TIPS ON HOW TO PASS RLA
TIPS FOR READING COMPREHENSION
- Read a lot! Practice reading and comprehension on readtheory.org, that is your reasoning skills which is your ability to answer a question, solve a problem based on facts, evidence, and logic.
- When reading, try to form a picture or imagination of what you read, especially where there is an event or scenario that is being explained.
- Slow down when you read and take the time to organize the flow of the text, find patterns, ideas, and details, as this will help you understand and remember what you read.
- Also talking back to the text as if you were having a conversation with the author will help you comprehend the text more.
- Always ask questions. Jot down questions while reading for example you might read about something that you come across for the first time this will pop out questions from your mind
- Use your daily experience or past knowledge to relate with what you are reading.
- When reading make sure to have in mind what you need to know and learn, that is read the question first before reading the passage. This will help you be conscious and focus on what you are reading.
- Practice identifying the main idea of every passage you read, that is the most important point in a piece of writing. If it is a long passage, identify the main idea in each paragraph, also take note of specific information like date, year, event, etc.
- Practice Identifying the topic sentence, that is the sentence that contains the main idea of a paragraph, as each paragraph makes a point, practice finding that point.
- Practice identifying the supporting detail that the author gives to support each main idea, that is information that explains the main idea.
- Practice making inferences, that is connecting details logically when facts are not stated directly or explicitly. Always make sure your inferences must be supported by evidence from the text.
- Practice identifying the author’s purpose for each writing, that is the reason an author writes a text, it might be to inform, explain, persuade, describe, or entertain, sometimes it may be a combination of any. Ask yourself WHY did the author write this? What does the author want you to consider, think, or do?
- Practice drawing conclusions, that is using information from the writing as well as your prior knowledge to make a judgment or inference about the text. List all the available facts from the text and come up with reasonable explanations for them.
- Practice summarizing, that is expressing the main idea of a text in your own words, your summary should answer the questions Who, What, When, Where, Why, and How of the text.
TIPS FOR LANGUAGE USAGE
- Practice correcting incomplete sentences, combining sentences, and improving sentence construction.
- Study subject-verb agreement, pronouns and antecedent, contractions and possessives.
- Study homonyms, that is words that sound alike but have different meanings and spellings. So, be extra careful to read the entire sentence to know the intended meaning of the word before you decide how to spell the word.
- Always use Standard English, that is English that is grammatically correct in all situations, whereas Nonstandard English for example slangs, informal contractions, and double negatives.
- Study the rules of capitalization and punctuation.
- Reading the passage quietly to yourself will help you find errors that confuse what the sentence or author is saying.
TIPS FOR EXTENDED RESPONSE(ESSAY)
- Practice understanding your writing prompt as it explains what you should include in your extended response, from your writing prompt you should be able to know the subject of your writing that is your topic, if you are asked to write an opinion or take a position on the authors arguments and claims, and the information you need to include in your essay.
- Practice finding the author’s argument and supporting evidence in both passages, then decide which passage has a better supported argument and state why you will support the argument with evidence from the passage.
- Ask yourself, what information convinced me to agree with the author’s point? Make sure to look out for strong evidence that is based on facts and not opinions, generalizations, bias, emotional appeals, or judgements.
- Practice how to organize and develop your ideas using facts and text evidence from the passage to support your argument. Make an orderly list of your ideas including several examples of textual evidence.
- With this list develop your essay into three parts namely, introduction, body, and conclusion. Your introduction can be one paragraph, body can be two paragraphs with your main point 1 with several support from the text and main point 2 with several support from the text and finally your conclusion can be a paragraph.
- Introduction Paragraph: State your argument by making a logical claim that clearly states your position. Use three or more specific evidence references from the text to support the claim. Identify valid arguments and/or fallacious claims in the text. Point out supported and/or unsupported claims in the text.
- Body Paragraph: The body paragraph develops your argument; it discusses your argument in the introduction paragraph in-depth. It develops the topic and supports your argument. Make sure to order your ideas logically so that one idea leads to the next. Give details about your main ideas and tie them to specific evidence from the text. Make effective transitions to cohesively link ideas.
- Conclusion Paragraph: This is the final paragraph the sums up and reviews every information in the body. It should restate your argument here, give a summary of the main ideas or points you gave in the body paragraphs and finally end with your concluding sentence, which should be a sentence for readers of your argument to reflect on.
- Make sure to have a good command of Standard English when writing. Use correct forms of sentence structure. Maintain subject- verb and pronoun-antecedent agreement. Adhere to the rules of capitalization, punctuation, and spelling.
- Plan and manage your time judiciously, as you have 45 minutes for the extended response, portion time for organizing your idea, writing the essay and reviewing your essay to correct any errors.
RECOMMENDED TEXTBOOKS AND RESOURCES
- Kaplan GED Textbook – https://amzn.to/3GxOibc
- Steck-Vaughn GED Textbook – https://amzn.to/40SYzqm
- readtheory.org
- https://www.youtube.com/@TestPrepChampions
- https://www.youtube.com/@mistercohensclass
- https://www.youtube.com/@DTWGEDPREP
- https://www.dtwgedprep.com/
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