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 the complete set? The full GED practice tests covering all four subjects are on Udemy with worked visuals for every question.