves every trade, but approvals usually take minutes rather than days. If you miss the February 20 deadline, you will be scheduled based on the availability you gave us last fall. Questions can go to Dana in the office or to the help link inside the app.
Thank you for your patience while we make the change.
5.What is the main purpose of the memo?
- A.
To explain how the store's new scheduling app will work
- B.
To announce that the store is hiring more floor staff
- C.
To remind employees to submit their fall availability
- D.
To warn employees about trading shifts without approval
Answer: A.Every paragraph describes the move from the paper sheet to the app: logins, the availability deadline, how trades will work and where to ask questions. The memo mentions last fall's availability only as what happens if the deadline is missed, not as something to submit.
- A.
How honeybees share directions
When a honeybee finds a rich patch of flowers, she does not keep the news to herself. Back in the hive, she performs a waggle dance on the vertical comb. She runs forward in a straight line while shaking her body, then circles back and repeats. The angle of the straight run, measured from straight up, matches the angle between the sun and the flowers. The length of the run tells distance: the longer the waggle, the farther the food.
Other bees crowd around, touching the dancer with their antennae in the dark hive, and then fly out along the route she described. Researchers confirmed the meaning of the dance by moving feeders to new locations and watching the dances change to match. The dance is one of the few known cases of an animal using an abstract code to describe something it cannot point to.
6.As used in the first sentence, "rich" most nearly means
- A.
wealthy
- B.
sweet-tasting
- C.
colorful
- D.
plentiful
Answer: D.A rich patch of flowers is one with a lot of food to offer, which is why the bee bothers to report it. Wealth, sweetness and color are other meanings of "rich" that do not fit a patch of flowers worth flying to.
- A.
From the Gettysburg Address (Abraham Lincoln, 1863)
Four score and seven years ago our fathers brought forth on this continent, a new nation, conceived in Liberty, and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal.
Now we are engaged in a great civil war, testing whether that nation, or any nation so conceived and so dedicated, can long endure. We are met on a great battle-field of that war. We have come to dedicate a portion of that field, as a final resting place for those who here gave their lives that that nation might live. It is altogether fitting and proper that we should do this.
But, in a larger sense, we can not dedicate, we can not consecrate, we can not hallow this ground. The brave men, living and dead, who struggled here, have consecrated it, far above our poor power to add or detract. The world will little note, nor long remember what we say here, but it can never forget what they did here.
7.Which statement best expresses Lincoln's main point in the third paragraph?
- A.
The ceremony is the most important way to honor the fallen soldiers.
- B.
The soldiers' actions have already made the ground sacred.
- C.
The speech will be remembered for many years.
- D.
The nation cannot survive a long civil war.
Answer: B.Lincoln says the living cannot consecrate the ground because the men who struggled there have already consecrated it. He predicts the speech will be forgotten, and the question of whether the nation can endure is raised in the second paragraph, not answered in the third.
- A.
From "The Yellow House" (fiction)
Marisol had told herself she would only drive past. But the yellow house sat exactly where it always had, at the bend where the road gave up being paved, and before she had decided anything her car was in the gravel driveway and the engine was off.
The porch steps still sagged in the middle. Someone had painted the door a careful blue, and a child's bicycle leaned against the railing where her brother's had once leaned. For a moment she felt like a trespasser in her own memory.
She did not knock. She stood with one hand on the warm hood of the car and counted the windows, the way she had counted them from the school bus every afternoon for eleven years, waiting for the one on the end to light up. It was the middle of the day now. No window would light. Still, she counted, and when she reached the last one she found that she was smiling.
8.What can the reader infer about Marisol's connection to the yellow house?
- A.
She lived there as a child.
- B.
She is planning to buy it.
- C.
She painted its door blue.
- D.
She has never seen it before.
Answer: A.She remembers her brother's bicycle on the railing, counted the windows from the school bus for eleven years and feels like "a trespasser in her own memory," all of which point to a childhood home. Someone else painted the door, and nothing suggests a purchase.
- A.
From a speech at a volunteer appreciation dinner
Some of you have been with us for a single Saturday. Some of you have been sorting cans in this warehouse since before I was hired. Tonight I want to talk about what you have in common.
Last year this food bank sent out 2.4 million pounds of food. Our paid staff is eleven people. If you do the math, that is impossible. It happened because 1,900 of you showed up, on your own time, often in the rain, and did the unglamorous work of lifting boxes and checking expiration dates.
I know some of you worry that one shift does not make a difference. Here is what I have learned: a single volunteer packs about 150 meals in three hours. That is 150 dinners that happened because you came. There is no small shift. There is only the next one, and I hope to see you there.
9.What is the speaker's main purpose?
- A.
To recruit new paid staff for the food bank
- B.
To convince volunteers that their work matters
- C.
To explain how donated food is sorted and shipped
- D.
To ask the audience to donate money to the food bank
Answer: B.The speech is built around the worry that "one shift does not make a difference" and answers it with the 150 meals a volunteer packs. The speaker never asks for money or job applicants and describes the sorting work only in passing.
- A.
Two letters to the editor about the Elm Street bike lane
Letter 1
The new Elm Street bike lane has removed 40 parking spaces in front of small businesses. I own the bakery at the corner, and my Saturday sales have dropped 15 percent since the lane opened in May. Customers tell me they circled the block twice and gave up. The city should restore at least half of the spaces before more shops close.
Letter 2
I have commuted on Elm Street for six years, and until May I did it in traffic with no protection. The city's own count shows 310 riders a day now use the lane, up from 90 before. Riders stop at shops too, and we do not need a parking space to do it. I understand the bakery owner's worry, but the bigger picture is that Elm Street is finally safe for people who are not in cars. Give the lane a full year before judging it.
10.How does the second writer respond to the first writer's concern about parking?
- A.
By arguing that cyclists are also customers
- B.
By denying that any parking spaces were removed
- C.
By claiming the bakery's sales have not dropped
- D.
By suggesting the bakery move to another street
Answer: A.Letter 2 says, "Riders stop at shops too, and we do not need a parking space to do it," which answers the parking complaint by pointing out that riders are customers. The writer does not dispute the lost spaces or the sales figures.
- A.
Drill every reading comprehension question in the GED Reading Comprehension drill: questions you miss come back until you have mastered them. Then take a timed practice test with the Reasoning Through Language Arts section in it.
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