Course

The social studies practices can be described as skills that are key to scientific reasoning in both textual and quantitative contexts. The practices come from important skills specified in the Career and College Ready Standards and other career- and college-readiness standards, as well as in National Standards for History. The social studies content topics describe key concepts that are widely taught in a variety of high-school level social studies courses and are relevant to the lives of GED^® test-takers. They focus, in particular, on American civics and government.

The Social Studies Test will also focus on four major content domains:
1. Civics and government.
2. United States history.
3. Economics.
4. Geography and the world.

The content topics for the Social Studies Test focus on two main themes, each applied across the four domains in the social studies arena. These themes have been selected to ensure that the test covers a wide range of important concepts and ideas in social studies, but they are also intended to function like a lens to draw focus to a distinct subset of ideas within each content topic. Content that falls outside the parameters of these themes are not included in the GED^® Social Studies Test.

1. Development of Modern Liberties and Democracy, the first theme, explores the development of current ideas about democracy as well as human and civil rights from ancient civilizations to the present. It examines contemporary thinking, policies and structures, major events that have shaped our democratic values, and major thinkers who contributed to American ideas of democratic government.

2. Dynamic Responses in Societal Systems, the second theme, explores how the systems, structures and policies that people have created respond to each other, conditions, and events. For example, societies and civilizations have developed and changed in response to particular geographic features and natural events. National economies respond to both governmental policies and natural laws of economics (such as supply and demand) around which policies are built. Similarly, countries respond to both internal and external changes and challenges in ways that are beyond the ability of any one person to control.