Does spelling count on the GED essay?

GED prep students often ask, "Does spelling count?"

The answer is sometimes no, sometimes yes.

No. If you make only make a few spelling mistakes, it will not affect your grade. After all, this is draft writing, and the essay readers don't expect your essay to be perfect given the limited time frame.

Yes. First, if you misspell many words in your essay, especially the most commonly misspelled words (see below), it will lower your grade. However, if your ideas are well organized, you may still pass the test.
Second, if your spelling errors prevent the essay reader from understanding what you meant to say, then yes, spelling errors will affect your results.  In this second case, it is likely that you will not pass the essay test.

Some spelling mistakes are worse than other spelling mistakes. Try not to make spelling errors on words in these following categories.

1. Any words given in the prompt.
     Some students begin their essay by restating key words from the essay prompt. If you do this, please be sure to spell these words correctly.  Sometimes students hurry to write their essay and don't pay attention to the spelling of these words, and they end up making avoidable spelling mistakes.

2. Any commonly misspelled word--such as possessive pronouns and common homonyms. You may find some of these errors on the multiple choice part of the test. Be suspicious when you see them.
Notes:
     a.  Possessive pronouns never have an apostrophe  (his, hers, ours, yours, theirs, its)
     b.  Always read contractions as two words--and you won't make a mistake.

     its         possessive pronoun         The dog wagged its tail.
     it's        contraction-  it is               It's (it is) too late to go to the movies.

    your      possessive pronoun          This is your notebook.
    yours     possessive pronoun          Is this notebook yours?
    you're    contraction- you are         You're (you are) going to get a good report.


    there     adverb-location                Put the flowers here and there. (here hides in there)
    there's   contraction- there is          There's (there is) never enough time to write an essay.
    they're  contraction-  they are        They're (they are) going to put the flowers here.
    their      possessive pronoun          The heirs got their money from their rich uncle.
    theirs     possessive pronoun          The money was theirs.

    to       location                               Henry went to the garden.
    to      with verb                             He went to pick flowers.
    two    number                               Sally bought two plants at the farmer's market.
    too    also                                     Henry went to the farmer's market, too.

3. Any plurals and possessives (nouns that show ownership need an apostrophe)
     When students learn about apostrophes in school, they commonly begin to use apostrophes on every word that needs an s.  Gradually, though, they learn the difference between plurals and posssessives.

      plural nouns (meaning more than one)    horses, schools, students, bloggers

      and possessive nouns (meaning ownership)  Mary's horse           Henry's school

   Be careful: things can show ownership:          the horse's tail       the school's auditorium 

4. Noun plurals    While there are a number of rules for forming noun plurals, only the most common ones will be listed here. You will not likely need the others.

        S rule- just add s          chickens, computers, cellphones, televisions
        Y rule- change Y to I and add ES     puppy    puppies
                                                                cherry    cherries      
                                                                candy    candies

        SS, SH, CH, and X Rule- add es
                                                                boss     bosses      
                                                                brush    brushes    
                                                                church  churches   
                                                                box      boxes    
     
5. Verb endings
   Essay writers generally write in the past or present tenses. If you write your essay in the past tense, make sure that every verb has a past tense ending. If you write in the present tense, make sure that every verb has a present tense ending.  Do not switch tenses in your essay.

The most important rule about adding verb endings is about when to double a consonant before adding the ending. Double the ending consonant if it follows a vowel (a, e, i, o, u).

plan  planned     get      getting     win    winning        hop   hopping    run   running  

6. Abbreviations
     Remember, your GED essay is not a text message, a Facebook posting, or a blog posting, so do not use any abbreviations.  Also spell out number words under ten.

While there are many more spelling rules, these are the most basic. If you master these, you should be okay on the essay test. Also, there are only  a few spelling examples on the multiple choice part of the test, so don't try to memorize long lists of spelling words. That won't help. Just master these basic rules.