Southeast Queens Gets Put To The Test By New GED Changes

By MARCIA MOXAM COMRIE

The rush is on in Queens to take the General Equivalency Department (GED) exam and with new tougher standards on the way and only one testing center for the entire borough the demand to take the exam has never been greater.

According to Khyayriyyah Abdul Lateef, executive director of Jamaica-based Queens Opportunity Center (EOC), a local arm of the State University of New York (SUNY) administered locally by York College (CUNY), the bar has been raised in earning a high school equivalency diploma.

Khyayriyyah Abdul Lateef is the executive director of the Queens Opportunity Center. PRESS Photo by Marcia Moxam Comrie

“The academic standard will be improved and increased,” said Abdul Lateef. “They have gone back and retooled. If the GED is to represent the equivalent of the high school diploma, then the expectation to earn that diploma has increased.”

According to Abdul Lateef, the pending change has “testers” flocking to her office to sign up for the test before the December 31st deadline for the current test.

The new test will be administered beginning on January 1, 2002.

The test, said Abdul Lateef, has five components — math, writing skills, social studies, literature, arts and science.

Located in the Gertz Plaza building (fifth floor), the 10- year-old EOC, which acts as a resource center for educational and job opportunities normally, seats 40 testers per session.

However, to Abdul Lateef’s consternation, her site is way too small to accommodate the influx of “students” who have converged on the site trying to get their diplomas before the test changes.

“This is the only testing site in all of Queens,” said Abdul Lateef. “Springfield High School was doing it in the spring but they haven’t been doing it for the summer. We normally do it once a month but so far this month we’ve had seven tests!”

To help with the overflow, nearby York College is now volunteering as a testing site and over the past few weekends administered the test to 400 people. However, she explained that not everyone taking the test is doing so for the first time.

Some testers have taken it anywhere from one to three times previously and have even passed parts of it and are now taking just the areas in which they failed. To their chagrin, come January 1, 2002 whatever areas they might have passed will be thrown out and they will have to take the entire new test.

For decades the General Education Department has served adults who for varying reasons did not finish high school, to earn a high school equivalency diploma. It has served those who served their country, those who come into the country for a better life and even those who need it for the pride of having a high school diploma.

The American Council on Education (ACE) founded the test in 1942 in response to the need of returning service men from World War II who had to forego high school to serve their country.

 The first GED examination was administered in 1944. It was not open to civilians until 1957.

Since then, the GED certificate has been the foundation on which thousands of success stories are built.

People like comedian/actor Bill Cosby who went on to earn a Doctorate in Education, Wendy’s founder, Dave Thomas and Maryland’s governor, Ruth Ann Miner, all used a GED diploma to launch themselves into higher education or business.

After 57 years, however, ACE has deemed the test “too easy,” and is now phasing out the old in favor of a more updated, if not more challenging, test starting January 1, 2002.

A growing number of today’s test takers are immigrants, based on the cross section of testers on line for the test this past week.

According to Abdul Lateef, the current test has (an unintended) cultural gap in the areas of literature and language arts.

One example given is that some people may not be able to “pick up on some idioms.”

Lateef said that the test was designed to be “exclusionary, not inclusive.”

Despite the crunch, many of the people who wait on line to take the test (some of whom had no appointment), were optimistic about passing the test this time and carving out their piece of the “American Dream.”

For Milagros del Orbe, a native of the Dominican Republic who has lived in the United States for the past 31 years, the reason for taking the test now is two-fold.

“I’m doing it to better myself and go to college,” she explained. “And I’m doing it as an example to my children – a mind is a terrible thing to waste. I got married and was busy with the kids and I also work as a secretary.”

Heather Oplinger of Flushing took the test three years ago but did not pass.

She said she wasn’t prepared then but she’s ready now.

She said she was on a waiting list for six months before she received the letter to come in and take the test this month.

Oplinger said she has lived in the U.S. for 20 years and wants to go to college.

“I expect to hopefully major in Education or Writing or hopefully, both,” she confided. “There are a lot of people applying and I want to pass it and go on to college.”

Although the expectation is that the new test will be “harder,” Dr. Patricia Mooney-Gonzalez, GED administrator of the New York State Education Department’s Office of Workforce Development, is leery about classifying it as such since the test has not yet been done.

“It hasn’t been determined,” she insisted. “In the past it was always normed with graduating seniors. The preliminary results/passing rate will determine that. These are different times, the difficulty level won’t be known for a while,” she said.

According to Mooney-Gonzalez, the new test will place a stronger emphasis on the essay and the scoring level will move from the current 6.0 to 4.5.

There will also be new types of documents in the business communications skills test, which will include the reading skills.

The social studies test will also be changed as will the math test, which will include more charts and graphs.

Under the new guidelines, students will be allowed to use a calculator both to help with the test and as part of the test because, ostensibly, many people do not know how to use a calculator and that is a required business skill, according to Mooney-Gonzalez.

Futhermore, the allotted time for each segment of the eight-hour test will be shortened by at least 10 minutes, Abdul Lateef said.

“There will be a higher order thinking,” she explained, it will also include earth and space science questions and the old multiple choice questions that now require circling will use a grid in the future.

The minimum age to take the test is 16 but individuals must have finished the school year in which he or she turned 16.

Applicants for the test must also have identification, which will be checked before they are allowed to take the test.

Because of the long waiting list, which according to some people on line has been anywhere from three to nine months, the EOC got permission to use a lecture hall at York College to administer the test.

According to Dean Ronald Thomas of the Office of Institutional Advancement, York has applied with the New York State Education Department to become an official testing site.

However, the Jamaica college does prepare students to take the test free through the York College Community Center as well as through their Department of Continuation Education, where there is a cost.

He expects that they will be approved as an official testing site “by late fall.”

Asked if the new test will be a deterrent to higher education, Thomas responded with a resounding no.

“I think the bar has been raised throughout the high school and college levels,” he said. “College entrance exams have increased. The current (GED) test is at the eighth grade level, but I expect that those who acquire the skills to pass the (new) test will perform better in college. Those who passed the old test needed more assistance (in college).”

According to Abdul Lateef, her office will assist those who pass with college recommendations and applications for entrance into any SUNY, CUNY or private colleges.

GED applications are available at local libraries but to find out more about preparing for the GED test please call the EOC center at 526-7485.

The GED test will change on January 1, 2002. This means that if you have not passed all of the GED tests by December 31, 2001 you will have to start over. Your old test scores will not count for the 2002 GED Test.

The new GED Test will still consist of five subject areas:
• language arts - writing
• language arts - reading
• mathematics
• science
• social studies

The test will include more questions on business-related topics like letters, leasing a car, e-mail, memos, writing a resume, and so forth.

You will still be required to write an essay. Organization within the essay will be important.

The mathematics test is being divided into two parts. Part 1 will allow the use of a calculator. Part 2 will not.

More graphics will be included through the use of pie charts, bar graphs, and tables. You will be expected to answer questions about the information presented in the graphics.

All of the tests will still take about seven-and-a-half hours to complete.

 
— courtesy of www.GEDonline.org