If you want to pass the GED math exam, you need to know what to study. All of math is not on this
test. In this video, I'm going to lay out exactly what you need to know to score a 145 and pass the
GED math exam. This is the second video out of four where I'm going over the four categories
of math skills that you need to know to pass the ged math exam. Those are operations with rational
equations, geometry and measurement, expressions and equations, and graphs and functions. I'll
link the first video about operations with rational numbers up above and down below.
In that video to introduce the series I go even more in depth about how to create a study plan
for the ged math exam, so make sure that you catch up on that if you missed it. Today I'm going to go
over a high level look at all the skills that you need to know in that second category: geometry and
measurement. Again all of math is not on the test, so having a better idea of what you need to study
will help you to identify the best resources for you. There are eight skills in particular that
you're going to need to focus on. As you may have guessed since this category is about geometry,
the first couple skills are all about geometric shapes. The first skill to focus on is being
able to find the area and perimeter of different two-dimensional shapes. That includes rectangles,
triangles, circles, other polygons, and composite figures, or shapes made up of two or more shapes.
A popular one is this kind of thing, like a basketball court or a track.
It's made up of half of a circle and a rectangle. Luckily there are formulas for finding the area
and the perimeter for these shapes and you don't need to memorize any of them. While you
take the ged math test you'll have access to a formula sheet that looks like this.
You can use it to find the formula for any shape that you need on the test. So the big thing for
this skill is being able to think about what the shapes are and for you to be able to identify
what shape you're being asked about. The ged questions are usually about everyday objects
so they're not going to say rectangle necessarily - they might say a football field,
and you'll need to know that that's what they're talking about. You also need to be able to figure
out if a question is asking about the perimeter or about the area because it doesn't always say those
words. Questions about the inside of a shape, like how much material you would need to cover a floor,
those are about the area. A trick here is that answers to these questions always have
units like square feet or square inches or square centimeters. That's because the formulas for area
involve multiplication. So if you take feet times feet, what you end up with is square feet or feet
squared. Questions about the outside of a shape are about the perimeter, so for example they might
be about how much fencing you would need to fence your yard or how far it would be to walk around
the edge of a parking lot. Those answers will just be in regular feet, centimeters, or inches because
when you're finding the perimeter you're just adding the dimensions, and that does not change
the unit. Another important thing for you to focus on is what the formulas mean and how to use them,
because even though the formulas are provided to you, they're not in plain english and there's very
little explanation of how to use them. So make sure that when you look at one half bh you know
what those letters stand for and how you can use them to find the area of a triangle. Skill number
two is skill number one in reverse: you need to be able to find a missing dimension given the
area or perimeter of a shape and one of the other dimensions. So for example, if you're given one
side of a rectangle and the area of a rectangle, you should be able to find the other side,
the length or the width that you're missing. Again you can use the formulas provided if you know how,
so you want to focus your attention on knowing what those formulas mean and how to use them.
It's worth noting that some of these problems could require a little bit of algebra to solve,
but if you're not feeling comfortable with those skills you can always use substitution to guess
and check with the multiple choice questions. We'll talk a little bit more about that in the
next video about expressions and equations. Skill number three is just like skill number one except
now we're gonna be working with three dimensional shapes instead of two dimensional shapes. In
this one you need to be able to find the surface area and volume of three-dimensional shapes like
rectangular prisms, like cylinders, like spheres, pyramids, and cones. If you don't know what those
words mean, you need to get familiar with them along with the formulas because the problems on
this test usually talk about everyday objects like boxes or like soup cans or like balls instead of
rectangular prisms, cylinders, or spheres. It's up to you to figure out what shape that is describing
so that you can know what formula to use. These formulas in particular are a little tricky because
a lot of them have special variables like capital B and P - those variables reference other formulas
from the 2d section, so be very, very careful with those. You also need to know if they're
asking about volume or surface area. Volume problems are the ones that are talking about the
inside of a shape, so how much you could fit in a box or in a can, and surface area is talking about
the area of the surface of the shape, so how much material it would take to cover a box or a ball.
Skill number four is just like skill number two - are you noticing a pattern? If you're given
a surface area or a volume, can you use the formula to find a missing dimension? Again be
really mindful of the special variables in these formulas. Sometimes the dimension that they're
asking you for is the side of a shape which is not even in the formula as written on the sheet.
And of course, just like in skill two you can use algebra to solve these ones, or you can substitute
from the multiple choice options. For skill number five you're going to use the Pythagorean
Theorem to find a missing side length of a right triangle. This could be a missing leg of the
triangle - those are the sides that make the L - or a missing hypotenuse - that's the diagonal side
that connects the L. This formula is also on the formula sheet, so you don't need to memorize it,
but in order to use it successfully you need to be comfortable with squares and square roots which we
talked about a little in the previous video about operations with rational numbers. For
skill 6 we're moving away from the strictly shape-based geometry. You need to be able to
represent and interpret data on different types of graphs. That includes circle and bar graphs,
tables, scatter plots, dot plots, histograms, and box plots. This one's really helpful for the
science and social studies exams as well because there's also data interpretation on those tests.
Number seven: you need to be able to find the mean, median, and mode of a data set. These
are really simple: the median is just the middle number if you arrange the numbers from least to
greatest. The mode is just the number that appears most in the data set, so if there's three fives in
the data set that's probably the mode. And the mean is all of the numbers in the set added up
and divided by the number of numbers. Sometimes this is called the average. The definitions for
the mean and the median are explained on the formula sheet, so that's easy. And then the last
skill in this set, number eight, is being able to use what are called combinations and permutations.
These are those kinds of problems that ask you how many different kinds of sandwiches you can make
if you have a certain number of bread options, cheese options, meat options, and veggie options.
I would generally focus on some other skills that appear in different contexts on the test
before I focus on this. All right, so those are the eight skills under the geometry and
measurement section that you will need to know to pass the GED math test with a score of 145.
There are some other skills on this test that you could master to get a higher score,
but these are the skills that you need to pass. A lot of these skills require some basic algebra
skills to execute, so make sure you come back next week to watch the expressions and equations
section. I've mentioned before that although there is no specific GED math practice on Khan Academy,
it is a great place to get practice in for these types of skills. I'll also put a link below to
the Kaplan GED prep manual, but you can also use any GED book that your library has available to
borrow. It's really helpful to start practicing with the calculator that you're allowed to use
while you take the test, so i'll put a link to that below, and I'll also put a link to the GED
formula sheet. I post new videos every Monday about how to study more effectively so that
you can achieve your goals. In the coming weeks I'm going to discuss the two remaining section
of math skills that you need to pass the GED math test, so please subscribe if you'd like to
learn more. You can also go back and watch that first video in the series about operations with
rational numbers. If this video is helpful to you please press the like button so that youtube knows
to share it with other studiers. Thanks as always for watching, and until next time, happy studying.