We looked at how learners actually performed on the Language Arts questions in our GED practice course - not guesses about what's hard, but real answer data from dozens of test-takers on each item. A handful of skills came up wrong again and again. Here are the six that tripped up the most people, why each one is sneaky, and a fresh practice question to lock in the fix.
1. Faulty parallel structure
Parallelism means every item in a list uses the same grammatical form. It's easy to miss because the "off" version often sounds fine out loud. The fix is mechanical: make sure each item would slot into the sentence the same way.
"The coach told the team to hustle, to communicate, and that they should stay positive."
- A. to hustle, to communicate, and staying positive
- B. to hustle, to communicate, and to stay positive
- C. hustling, to communicate, and to stay positive
- D. to hustle, communicating, and that they stay positive
Show the solution
The first two items use the "to + verb" form: to hustle, to communicate. The third has to match, so it must be to stay positive. Every other choice switches forms partway through.
Answer: B. to hustle, to communicate, and to stay positive
2. Naming the rhetorical appeal
The three appeals are worth memorizing cold: ethos persuades through the speaker's credibility or character, pathos through emotion, and logos through logic and evidence. The quickest test is to ask why should I believe this? - because of who's saying it, how it makes me feel, or the reasoning behind it.
- A. Logos
- B. Pathos
- C. Ethos
- D. Anecdote
Show the solution
The persuasive weight comes from who is speaking - a nurse with twenty years of experience. That's an appeal to credibility, which is ethos. There's no data (logos) and no emotional language (pathos) doing the heavy lifting.
Answer: C. Ethos
3. Subject-verb agreement
The verb agrees with the true subject, never with a word in a phrase that happens to sit closer to it. Words like each, every, either and neither are singular even though they feel plural.
- A. Each of the players are ready.
- B. Each of the players is ready.
- C. Each of the players were ready.
- D. Each of the player are ready.
Show the solution
The subject is Each, which is singular - "each one" is ready. "of the players" is just a phrase describing it. A singular subject needs is.
Answer: B. Each of the players is ready.
4. Simile vs. metaphor
The difference is one word. A simile compares using like or as. A metaphor makes the comparison directly, with no "like" or "as" - it says one thing is another.
- A. Simile
- B. Metaphor
- C. Personification
- D. Hyperbole
Show the solution
There's no like or as - the sentence states the voice was music directly. That's a metaphor. (If it had said "her voice was like music," it would be a simile.)
Answer: B. Metaphor
5. Fixing a comma splice
A comma alone can't join two complete sentences - that's a comma splice. You fix it three ways: add a joining word (and, but, so), swap the comma for a semicolon, or split it into two sentences.
- A. It was getting late, we decided to go home.
- B. It was getting late we decided to go home.
- C. It was getting late, so we decided to go home.
- D. It was getting late; we decided, to go home.
Show the solution
A is a comma splice - two full sentences glued with only a comma. B is a run-on with no punctuation. D drops in a semicolon correctly but then adds a stray comma after "decided." C fixes the splice cleanly by adding so.
Answer: C. It was getting late, so we decided to go home.
6. Identifying the sentence type
Count the clauses. An independent clause can stand alone; a dependent clause (starting with words like as, because, although, when) cannot. One dependent clause plus one independent clause makes a complex sentence.
- A. Simple
- B. Compound
- C. Complex
- D. Compound-complex
Show the solution
"As the demand for clean energy increases" starts with As and can't stand alone - it's dependent. "solar and wind power have become more widely adopted" is a complete, independent clause. One of each makes it complex.
Answer: C. Complex
What the data tells you to study
Five of these six misses are pure editing skills - parallelism, agreement, punctuation and sentence structure - and they show up all over the test, including in the Extended Response. Drilling those gives you the best return per hour. The figurative-language and rhetorical-appeal questions are quick wins too, once the terms are locked in. Practice the exact question types above and you're covering the ground where most points quietly leak away.
Want a full set of GED practice?
Our downloadable GED practice pack covers all four subjects - Language Arts, Math, Science and Social Studies - with a worked explanation behind every answer. Start with the free sample, then grab the complete pack.
Prefer paper? Get the printable GED PDF on Etsy - 330 questions across all four subjects, 98 pages.
Prefer the complete set? The full GED practice tests covering all four subjects are on Udemy with worked visuals for every question.