Reasoning Through Language Arts — Practice Set

GED RLA Practice Test 6 — NYS

Unit 6 — Motivation, Self-Awareness, and the Reasons We Give

Student Name: _______________________________
Date: _______________
Section: _______________
Instructions: This practice set builds the skills tested on the GED Reasoning Through Language Arts exam: reading for meaning, analyzing arguments and evidence, vocabulary in context, and grammar and language conventions. Read both passages carefully before you answer. Complete all 20 multiple-choice questions, then the editing task, then the extended response. After each multiple-choice question there is space to write why you chose your answer — fill it in, because a right answer you cannot explain is not yet a skill you own. Suggested time: 95 minutes, with about 45 minutes reserved for the extended response.

Passage 1

The Reason I Gave
A personal essay

[1] When I enrolled in classes again at forty-one, everyone wanted to know why, and I had an answer ready. A better job. Something for my kids to look at. The answer was true enough that I never questioned it, and it had the added benefit of sounding responsible, which is what you want an answer to sound like when a stranger asks why a grown man is buying notebooks in August.

[2] The first months were harder than I expected, and the better-job reason turned out to be a weak engine on the cold mornings. It got me to want the diploma. It did not get me out of bed. On the mornings I actually rose in the dark and drove to the college, something else was doing the lifting, and for a long time I did not look closely enough to see what.

[3] What I finally noticed was small and a little embarrassing. I lingered. I would finish a math problem and then sit with it, turning it over, not because it would be on a test but because the way the parts fit had rearranged something in my head and I wanted to feel that again. I re-read a page about how muscles work three times, and none of the three had anything to do with my grade. I was, it turned out, having a good time, and I had been calling it duty.

[4] It changed how I understood myself. I had spent years believing I was a person with no motivation, someone who had to be dragged toward anything worthwhile. But I was not unmotivated. I was precisely, intensely motivated by a thing I had never thought to count as a reason: the plain click of understanding something I had not understood the day before. Nobody had ever told me that curiosity was allowed to be a motive. I had filed it under recreation, and put duty on the form.

[5] I think we are often the last to know what moves us. The reasons we give out loud are chosen partly because they are true and partly because they are presentable, and the two are not the same. A person can hand you a completely honest answer and still be describing the wrong engine.

[6] I still tell people I went back for the job and the kids, because that is real and because it is short. But privately I keep a more accurate account. I went back because somewhere along the way, sitting in a lit room learning how the world is put together became the best part of my week, and I would have kept going even if they had told me there was no diploma at the end. That is the reason that actually drove. It just took me a year of watching myself to find it.

Questions 1–10 are based on Passage 1.

1. Which statement best expresses the central idea of Passage 1?
A. The narrator returned to school mainly to earn a better job and set an example for his children.
B. The narrator realized he had no real motivation and nearly dropped out of his classes.
C. The narrator believes that adults should not return to school after the age of forty.
D. By watching his own behavior, the narrator discovered that the reason he gave for returning to school was not what actually drove him — curiosity was.
My answer: ______
Why did you choose that answer? Point to the words in the passage:
2. In paragraph 2, the narrator says the better-job reason “turned out to be a weak engine on the cold mornings.” This mainly means the reason
A. required expensive repairs to fix.
B. was not powerful enough to actually get him moving on hard days.
C. worked better in warm weather than in cold.
D. made him feel tired and sluggish all day.
My answer: ______
Why did you choose that answer? Point to the words in the passage:
3. In paragraph 4, the narrator writes, “I had filed it under recreation, and put duty on the form.” This suggests that he had
A. officially named duty as his reason while dismissing his real motive as merely fun.
B. filled out the wrong enrollment paperwork by mistake.
C. accidentally signed up for a recreation class.
D. been required by the college to list a reason on a form.
My answer: ______
Why did you choose that answer? Point to the words in the passage:
4. In paragraph 3, why does the narrator “sit with” a math problem he has already finished?
A. Because he did not understand it and had to solve it again.
B. Because he was required to check all of his work twice.
C. Because the way the parts fit pleased him and he wanted to feel that again, not because it would be tested.
D. Because he was waiting for the class period to end.
My answer: ______
Why did you choose that answer? Point to the words in the passage:
5. Paragraph 5 says, “A person can hand you a completely honest answer and still be describing the wrong engine.” This most nearly means that
A. people usually lie about their reasons on purpose.
B. someone can sincerely give a reason that is true yet still not the thing that actually moves them.
C. honesty is impossible when a person explains their motives.
D. every reason a person gives is ultimately false.
My answer: ______
Why did you choose that answer? Point to the words in the passage:
6. The tone of Passage 1 can best be described as
A. bitter about the years the narrator feels he wasted.
B. boastful about how quickly the narrator succeeded.
C. anxious and uncertain about whether he will finish school.
D. reflective and candid, willing to admit he had misjudged his own motives.
My answer: ______
Why did you choose that answer? Point to the words in the passage:
7. Which detail best supports the idea that curiosity, not the job, was the narrator's real motivation?
A. He says he would have kept going even if he had been told there was no diploma at the end.
B. He enrolled in classes again at the age of forty-one.
C. He told strangers that he wanted a better job.
D. He was buying notebooks in August.
My answer: ______
Why did you choose that answer? Point to the words in the passage:
8. What is the main purpose of paragraph 1?
A. To prove that strangers were rude to the narrator about his choice.
B. To explain the financial cost of returning to college.
C. To show that the narrator's ready answer appealed to him partly because it sounded responsible.
D. To describe the narrator's children in detail.
My answer: ______
Why did you choose that answer? Point to the words in the passage:
9. Based on the passage as a whole, the narrator would most likely agree that
A. people always know exactly why they do what they do.
B. people are often the last to recognize what truly motivates them.
C. curiosity is not a legitimate reason to study.
D. adults should generally avoid returning to school.
My answer: ______
Why did you choose that answer? Point to the words in the passage:
10. How does paragraph 6 function in the essay?
A. It introduces a new problem the narrator has not yet solved.
B. It provides statistics about adult learners returning to college.
C. It takes back the lesson of the earlier paragraphs.
D. It contrasts the reason the narrator still gives in public with the truer, private account he has reached.
My answer: ______
Why did you choose that answer? Point to the words in the passage:

Passage 2

The Reasons We Invent
An argumentative essay

[1] Ask someone why they did something and you will almost always get an answer, delivered promptly and with confidence. The speed of that answer should make us a little suspicious. Whatever actually produced the behavior, the explanation tends to arrive so quickly and so smoothly that it is worth asking whether it had anything to do with the cause, or whether it was assembled afterward to fit.

[2] There is good reason to think much of our motivation runs out of sight. We decide, and then a part of the mind steps to the podium like a spokesman who was not in the room where the decision was made, and explains it so fluently that even the speaker believes he is reporting rather than inventing. The account is not usually a lie. It is a reconstruction, built from the same materials we would use to explain a stranger: behavior, context, and a guess at what a reasonable person would want.

[3] This is easy to see in other people and nearly impossible to see in yourself. We watch a friend insist he chose the expensive car for its safety rating, and we notice, privately, the way his hand keeps returning to its glossy hood. We are rarely granted that outside view of our own choices. From the inside, the reason we produce feels not like a guess but like a memory, and we defend it accordingly.

[4] None of this means introspection is worthless, or that we never know ourselves. Sometimes the reason we give is exactly the reason that moved us, and careful reflection can genuinely surface a motive we had missed. The claim is narrower and more useful than total doubt: our first explanation of ourselves should be treated as a hypothesis to be tested against our behavior, not as a verdict already proven by the fact that we sincerely believe it.

[5] The practical payoff is real. A person who mistrusts his own first answer will do something the confident self-explainer never does: he will watch what he actually chooses, again and again, and let the pattern correct the story. He learns his motives the way you learn anything you cannot see directly — by its effects. That is slower than simply asking yourself, and far more accurate.

[6] We are not, in the end, transparent to ourselves. We are more like a country that knows its own history mainly through the official version. The official version is not worthless; it is just written by an interested party. The remedy is not to stop asking why we do things. It is to hold the first answer loosely, and to trust what we repeatedly do a little more than what we quickly say.

Questions 11–20 are based on Passage 2. Question 20 asks you to use both passages.

11. Which statement best expresses the central claim of Passage 2?
A. Our quick explanations of our own motives are often built after the fact, so we should treat them as hypotheses to test against our behavior rather than as proven truths.
B. People always lie about the real reasons they do things.
C. Introspection is completely worthless and should be abandoned.
D. We understand our own motives far better than we understand anyone else's.
My answer: ______
Why did you choose that answer? Point to the words in the passage:
12. In paragraph 2, the author compares part of the mind to “a spokesman who was not in the room where the decision was made.” The comparison mainly suggests that
A. the mind literally employs public-relations staff.
B. people should speak more slowly when they explain themselves.
C. the conscious explanation comes after the decision and may not reflect its true cause.
D. important decisions are usually made by committees.
My answer: ______
Why did you choose that answer? Point to the words in the passage:
13. According to paragraph 3, why is this problem “nearly impossible to see in yourself”?
A. Other people deliberately hide their true reasons from you.
B. People are simply not interested in their own behavior.
C. Only trained experts are able to observe human motivation.
D. From the inside, the reason you produce feels like a memory rather than a guess, so you defend it.
My answer: ______
Why did you choose that answer? Point to the words in the passage:
14. What is the main purpose of paragraph 4?
A. To argue that we can never truly know ourselves at all.
B. To concede that introspection is sometimes accurate and to narrow the claim to treating a first explanation as a hypothesis, not a verdict.
C. To prove that reflection is always misleading.
D. To abandon the essay's main argument.
My answer: ______
Why did you choose that answer? Point to the words in the passage:
15. In paragraph 5, the author says a person can learn his motives “the way you learn anything you cannot see directly — by its effects.” This means he should
A. figure out his motives from the pattern of what he repeatedly chooses.
B. ask other people to tell him what his motives are.
C. stop trying to understand his motives altogether.
D. trust whichever reason comes to mind first.
My answer: ______
Why did you choose that answer? Point to the words in the passage:
16. The author's stance in Passage 2 can best be described as
A. certain that people never understand themselves at all.
B. indifferent to whether people understand their own motives.
C. skeptical but measured, doubting easy self-explanation without denying self-knowledge entirely.
D. confident that introspection is almost always reliable.
My answer: ______
Why did you choose that answer? Point to the words in the passage:
17. In paragraph 6, the author compares a person to “a country that knows its own history mainly through the official version.” This suggests that our self-knowledge is
A. entirely false and best ignored.
B. controlled directly by the government.
C. more accurate than an outsider's view of us.
D. real but incomplete and shaped by an interested party — ourselves.
My answer: ______
Why did you choose that answer? Point to the words in the passage:
18. What does the author finally recommend in paragraph 6?
A. That we stop asking why we do anything at all.
B. That we hold the first explanation loosely and trust what we repeatedly do a little more than what we quickly say.
C. That we accept whatever reason comes to mind first.
D. That we rely only on what other people say about us.
My answer: ______
Why did you choose that answer? Point to the words in the passage:
19. Which finding, if true, would most weaken the author's argument?
A. Studies show that the reasons people give for their choices reliably predict and match what they actually do.
B. Some people explain their choices more slowly than others do.
C. People generally enjoy talking about their own motives.
D. Experts sometimes disagree about how the brain works.
My answer: ______
Why did you choose that answer? Point to the words in the passage:
20. How does the narrator's experience in Passage 1 relate to the argument in Passage 2?
A. It contradicts Passage 2 by showing that the narrator knew his true motive all along.
B. It is unrelated, because Passage 1 is about school and Passage 2 is about cars.
C. It illustrates Passage 2's claim that a sincere first explanation can still be wrong, and that watching one's own behavior can reveal the truer motive.
D. It disproves Passage 2 by showing that the reasons people state are always correct.
My answer: ______
Why did you choose that answer? Point to the words in the passage:
Editing Task
21. The paragraph below contains errors in subject-verb agreement, punctuation, and sentence structure. Rewrite it correctly on the lines provided.
“Understanding your own motivation take honesty. A person who explain their choices quickly is'nt always right, they are often guessing. The reasons we give ourselves feels true, but feelings is not proof. Instead of trusting your first answer you can watch what you actually do. Which reveals more than any quick explanation. Over time, paying attention to your behavior show you what really matters, and it means more then the story you tell.”
Corrected paragraph:
Extended Response
22. Passage 2 argues that our quick explanations of our own motives are often unreliable, and that we should trust what we repeatedly do more than what we say about ourselves. The letter below argues the opposite — that people do have real access to their reasons, and that treating everyone as self-deceived is both false and harmful. Analyze both positions and determine which one is better supported by evidence and reasoning. Use specific evidence from Passage 2, the letter, and Passage 1.
Opposing View — from a letter to the editor:
This fashionable distrust of our own minds proves too much. Yes, people sometimes rationalize, but the leap from “sometimes” to “treat every explanation as suspect” is not humility; it is a way of never having to take anyone at their word, including yourself. If our stated reasons are merely stories, then so is any promise, any apology, any stated intention — and a person who has wronged you can always claim the cruelty was not his “real” motive. In practice we know a great deal about why we act: I know why I went to work this morning, and no amount of theorizing changes it. Treating conscious intention as an unreliable witness does not make us wiser. It makes us unaccountable, and it quietly excuses the very self-deception it claims to expose. Sometimes the reason a person gives is simply the reason, and the respectful thing is to believe them.

Your response should include:

Paragraph 1 — Introduction and thesis
Paragraph 2 — Evidence supporting the stronger position
Paragraph 3 — The weaker position and why its support falls short
Paragraph 4 — Conclusion
Student Reflection
1. Which question took you the longest to answer, and what made it hard?
2. Find one question you answered by eliminating wrong choices rather than by knowing the answer. Which one, and how did you eliminate?
3. Passage 1 tells a story and Passage 2 builds an argument. Which one convinced you more that we often do not know our own motives, and why?
4. Name one grammar rule from the editing task that you want to review before the next practice set.
Peer Review — Do This With a Partner or Small Group

Being able to explain and defend your thinking matters as much as choosing the right answer. After you finish on your own, trade papers with a partner and work through these steps together. The goal is not to find out who is right — it is to leave with a clearer reason for your answer than you had before.

Then revise your own work based on what the conversation surfaced. Disagreement is useful; a reason you can say out loud is the thing you are really practicing.

— End of Student-Facing Test —

GED RLA Practice Test 6 — NYS — INSTRUCTOR PAGE

Mentor Guide

For instructor use — not for distribution to students

1. What this set teaches

Two passages on one theme in two forms: a personal narrative and an argumentative essay, both about motivation and how well we understand our own minds. The pairing is deliberate. Question 20 and the extended response both ask students to recognize that a story can function as evidence for a claim — one of the harder moves on the GED RLA exam. This set is unusually rich in figurative language (the “weak engine,” the “spokesman at the podium,” the “official version” of a country's history), so it is a good set for practicing images. Skills: central idea, figurative and idiomatic language, vocabulary in context, author's purpose, tone, evaluating a concession and a counterargument, subject-verb agreement, comma splices, and evidence-based argument writing.

2. A note on the passages

Both passages were written for this practice set. Passage 2 argues a position; it is meant to be evaluated, not accepted. The extended response deliberately supplies an opposing letter so a student can argue either side. Make clear that the score depends on the quality of support, not on which side the student picks.

3. A note on the topic

4. Suggested pacing

5. Reviewing the answers — read this before grading

6. Common trouble spots in this set

7. Using peer review as a learning tool

Peer review is built into this set on purpose. Explaining a correct answer to a peer, and defending it against a reasonable challenge, is where a memorized answer and an understood answer separate. This set is deliberately printed without an answer key so that the conversation, not a letter in a table, does the teaching.

8. Editing task (21) — what it targets

The paragraph contains ten errors: five subject-verb agreement errors (singular subjects such as understanding, a person, and paying attention, and the plural subjects the reasons and feelings), one apostrophe placement error (is'nt), one comma splice, one missing introductory comma, one sentence fragment beginning with a relative pronoun (“Which reveals...”), and one than/then error. Have students find and justify each fix in their own words, then compare corrections with a partner and name the rule at every difference. If a student catches fewer than five, reteach subject-verb agreement first, since it accounts for half of the errors.

9. Extended response (22) — scoring guidance

ScoreDescription
4Takes a clear position on which argument is better supported and sustains it. Uses specific evidence from Passage 2, the opposing letter, and Passage 1, including recognizing the narrative as evidence. Identifies a real weakness in the rejected position (for example, that the letter attacks a stronger claim — that every reason is suspect — than Passage 2 actually makes, since Passage 2 concedes that introspection is sometimes accurate). Organized, controlled sentences, few conventions errors.
3Clear position with relevant evidence from at least two of the three sources. Addresses the opposing side, though the weakness identified may be general. Mostly organized; conventions errors do not obscure meaning.
2Position stated but unevenly supported; leans on one source or on personal opinion. Opposing view mentioned but not analyzed. Organization loose; conventions errors sometimes interfere.
1Position unclear or shifting. Little textual evidence, or summary substituted for analysis. Frequent conventions errors that interfere with meaning.
0No discernible position, or the response does not engage the passages.

Note on scoring: a student may argue either position and earn a 4. The score reflects the quality of support, not which side the student chose. This pairs naturally with peer review: have two students who argued opposite sides exchange essays and each name the strongest point the other made.