It’s almost inevitable that at a certain point, you’ll get discouraged or lose motivation for your GED prep for any number of reasons: Maybe you’ve seen the word “perspicacious” pop up five times in passages and you still can’t remember what it means, maybe you’re not improving as quickly as you want to despite the work that you’ve been putting in, or maybe you’re just struggling to balance your prep with family, work, and life in general. If this sounds familiar, or if you’re in a GED rut for any other reason, don’t despair! Here are several things that you can do to get yourself back on track:
1) Take a break.
Take a breather from all things GED-related, to clear your head. Give yourself at least 48 hours completely free of GED practice problems, flashcards, and essay prompts, and do something that you enjoy – go to the beach, see friends, or just sleep in on a Saturday. While you’re not done with the GED yet, reward yourself for the hard work you’ve been doing. Remember: “I may not be there yet, but I’m closer than I was yesterday.” When you get back to work, you’ll be refreshed and have a clearer perspective on where you are in your prep and what’s left to be done. And when you do get down to business again, be sure to build regular days off and other small bonuses into your study schedule – knowing exactly when your time off is, and having something to look forward to, will help you focus when you are working and prevent future burnouts.
2) Reevaluate your areas of opportunity and how to tackle them.
Once you’ve taken a break and are ready to dive back into GED studying, make sure that you’re working on the topics and question-types that 1) are your greatest areas of opportunity and 2) are the highest-yield topics on the GED. Every Kaplan teacher’s motto is “Study smarter, not harder” – narrowing your focus to areas that will actually get you points is much more effective than trying to study sixteen different things at once, and the results will show in your scores. Based on the work that you’ve done, which topics or question-types consistently foil you? Focus on those until you can identify why they trip you up – once you’ve identified the problem, you’ll be able to move forward.
3) Find a tangible reminder of your goal.
When you’re in the trenches of GED prep, it can be easy to lose track of the big picture. You’re not prepping for this test as a goal in and of itself, you’re doing this to open up new academic and professional opportunities. Find a way to remind yourself of that – it can be a picture of whatever your dream post-school job is (Professor? Therapist? Linguist?), or perhaps of whatever experiences inspired you to pursue that path. A fellow teacher tells her students that when her PhD program was overwhelming her, she’d hum “Pomp and Circumstance” (aka “the graduation song”) to herself – that simple reminder of the fact that she was in school to graduate and begin a career, not just to pass one exam at a time, made all the difference to her. Once you’ve found your own reminder, keep it handy or use it often to remember that the GED is one small piece of what will be a long and fulfilling life and career.
4) Know that you’re not alone.
You are not the only person who is or ever has been stressed by the prospect of preparing for the GED – hundreds of thousands of people take this test every year, and every one of them at some point hits a wall or has trouble fitting his studying into his schedule. It’s a natural part of the preparation process, so don’t feel as though GED strain means that you’re not cut out for your equivalency – it simply means that you need new mechanisms that will allow you to channel your energy in a productive way.
