GED: Social Studies

What the Social Studies test covers

The GED Social Studies domain tests civics and government (about half the questions), U.S. history, economics, and geography and the world. You have 70 minutes for about 35 questions. Most questions present a short passage, map, graph, chart, or political cartoon and ask you to interpret it using social studies concepts. There is no essay; however, you must read primary and secondary sources carefully and distinguish evidence from opinion.

Core rules and concepts

• Constitutional principles: popular sovereignty, limited government, separation of powers, checks and balances, federalism, and individual rights.
• Branches and checks: Congress makes laws; the president executes them; courts interpret them. The president can veto legislation; Congress can override a veto with a two-thirds vote in both houses; the Supreme Court can declare laws unconstitutional.
• Amendments: the Bill of Rights protects speech, religion, press, assembly, petition, and due process. The 13th, 14th, and 15th Amendments ended slavery, established citizenship and equal protection, and protected voting rights by race. The 19th extended voting rights to women; the 26th lowered the voting age to 18.
• Economics: scarcity forces choices; opportunity cost is the value of the next-best alternative; demand and supply curves shift when non-price factors change; inflation is a sustained rise in the general price level.
• Geography: use map scale, legend, and compass rose; recognize regions, migration patterns, and human-environment interaction.
• History: connect causes and effects across colonization, the Revolution, the Civil War and Reconstruction, industrialization, civil rights, and the Cold War.

Worked example

The president vetoes a bill. Both the House and the Senate then pass the bill again by two-thirds majorities, and it becomes law. Which constitutional principle does this illustrate? The veto is an executive check on Congress. The two-thirds override is a legislative check on the executive. Together they illustrate checks and balances-not separation of powers alone, because the question is about each branch limiting the other. Federalism would involve state versus national power.

Traps that cost marks

• Confusing separation of powers (three branches) with federalism (national and state governments).
• Treating rights as absolute; many rights have legal limits.
• Reading a graph’s title but ignoring its axes, units, or time period.
• Assuming correlation in an economic graph proves causation.
• Choosing an answer that reflects modern opinions rather than the source’s historical context.