GED grammar is not tested as standalone fill-in-the-blank exercises. It is tested through what the guide calls editing items, embedded directly inside reading passages. A word or phrase is highlighted and presented as a drop-down menu of alternatives, and the guide states plainly that each menu offers a clear best choice alongside common errors and misconceptions. Drop-down editing passages run 350 to 450 words. Your job is to pick the version that follows the rule, not the one that sounds most natural spoken aloud. That distinction matters. Informal speech breaks several of these rules constantly. Your ear will confidently steer you into a distractor that was placed there precisely because it sounds fine.
Everything below is checked against the official GED RLA Assessment Guide for Educators, the same document GED item writers build editing questions from, and against the RLA subject page. Target codes are cited throughout so you can check any claim yourself.
Most GED grammar guides cover six or seven areas and describe that as "the bulk of it". The published list is thirteen. The four usually left out — confused words, informal usage, wordiness, and capitalization — are as testable as the famous ones, and they are easier than the famous ones. Nine targets sit under L.1, which covers grammar and usage. Four sit under L.2, which covers capitalization and punctuation. Every target carries a Depth of Knowledge range of 1 to 2, meaning no editing item asks for extended reasoning — you are recalling a rule and applying it, which is exactly why this material converts study time into points faster than reading comprehension does. Here is the complete set, grouped as GED Testing Service groups it.
Target | What it asks you to edit |
|---|
L.1.1 | Frequently confused words and homonyms — passed/past, two/too/to, there/their/they’re, knew/new, it’s/its |
L.1.2 | Straightforward subject-verb agreement |
L.1.3 | Pronoun usage — antecedent agreement, unclear references, pronoun case |
L.1.4 | Non-standard or informal usage — "try to win" rather than "try and win" |
L.1.5 | Dangling or misplaced modifiers and illogical word order |
L.1.6 | Parallelism, subordination, and coordination |
L.1.7 | Agreement in harder cases — compound subjects, interceding phrases, collective nouns |
L.1.8 | Wordiness and awkward sentence construction |
L.1.9 | Transitional words and conjunctive adverbs that support logic and clarity |
L.2.1 | Capitalization — proper nouns, titles, sentence beginnings |
L.2.2 | Run-on sentences, fused sentences, and fragments |
L.2.3 | Apostrophes with possessive nouns |
L.2.4 | Punctuation — series, appositives and non-essential elements, end marks, clause separation |
A verb must match its subject in number: singular subject, singular verb. Target L.1.2 covers the straightforward cases and L.1.7 covers the harder ones the test actually favours — compound subjects, interceding phrases, and collective nouns. The interceding phrase is the classic trap. Take "The list of items on the shelf are missing". The eye lands on items and picks a plural verb. But the subject is list, so the correct version is "The list of items on the shelf is missing." Cross out everything between the subject and the verb and the answer becomes obvious.
Collective nouns work the same way. "The team of volunteers were setting up chairs" should be "The team of volunteers was setting up chairs" — team is the subject and it is singular. Pronoun agreement, under L.1.3, applies the same logic: a pronoun must agree with the noun it replaces, and the guide also flags unclear references and pronoun case. "The supervisor told the trainee that he would need to sign the form" is an unclear reference — name the person instead.
One caution worth stating, because a lot of prep material gets it wrong: the published targets do not require you to replace singular they with "his or her" after words like each or everyone. L.1.7 names compound subjects, interceding phrases and collective nouns specifically. Focus your attention on those, on unclear references, and on pronoun case, which is where the test genuinely lives.
Tense tells the reader when something happened, and shifting mid-sentence without a reason breaks the timeline. "She walked into the office and greets her coworkers" mixes past and present for two actions in the same moment; it should be "walked… and greeted". Time markers are the clearest signal available — words like yesterday, last month, currently and tomorrow tell you which tense the sentence needs before you even look at the verb. "Yesterday, the manager approves the new schedule" is wrong on the strength of one word. Read the whole sentence before choosing, because a tense shift usually only becomes audible once you hear both halves rather than just the highlighted fragment.
Target L.2.2 covers run-ons, fused sentences, and fragments. This is the highest-value area on the whole test. These appear constantly, and the rule is mechanical once you see it. A run-on jams two complete sentences together with nothing between them. "I finished the report I sent it to my supervisor" needs to become "I finished the report, and I sent it to my supervisor." A fragment is the opposite failure. It is missing a subject, a verb, or a complete thought. "Because the meeting ran long" cannot stand alone, so it must attach to a full sentence: "The project was delayed because the meeting ran long."
The single question that resolves almost every item in this category is whether the words in front of you express one complete thought or two. Two complete thoughts need a comma plus a conjunction, a semicolon, or a full stop. Anything that cannot stand alone needs attaching to something that can.
Commas and Apostrophes
The punctuation actually tested is narrower than most grammar guides suggest. Target L.2.4 names four things: commas in a series, commas around appositives and other non-essential elements, end marks, and punctuation separating clauses. In practice that means three habits. Separate items in a list. Put a comma before a coordinating conjunction joining two full sentences. Set off an introductory phrase — "After the shift ended, employees clocked out." Target L.2.3 covers apostrophes with possessive nouns. Add ’s for singular possession. Add only an apostrophe after an existing s for plural possession. Never use an apostrophe to make a word plural, so "The employee’s all received their paychecks" should read "The employees all received their paychecks."
Target L.1.1 is the first item on the official list and the one most guides bury. It names specific pairs: passed and past, two and too and to, there and their and they’re, knew and new, and it’s versus its. That last pair trips up more test takers than almost anything else on the exam. Its shows possession; it’s is a contraction of "it is". The test is mechanical — substitute "it is" and see whether the sentence survives. If it does, you need the apostrophe. Because these are homonyms, your ear is no help at all here, which is exactly why the target exists.
Target L.1.5 covers dangling and misplaced modifiers. A modifier has to sit next to the word it describes. Otherwise the sentence says something you did not mean. "Running through the parking lot, the car nearly hit the employee" puts the car doing the running. Target L.1.6 covers parallelism. Items in a list must share a grammatical form. So "organizing files, to answer phones, and scheduling meetings" should read "organizing files, answering phones, and scheduling meetings." Target L.1.9 covers transitions. Picking the wrong one changes the meaning outright rather than merely reading awkwardly.
Relationship | Transition words |
|---|
Addition | Also, in addition, furthermore |
Contrast | However, although, on the other hand |
Cause and effect | Because, therefore, as a result |
Sequence | First, next, finally |
"The store was closed for renovations. Also, customers could still place online orders" uses an addition word for what is plainly a contrast; it needs However. Catching that automatically, rather than reasoning it out from scratch each time, is what how to pass the GED language arts builds toward.
Three published targets rarely appear in GED grammar lessons, which makes them quiet score leaks. Target L.1.4 covers non-standard or informal usage. The guide gives its own example: "try to win the game" rather than "try and win the game." Target L.1.8 covers wordiness and awkward construction. Here every option is grammatically legal and you are choosing the tightest one. When two choices both look correct, pick the shorter. Target L.2.1 covers capitalization of proper nouns, titles, and sentence beginnings, which is easy to score and easy to skip entirely in preparation. None of the three is difficult. They cost points only because most candidates never learn they are on the list.
Try each before reading the correction. Each one targets a different published objective, so note which target you missed rather than only noting that you missed it — that tells you what to drill next. These are original examples written for GED preparation and are not official GED test questions.
1. "The team of volunteers were setting up chairs for the event." → was setting up. Team is a singular collective noun (L.1.7).
2. "She opened her laptop, checks her email, and started typing." → checked. All three actions sit in the same past sequence (L.1.6, tense consistency).
3. "The customer wanted a refund the cashier called the manager over." → add ", so" between them. Two complete sentences fused (L.2.2).
4. "Wearing a bright yellow vest, the construction site was visible from far away." → "Wearing a bright yellow vest, the worker was visible from far away." The vest belongs to the worker (L.1.5).
5. "The manual explains how to reset the printer, changing the toner, and troubleshooting error codes." → "reset the printer, change the toner, and troubleshoot error codes." Matching verb forms (L.1.6).
For more items in the real drop-down format, the GED RLA cheat sheet condenses these rules onto one printable page, and GED reading comprehension and GED RLA writing skills cover the two halves of RLA that grammar does not.
GED grammar is the most learnable part of Reasoning Through Language Arts because the rules are finite, published, and objective. Thirteen language targets cover everything an editing item can test, from subject-verb agreement to capitalization, and each one has a mechanical check you can apply without interpreting anything. Learn the rule rather than trusting your ear, because the distractors in a drop-down menu are chosen precisely because they sound acceptable. You need 145 to pass RLA, and this is the fastest part of that score to secure.
