GED and HiSET language arts — claims, evidence and faulty reasoning

Arguments turn up everywhere on both high-school-equivalency exams. The GED lists identifying and creating arguments as one of the three topics of its Reasoning Through Language Arts test, and the HiSET Language Arts – Reading subtest names evaluating arguments, the author's purpose and viewpoint, and the impact of word choice among the skills it tests. The questions are rarely about whether you agree with a writer. They ask whether the writer has earned the conclusion.

This material works on that one habit with the kind of writing adults actually meet: a letter to the editor about snow plowing, a resident speaking at a pool budget hearing, a shop owner's blog about parking fees, a restaurant owner's complaint in a trade newsletter, a county commissioner's two-option budget choice, a speaker at a planning board hearing, a union newsletter answering management. Every piece is original and short enough to read in a minute, and every question has one answer you can defend.

The twelve quiz questions move through the whole chain of an argument. First the claim, which is not always the first sentence. Then relevance: the detail that sounds impressive and proves nothing. Then sufficiency: evidence that is real and relevant but far too small for the conclusion drawn from it. Then the common failures of reasoning, each asked about by what goes wrong rather than by name alone: two cases turned into a rule about everyone, something that came after treated as its cause, two options presented as the only ones, an attack on a person instead of a plan, a chain of predictions with nothing linking them. The last questions turn to how writers persuade when the reasoning is sound: an appeal to credibility built on twenty-two years of experience, loaded words that turn a tax break into a giveaway, a concession that makes a response believable, and a newsletter whose rhetorical question and call to action reveal its purpose.

The flashcards give each fallacy and technique a plain definition with an adult example, plus the tests of relevant and sufficient evidence.

The written work asks you to do in your own words what the quiz asks you to recognize: name a claim and its evidence, explain why a piece of evidence falls short, rewrite a loaded sentence in neutral terms, and repair a flawed argument. The oral exam puts short arguments in front of you one at a time and asks you to say what holds up and what does not.

Zestly is an independent study tool, not affiliated with GED Testing Service or the HiSET program. The pieces are original, and no score is promised.

• Separate a writer's claim from the evidence offered for it, wherever the claim sits
• Spot a detail that is irrelevant to the claim, and evidence that is relevant but insufficient
• Explain what goes wrong in a hasty generalization, a false cause, a false choice, a personal attack and a slippery slope
• Recognize an appeal to credibility and the effect of loaded words
• Explain why a writer concedes a point, and identify a writer's purpose from how the piece ends

Practice material written by Zestly, based on the GED Reasoning Through Language Arts topic 'Identifying and Creating Arguments' (ged.com) and the HiSET Language Arts – Reading process categories on author's purpose, word choice and evaluating arguments (HiSET Test at a Glance, hiset.org). All excerpts are original.