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HiSET Reading Literacy Test

The HiSET Reading Literacy Test lasts 65 minutes and contains 40 multiple choice questions. You will be given a selection of short passages to read. These passages can be drawn from various sources, including memoirs, essays, “biographical sketches,” editorials, or even poetry. Each of these selections is between 400 and 600 words long.

Following each selection, there will be a series of between 5 and 10 questions — which will test your overall comprehension and ask you to analyze the article. Learn more about the HiSET Reading Literacy Test.

HiSET Test Writing

The HiSET Test Writing contains 50 multiple-choice questions with one essay question, and you will be given 120 minutes to complete it. You are asked to demonstrate editorial and proofreading skills in this test section. You will give short texts: letters, essays, newspaper articles, personal accounts, and reports. A section will be underlined in each text, and you will have to decide what (if any) revision is necessary or appropriate for the underlined section.

The writing section also contains an essay. For the essay, you will be given a short prompt. This prompt may take any form: it may focus on an issue, which you will then be expected to argue for or against; it may ask you to respond with a personal story; it may require you to provide information on a given topic. Learn more about the HiSET Writing Literacy Test.

HiSET Test Mathematics

The HiSET Mathematics test evaluates your ability to solve mathematical problems and apply mathematics to a variety of contexts. You will have 90 minutes on the Mathematics Test to answer 50 questions. In this section, you can use a calculator, and you will be asked to solve a selection of word problems by demonstrating knowledge of fundamental math and reasoning skills. Problems are practical and realistic, requiring numerical operations, measurement, estimation, data interpretation, and logical thinking. In addition, they will require you to be aware of algebraic patterns, probability, and precision in measurement. Remember that you need to pull out the information given in the problem: the starting conditions, known relationships between the numbers, and the question problem wants to be answered.

HiSET Social Studies Test

The HiSET Social Studies Test evaluates your ability to analyze and digest social studies information. This section contains 50 multiple-choice questions; you’ll have 70 minutes to complete them. Passage selections will be drawn from various fields, including history, political science, psychology, sociology, anthropology, geography, and economics. These selections may well take the form not just of primary documents (that is, technical articles) but also posters, cartoons, timelines, maps, graphs, tables, charts, and even reading passages (that is, articles about the technical articles).

The Social Studies section builds on the skills established in the Reading section, asking you not just how the author of a given work is going about his business but also asking you to apply your razor-separating fact from fiction. You will be asked to separate factual information from opinions about the limitations of procedures and methods — does the method employed in the selection allow the author to say what he claims to say? — judge how reliable a given source is and which sources might be more reliable than others, ascertain how valid inferences and conclusions are, and finally, whether or not the information presented is adequate for drawing any conclusions, much fewer ones the author might claim.

HiSET Science Test

The HiSET Science test assesses your ability to understand, interpret, and apply scientific information. You will have 80 minutes to answer 50 multiple-choice questions. Subjects questions will be drawn from include: physics, chemistry, botany, zoology, health, and astronomy and are designed to mimic scientific journal reports and will include graphs, tables, and charts to present information and results. These will be designed to include descriptions of hypotheses and testing methods, as well as the data returned and analysis. To get an excellent score here, you should be able to read the two in tandem and see what kind of model the scientist built to test his hypothesis.

Test questions will include being asked to identify research questions of interest, placing the best design for investigating a specific research question, being able to recognize what kinds of conclusions can be inferred from results, evaluating the adequacy of procedures, and distinguishing between hypotheses, assumptions, and observations.