California GED Exam
College Exams December 3, 2012Students that do not have a high school diploma make things difficult for them to pursue a college degree or have any career advancement. Students who take the General Educational Development (GED) exam receives certification equivalent to those who graduate from high school, it open doors to professional and educational opportunities. In the following article, we will look at the GED exam in the state of California.
GED in California
The GED measures the skills and knowledge a high school graduate is expected to have, it accomplishes this with a series of tests devised for the purpose. The American Council on Education (ACE) who administers the GED exam has reported that the GED certification is in equivalence to a high school diploma and ninety-five percent of universities and colleges are open to enrolling students with the GED certificate according to the American Council on Education (www.acenet.edu). ACE has stated that a GED credential finds favor with about ninety-six percent of recruiters.
In California, the California High School Equivalency Certificate is awarded to candidates who successful complete the GED exam.
Prerequisites
Only residents of California who are within sixty days of turning eighteen years of old are allowed to take the GED exam in the state. Youth who are seventeen years old may be permitted to take the exam, if they provide additional documents. Students who are not seventeen years old will not be allowed to take the exam in California under any circumstances.
Format of GED Tests
The GED exam takes about seven hours and covers five subject areas – Mathematics, Social Sciences, Science, Language Arts (reading) and Language Arts (writing). There are a mixture of reading tasks and multiple-choice questions in each section. The writing section includes essay writing.
How to Prepare for the Test
Only those that do well or better than the level that sixty percent of high school seniors accomplish can pass the GED. Adult basic education centers throughout California offer GED test prep courses. To locate a course in your neighborhood, contact the Adult Education Office at the California Department of Education (CDE) (www.cde.ca.gov). If you prefer home study, you can seek information from the council about where to find free sample test questions and practice tests on the Internet. You can purchase books and any other needed materials from the official test preparation companies.
How to Take the Test
The fees you need to pay to take the GED exam in California will vary according to the testing center. There is no online option for this exam. There are one hundred ninety active testing centers in the state, and you can find their locations through the CDE. You need a minimum overall score of 2250 to pass the exam with at least 410 scored in the tests relating to each individual subject. In California, you are not required to wait if you wish to retest in one or more subject that you did not pass; however, you would need to pay a retesting fee.
