Quizzes, exams, and flashcards about Mathematical Reasoning: GED and HiSET mathematics — surface area, volume and scale, GED and HiSET mathematics —…← GED and HiSETThe subject candidates most often have to sit twice, and the one where a formula sheet is provided — which tells you where the marks actually are.

Where it sits in each examOn the GED it is Mathematical Reasoning, 115 minutes in two parts, with a 3-minute break between them. A formula sheet and a calculator reference sheet are provided; an on-screen calculator is available on the second part, and at a test center you may use your own approved TI-30XS.On the HiSET it is Mathematics, 90 minutes of multiple choice, with a calculator permitted.What is on itThe GED lists four areas: basic math, geometry, basic algebra, and graphs and functions. In practice that means:

Number and quantity — fractions, decimals, percentages, ratios and proportion, unit conversion, and negative numbers. It underlies almost every question on either paper, including the algebra, and it is the part most often underestimated.

Algebra — writing an expression or an equation from a described situation, solving linear equations and inequalities, systems of two equations, and simple quadratics and exponents.

Functions and graphs — reading a linear relationship, what its slope and intercept mean in context, and evaluating a function at a value.

Geometry and measurement — perimeter, area, surface area, volume, the Pythagorean theorem, and similar figures.

Data — mean, median, range, reading a table or a chart, and simple probability.

The question formats include more than multiple choice on the GED: drag and drop, fill in the blank, select an area on the screen, and drop-down menus inside a sentence. The mathematics is the same; what changes is that some answers cannot be guessed from a list.What these materials coverThirteen materials, 154 quiz questions plus flashcards, written questions and a spoken exam, weighted toward number and algebra because that is where the paper is weighted. Every situation is invented, every number is checkable without a calculator, and each explanation gives the arithmetic step by step rather than asserting the answer.The distractors are the errors, named: the wrong base for a percentage, a rate multiplied where it should be divided, minutes treated as hours, the diameter used as the radius, a sign lost when distributing, one root dropped from a quadratic.Currency is written in words throughout — "40 dollars", never with a sign — because a dollar sign is the delimiter for mathematics in this system and would silently italicize the sentence around it. Every figure is described in words, many geometry questions also show a labeled drawing, and one set draws its bar, line and circle graphs, scatter plot and box plots on screen; for the GED's other answer formats, use the free practice tests both organizations publish.How to work

Write the equation before you touch the numbers. Almost every lost mark in the algebra section is a translation error, not an algebra error.

Do the unit conversion first, always. More marks go to minutes-against-hours and centimeters-against-meters than to any concept on the paper.

Say what the percentage is a percentage of. Percentage questions are very largely a test of identifying the base.

Learn what is on the formula sheet rather than learning the formulas. Knowing that the volume of a cylinder is there, and which letter is which, is worth more than reciting it.

Check the answer against the story. A negative number of people, a discount that raised the price, a triangle side longer than its hypotenuse — each of those is a two-second check that catches a real proportion of errors.

GED® is a registered trademark of the American Council on Education, used under license by GED Testing Service LLC. HiSET® is a registered trademark of PSI Services LLC. Zestly is not affiliated with or endorsed by either; all practice material here is original.

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