GED Social Studies Preparation: Lessons 2026

Lesson 1: The test and social studies reading skills

The GED® test has four subjects, each a separate exam that you can take on its own. To earn the credential, you need 145 or higher on all four.

The Social Studies test at a glance

GED Testing Service's assessment guide for educators splits the content like this. Multiple-choice questions have four answer options.

About half of the questions come in sets of two or three that use the same text, map, graph or table. Some texts are excerpts from founding documents. GED.com says the test does not check memorized facts like capitals or dates. It checks whether you can apply ideas, read graphs and charts, and reason from the information given.

Scores and online testing

Scores are usually posted within 24 hours. Prices, age rules and other testing requirements vary by area, so check GED.com for your state. To test online, you need a "green" (likely to pass) score on the official GED Ready® practice test for that subject within the last 60 days, and you must be in the United States.

Reading skills for every question

A fact can be checked, for example with a count or a record. An opinion shows what someone believes or wants; watch for words such as *should*, *best* or *in my opinion*. A writer whose purpose is to persuade gives reasons and asks readers to act.

A primary source was made at the time by someone who was there: a letter, diary, speech or law. A secondary source was made later by someone who studied the event, such as a textbook or documentary.

An inference is a conclusion the evidence supports but does not state. Reject answers that need facts the text does not give. When two speakers disagree, look for a point they both make. For word meaning, use the nearby sentences: in "The rail line was a boon to farmers, who could now ship crops in one day," *boon* means a benefit.

*"We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. —That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed."* (Declaration of Independence, 1776)

Temaquiz 1: The test and social studies reading skills

Lesson 2: Civics and government

Types of government

• Direct democracy: citizens vote on laws themselves.
• Representative democracy: citizens elect representatives who make laws for them. The United States is a representative democracy.
• Presidential democracy: voters choose the president separately from the legislature, as in the United States.
• Parliamentary democracy: the leader of the government (often a prime minister) comes from the party or group that controls the legislature.

Principles of American constitutional democracy

The Preamble begins *"We the People"* (popular sovereignty) and lists goals such as to "establish Justice" and "insure domestic Tranquility."

Three branches

The Senate has two senators from each state, serving six-year terms. State legislatures first chose senators; the 17th Amendment (1913) let voters elect them. The House of Representatives has 435 voting members with two-year terms, and each state's number of seats is based on its population.

Checks and balances

• The president can veto a bill. Congress can still pass it with a two-thirds vote in each house.
• The president nominates judges and agency heads; the Senate confirms or rejects them. Treaties need two-thirds of the senators present.
• The House can impeach an official; the Senate holds the trial, and conviction needs two-thirds of the senators present.
• Courts can strike down laws that violate the Constitution. This power, judicial review, was established in Marbury v. Madison (1803), when Chief Justice John Marshall wrote that a law "repugnant to the Constitution is void."

The Federalist No. 51 explains why: *"If men were angels, no government would be necessary."* So *"Ambition must be made to counteract ambition"*: each branch must be able to resist the others.

Federalism and amendments

The federal government has powers such as coining money, regulating trade and declaring war, and Article VI makes the Constitution "the supreme Law of the Land." The 10th Amendment says powers not given to the federal government, nor denied to the states, "are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people."

To change the Constitution, an amendment is usually proposed by two-thirds of both houses of Congress (a convention is another way) and must be ratified by three-fourths of the states.

The Bill of Rights

The first 10 amendments (1791) are the Bill of Rights.

Val och partier

The president is chosen by the Electoral College. Each state gets one elector per House member plus two for its senators; the District of Columbia gets 3. There are 538 electors, and a candidate needs 270. Political parties run candidates; interest groups try to influence laws.

Temaquiz 2: Civics and government

Lesson 3: United States history

From the Articles to the Constitution

The Declaration of Independence was adopted in 1776. The first national plan of government, the Articles of Confederation, was adopted by Congress in 1777 and took effect in 1781. It was weak: the central government could not tax, it had little power to regulate trade, each state had one vote in Congress, and changes needed the approval of every state. In May 1787, delegates met in Philadelphia to revise the Articles. They wrote a new plan instead: the Constitution. The Bill of Rights followed in 1791.

Expansion and conflict

• Louisiana Purchase (1803): under President Thomas Jefferson, the United States bought about 828,000 square miles west of the Mississippi River from France for $15 million, roughly doubling the nation's size.
• Monroe Doctrine (1823): President James Monroe said the Americas were closed to new European colonies, and the United States would stay out of European affairs.
• Indian Removal Act (1830): signed by President Andrew Jackson, it let the president make treaties to move Native nations from their lands in the East to land in the West. On the Trail of Tears (1838–39), about 4,000 of 16,000 Cherokee people died.
• Manifest Destiny: the 19th-century belief that the United States was meant to expand across the continent. It was used to justify westward expansion, often at the expense of Native nations.
• Homestead Act (1862): offered 160 acres of public land to settlers who lived on and farmed it for five years.

Civil War and Reconstruction

President Abraham Lincoln's Emancipation Proclamation (January 1, 1863) declared enslaved people free only in areas still in rebellion. It did not cover the loyal border states or end slavery nationwide.

Starting in the 1890s, Southern states used literacy tests and "grandfather clauses" to keep most Black citizens from voting. In Plessy v. Ferguson (1896), the Supreme Court upheld a Louisiana law requiring "equal but separate" railway cars. Segregation laws like this are called Jim Crow laws.

Reform, world wars and depression

• Sherman Anti-Trust Act (1890): the first federal law to outlaw monopolies and business deals that restrain trade.
• World War I: President Woodrow Wilson proposed a League of Nations. The Senate rejected the Treaty of Versailles in 1920, and the United States never joined the League.
• 19th Amendment (1920): the right to vote cannot be denied "on account of sex."
• Social Security Act (1935): during the Great Depression, it created old-age benefits and unemployment insurance.
• Neutrality Acts (1935–1939): laws to keep the U.S. out of foreign wars.
• Executive Order 9066 (1942): led to the forced removal of about 122,000 people of Japanese ancestry from the West Coast; nearly 70,000 were U.S. citizens.
• GI Bill (1944): paid for veterans' education and offered home loans.

The Cold War

Civil rights

In Brown v. Board of Education (1954), a unanimous Supreme Court led by Chief Justice Earl Warren ruled that *"Separate educational facilities are inherently unequal,"* because they deny the 14th Amendment's equal protection. This rejected the "separate but equal" idea behind Plessy. The Civil Rights Act of 1964 banned discrimination in public places such as hotels and restaurants, and job discrimination based on race, color, religion, sex or national origin. The Voting Rights Act of 1965 enforced the 15th Amendment and outlawed literacy tests for voting.

Temaquiz 3: United States history

Lesson 4: Economics

Scarcity and choices

Scarcity means people's wants are greater than the resources available to satisfy them, so we must choose. The opportunity cost of a choice is the most valuable option you give up. If you skip a ball game to work an extra shift, the game is your opportunity cost; if you skip the shift to go to the game, the pay you could have earned is the opportunity cost.

Supply and demand

• Law of demand: as price rises, the quantity buyers want falls.
• Law of supply: as price rises, the quantity sellers offer rises.
• Equilibrium price: the price where the quantity demanded equals the quantity supplied.
• A surplus (more offered than wanted) pushes the price down. A shortage (more wanted than offered) pushes it up.

Demand also changes when other conditions change: income, tastes, the number of buyers, expectations and the prices of related goods. A substitute can replace a good. A complement is used with it: when tortilla chips get much more expensive, people buy fewer chips, so they also buy less salsa.

A monopoly is a single seller with no close competitors. The Sherman Anti-Trust Act (1890) outlawed monopolies and deals that restrain trade.

Trade

When people and countries specialize and trade, both can gain. Comparative advantage means producing something at a lower opportunity cost. If Ana can make 10 loaves or 5 scarves in an hour, a scarf costs her 2 loaves. If Ben can make 6 loaves or 4 scarves, a scarf costs him 1.5 loaves, so Ben has the comparative advantage in scarves, even though Ana is faster at both.

A tariff is a tax on imported goods. It makes imports more expensive, which helps domestic producers that compete with them but raises prices for buyers. An externality is a cost or benefit that spills over onto people outside a deal. Pollution is a negative externality; education is a positive one.

The whole economy

• GDP (gross domestic product) is the value of the final goods and services produced in a country. Real GDP is adjusted to remove the effects of inflation; nominal GDP is not.
• Inflation is a general, sustained rise in prices. At 2% inflation, a dollar buys about 2% fewer goods and services than a year before. The Consumer Price Index (CPI) measures the average change over time in prices paid by urban consumers.
• Unemployed people have no job, are available for work and have actively looked for work in the past 4 weeks. The labor force is everyone 16 and older who is employed or unemployed. Unemployment rate = unemployed ÷ labor force × 100.
• The Federal Reserve was created in 1913. Its monetary policy aims for maximum employment, stable prices and moderate long-term interest rates.
• Fiscal policy means government decisions about taxes and spending, made by Congress and the president.

Personal finance

The interest rate is the yearly cost of borrowing money. The APR includes the interest rate plus fees and other charges, so it is usually higher.

Temaquiz 4: Economics

Lesson 5: Geography and the world

Geography and the world is about 15% of the test. It covers location, regions, how people and the environment affect each other, and migration.

Latitude and longitude

Lines of latitude (parallels) run east to west but measure distance north or south of the equator. The equator is 0 degrees; each pole is 90 degrees. Lines of longitude run from pole to pole and measure distance east or west. The prime meridian, through Greenwich, England, is 0 degrees longitude.

Map tools

• Title: what the map shows.
• Legend (key): what the symbols and colors mean.
• Compass rose: directions (north, south, east, west).
• Scale: how map distance compares with real distance. If 1 inch = 20 miles, then 4.5 inches = 4.5 × 20 = 90 miles.

Regions

A region is an area whose places share features such as climate, landforms, language or economy. The U.S. Census Bureau groups the states into four regions (Northeast, Midwest, South and West), which are split into nine divisions.

People and the environment

Renewable resources, such as sun, wind and water, are replaced by nature. Nonrenewable resources, such as coal, oil and natural gas, take millions of years to form. People change the environment when they build dams, clear forests, farm and build cities. A dam, for example, forms a lake and changes how much water flows downstream. Sustainability means meeting today's needs without leaving future generations without the resources they need.

Migration and culture

• Immigration is moving into a country; emigration is leaving one. A diaspora is a people living far from their homeland.
• Push factors drive people away (war, drought, few jobs, unfair laws). Pull factors draw people to a new place (jobs, safety, freedom, family).
• Cultural diffusion is the spread of foods, languages, ideas and customs from one group or place to another. Assimilation is when newcomers take on the culture of their new home.

During the Great Migration (1910–1970), about 6 million Black Americans left the South. Jim Crow conditions and poor economic prospects pushed them out, and labor shortages in industrial cities of the Northeast, Midwest and West pulled them in. Today most Americans live in cities: in the 2020 Census, urban areas held 80.0% of the population and rural areas 20.0%.

Temaquiz 5: Geography and the world

Lesson 6: Using numbers, tables and graphs

GED.com lists three topics for the test: Reading for Meaning, Analyzing Historical Events and Arguments, and Using Numbers and Graphs. For the last one, you may need to read a table or graph and do a short calculation.

Reading tables and graphs

Read the title, labels and units first. Then find the numbers the question asks about and look for the pattern: do values rise, fall or stay about the same?

Measures of center and spread

Percents, rates and density

• Percent change = (new − old) ÷ old × 100. From 200 to 250: 50 ÷ 200 × 100 = 25% increase.
• Percent of a total: 30% of $500 = 0.30 × 500 = $150.
• Rate per 1,000 people = count ÷ population × 1,000. Rates let you compare places of different sizes.
• Population density = people ÷ land area, for example people per square mile.
• Trade balance = exports − imports. A negative result is a trade deficit; a positive result is a surplus.

Votes and majorities

A majority is more than half of the votes or seats; with 101 seats, that is 51. A plurality is the most votes, even if not more than half.

Correlation is not causation

If two numbers rise and fall together, they are correlated. That does not prove one causes the other: a third factor, such as the weather, may drive both.

Temaquiz 6: Using numbers, tables and graphs