Unit 5 — Patience, Difference, and the Habit of Kindness
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 Talker in Greenhouse Three
A personal essay
[1] My first week at the garden center, I was sure I had been handed a problem coworker. His name was Reuben, he had worked in the greenhouses for nineteen years, and he talked to himself the entire shift. Not muttering — full conversations, in different voices, narrating what his hands were doing and then answering back as though the seedlings had opinions. “You're leggy, aren't you,” he would tell a tray of tomatoes. “Too much shade. We'll fix that.” Then, in a higher voice, as the tomato: “About time.”
[2] I found it unbearable at first, though I would have told you the reason was that it seemed unprofessional. What if a customer heard? What would they think of us? I spent my first days a half-step behind him, wincing, waiting for someone to complain.
[3] Nobody complained. What I slowly noticed instead was that Reuben was the best grower in the building. The plants he talked to were the healthiest ones we had. Customers asked for him by name. Children followed him down the aisles the way you follow a parade. The self-talk I had decided was a flaw turned out to be the visible edge of a mind that never stopped imagining. He was running stories constantly, casting the whole greenhouse as a company of characters, and the plants thrived under the attention of a man who found them genuinely interesting.
[4] The moment I am least proud of came in my second week. Reuben was deep in a negotiation with a fern when I said, more sharply than I meant to, “You know they can't actually hear you.” He stopped. He looked at me, not hurt exactly, but the way you look at someone who has just told you the sky is a color it plainly is not. “I know,” he said. “I'm not doing it for them.” Then he went back to work, and I stood there understanding that I had just tried to correct something that had never needed correcting, for no reason but my own discomfort.
[5] It took me longer than it should have to see the obvious: his talking cost me nothing. It did not slow the work, or drive off customers, or harm a single person. The only thing it disturbed was my idea of how a person ought to behave, which is not the same thing as a real problem, though it can feel identical from the inside.
[6] I worked beside Reuben for two more years. I never did learn to talk to the plants. But I learned to stop policing the way he did, and somewhere in there I got easier to be around myself. Patience, it turned out, was not something I extended to him. It was something I finally stopped withholding.
Questions 1–10 are based on Passage 1.
1. Which statement best expresses the central idea of Passage 1?
A. Reuben was an unusually skilled grower who should have been promoted years earlier. B. The narrator eventually learned to talk to the plants the way his coworker did. C. The narrator came to see that his coworker's harmless self-talk was never a real problem, and that his own impatience was what needed to change. D. Customers at the garden center preferred employees who worked in silence.
My answer: ______
Why did you choose that answer? Point to the words in the passage:
2. In paragraph 3, the phrase “the visible edge of a mind that never stopped imagining” suggests that Reuben's self-talk was
A. an outward sign of a constantly active imagination. B. a habit he was working hard to hide. C. a symptom of a serious medical condition. D. a trick he used only when customers were watching.
My answer: ______
Why did you choose that answer? Point to the words in the passage:
3. In paragraph 4, why does the narrator call this “the moment I am least proud of”?
A. He damaged several plants while arguing with Reuben. B. He was caught talking to the plants himself. C. He forgot an important task while he was distracted. D. He tried to correct a harmless habit purely because of his own discomfort.
My answer: ______
Why did you choose that answer? Point to the words in the passage:
4. When Reuben says, “I know. I'm not doing it for them,” he most nearly means that
A. he believes the plants can understand him after all. B. he talks to the plants for his own sake, not because he thinks they can hear him. C. he only talks to plants that are already healthy. D. he wants the narrator to join in and try it too.
My answer: ______
Why did you choose that answer? Point to the words in the passage:
5. Paragraph 5 mainly draws a distinction between
A. a real problem and something that merely offends one's idea of how people should behave. B. a skilled worker and an unskilled one. C. a quiet workplace and a noisy one. D. a customer's opinion and a coworker's opinion.
My answer: ______
Why did you choose that answer? Point to the words in the passage:
6. The final sentences — “Patience... was not something I extended to him. It was something I finally stopped withholding” — suggest that
A. the narrator finally ran out of patience with Reuben. B. Reuben had asked the narrator to be more patient with him. C. the narrator came to see patience as dropping his own resistance rather than as a favor he granted. D. patience is something that cannot really be learned at work.
My answer: ______
Why did you choose that answer? Point to the words in the passage:
7. The tone of Passage 1 can best be described as
A. angry and resentful toward his coworker. B. honest and self-critical, willing to name his own past unkindness. C. distant and clinical about a job he disliked. D. boastful about how much he taught Reuben.
My answer: ______
Why did you choose that answer? Point to the words in the passage:
8. Which detail best supports the idea that Reuben's self-talk caused no real harm?
A. He had worked in the greenhouses for nineteen years. B. He answered back in a higher voice as the tomato. C. The narrator winced during his first days on the job. D. The plants he talked to were the healthiest ones, and customers asked for him by name.
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. being kind sometimes means leaving a person's harmless differences alone. B. unusual behavior at work should always be reported to a manager. C. people should hide their imagination in order to appear professional. D. skilled workers should be excused from following workplace rules.
My answer: ______
Why did you choose that answer? Point to the words in the passage:
10. What is the main purpose of paragraph 2?
A. To describe the physical layout of the greenhouses. B. To reveal that the narrator's real objection was his worry about what others would think. C. To prove that customers frequently complained about Reuben. D. To explain the process of growing plants from seed.
My answer: ______
Why did you choose that answer? Point to the words in the passage:
Passage 2
The Right to Be a Little Strange
An argumentative essay
[1] Walk through any public place and you will see them: the man narrating his grocery list under his breath, the teenager pacing while she rehearses a conversation aloud, the coworker who hums the same four notes for an hour without noticing. These habits make some people deeply uncomfortable, and the discomfort often hardens into a question: why can't they just stop? It is worth asking who that question is really for.
[2] Most of the behaviors we file under “quirks” share one important feature: they harm no one. A person talking to himself takes nothing from you. A person who paces, or hums, or thinks out loud is not picking your pocket. The discomfort such behavior produces is real, but discomfort is not the same as harm, and a great deal of unkindness begins with treating the two as identical.
[3] The impulse to correct a harmless difference is usually an impulse toward conformity, not toward anyone's welfare. When we tell someone their habit is “weird,” we rarely mean that it is hurting us; we mean that it is unfamiliar, and that we would prefer a world in which everyone behaved in the ways we expect. That preference is not a moral claim. It is a matter of taste dressed up as a standard, and it asks other people to shrink themselves so that we do not have to stretch.
[4] None of this means every behavior deserves a pass. There is a real line, and it is worth drawing honestly. A quirk that genuinely disrupts a shared space — that drowns out a lecture, or endangers someone, or makes a task impossible — is a legitimate thing to raise, kindly and directly. The argument is not that anything goes. It is that the line should be drawn at real harm, not at mere strangeness, and that most of what irritates us falls well short of harm.
[5] There is also a cost to the alternative that we rarely count. Every person forced to suppress a harmless habit spends energy doing it — energy that could have gone to the work, the conversation, the day. A world that demands constant self-editing from anyone slightly unusual is not more orderly. It is only quieter about how much it costs the people in it.
[6] Patience, in the end, is not the grand virtue we sometimes imagine. It is mostly the ordinary decision not to make a problem out of something that was never a problem. The kindest thing many of us can do for the people around us is smaller than we think. It is to notice a harmless difference, decide it is none of our business, and let the person be a little strange in peace.
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. All unusual behavior should be actively encouraged in public spaces. B. People who hum or pace are usually being inconsiderate. C. Discomfort is always a reliable sign that something is wrong. D. We should judge a quirk by whether it causes real harm, not by whether it makes us uncomfortable, and kindness often means leaving harmless difference alone.
My answer: ______
Why did you choose that answer? Point to the words in the passage:
12. What is the main purpose of paragraph 4?
A. To argue that no behavior should ever be criticized. B. To prove that most quirks are actually harmful. C. To concede that some behaviors genuinely disrupt a shared space and may fairly be raised. D. To provide a list of examples of harmless habits.
My answer: ______
Why did you choose that answer? Point to the words in the passage:
13. According to the passage, why is treating discomfort as though it were harm a problem?
A. Because discomfort is actually more serious than harm. B. Because much unkindness begins with confusing the two, since harmless behavior can still cause discomfort. C. Because harm and discomfort are really the same thing. D. Because people who feel discomfort are usually correct.
My answer: ______
Why did you choose that answer? Point to the words in the passage:
14. In paragraph 3, the phrase “a matter of taste dressed up as a standard” most nearly means
A. a personal preference presented as if it were a genuine rule. B. a fashion trend that changes over time. C. a rule that everyone secretly agrees on. D. a standard that is impossible to meet.
My answer: ______
Why did you choose that answer? Point to the words in the passage:
15. In paragraph 5, what “cost” does the author say we rarely count?
A. The money businesses lose to distracted workers. B. The time it takes a person to learn a new habit. C. The expense of redesigning shared spaces to be quieter. D. The energy people spend suppressing harmless habits in order to seem normal.
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. neutral, taking no real position on the issue. B. hostile toward anyone who ever feels discomfort. C. persuasive but fair-minded, defending harmless difference while admitting a real limit. D. uncertain, unable to decide where the line should fall.
My answer: ______
Why did you choose that answer? Point to the words in the passage:
17. Paragraph 1 ends, “It is worth asking who that question is really for.” What is the author's purpose in this line?
A. To invite readers to report the behaviors they witness. B. To suggest that the demand for others to “just stop” serves the observer's own comfort, not anyone's welfare. C. To argue that the behaviors described are actually dangerous. D. To ask readers to identify the specific people being described.
My answer: ______
Why did you choose that answer? Point to the words in the passage:
18. The closing image — “let the person be a little strange in peace” — mainly conveys that
A. the kindest response to a harmless quirk is often simply to leave it alone. B. strange behavior should be hidden from public view. C. peace is only possible when everyone behaves the same way. D. people should be encouraged to act as strangely as they can.
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 in paragraph 2?
A. Some people find self-talk charming rather than annoying. B. Most people can ignore a humming coworker with little effort. C. Behaviors the author calls harmless are shown to regularly prevent nearby people from finishing their work. D. People who pace tend to be more creative than people who sit still.
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 quirks always cause harm in the end. B. It is unrelated, because Passage 1 is about plants and Passage 2 is about noise. C. It disproves Passage 2 by showing that the narrator was right to correct Reuben. D. It illustrates Passage 2's claim that we often mistake our own discomfort for a real problem, and that kindness can mean leaving a harmless quirk alone.
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.
“Being patient with other people take practice. A person who talk to themselves is usually harmless, they are just thinking out loud. When a coworker hum or pace, it rarely effects your ability to work. Instead of correcting a harmless habit we could simply leave it alone. Which is often the kindest choice. In the end, respecting someones quirks cost you nothing and it means more then you think.”
Corrected paragraph:
Extended Response
22. Passage 2 argues that we should judge a person's quirks by whether they cause real harm rather than by whether they
make us uncomfortable, and that kindness often means leaving harmless differences alone. The letter below argues the opposite —
that shared spaces depend on people being willing to adjust to one another. 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: Shared spaces work because people are willing to adjust to one another, and calling that adjustment “the tyranny of normal” gets it exactly backwards. When I ask a coworker to take a loud phone call elsewhere, I am not policing their personality; I am protecting everyone else's ability to concentrate. This essay treats all discomfort as mere squeamishness, but discomfort is often information: the humming you find harmless may be the very thing keeping someone else from finishing their work. Considerateness is a two-way street. It is not kinder to tell the majority to simply endure whatever they find distracting; that is its own way of asking people to shrink. A community stays livable because its members are each willing to give up a little of what they would prefer for the sake of the people beside them — and that willingness has to run in both directions, not only toward the person with the louder quirk.
Your response should include:
A clear thesis stating which position is better supported
Specific evidence drawn from the passages, not from personal opinion alone
An explanation of at least one weakness in the position you did not choose
A conclusion that does more than restate the thesis
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 should leave harmless quirks alone, 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.
Compare your multiple-choice answers. Wherever you chose differently, each person explains their choice by
pointing to specific words in the passage. Notice when an explanation changes your mind — that is learning happening.
Read each other's “Why did you choose that answer?” notes. If a reason is just “it sounded right,”
push your partner to find the exact line in the passage that supports it. Do the same when they push you.
Swap extended-response essays. As a reader, mark one place where the evidence is strong and
one place where a claim needs more support. Describe what you noticed as a reader — do not rewrite it for them.
Compare your corrected paragraphs from the editing task, line by line. Where they differ, name the grammar
rule that settles it. If neither of you can name a rule, that is a question to bring to your instructor.
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 5 — 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 patience, harmless difference, and everyday kindness. 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. 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, affect/effect, 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
These passages are about harmless personal differences — talking to oneself, pacing, humming, thinking out loud. Frame them
as differences worth respecting, not as symptoms to be diagnosed. Reuben is portrayed as skilled and imaginative, not as
someone with a disorder; keep the discussion on that footing and avoid labeling the behaviors medically.
Some learners will recognize themselves, a family member, or a friend in these descriptions. Keep the conversation on the
text and on the general principle of kindness rather than on students' own lives; if a student volunteers something
personal, receive it briefly and steer back to the passage.
Hold students to the essay's own nuance. Passage 2 is not “anything goes” — it concedes a real line at behavior that causes
genuine harm (paragraph 4). The opposing letter makes a fair case that consideration runs both ways. Both deserve respect in discussion.
The narrator's willingness to name his own unkindness (“the moment I am least proud of”) models the honest, self-aware
reasoning the extended-response rubric rewards. Point it out.
Two sessions: Session 1 = both passages and all 20 MC, reviewed together. Session 2 = editing task and the
extended response under timed conditions (45 min), mirroring the real exam.
5. Reviewing the answers — read this before grading
Review every question, not just the wrong ones. Ask the student to explain their reasoning for correct answers too.
The “Why did you choose that answer?” box exists for this — a correct guess and a correct deduction look identical on a key.
Treat an unexplained correct answer as a finding. If a student cannot say why an answer is right, flag it the same
way you would a wrong answer.
Name the misconception. Section 6 lists the specific error behind the hardest distractors (reading a metaphor
literally, mistaking a concession for a surrender, generalizing from one example). Use that language with the student rather than “review this topic.”
Watch for patterns. Repeated misses on Q2/Q14/Q18 mean figurative and idiomatic language needs a different
approach — have the student rewrite the image as a plain sentence. Repeated misses on Q13/Q17/Q19 mean argument structure is the
gap — map claim / concession / counter-move in the margin. If a concept misses twice, change the representation rather than
repeating the explanation.
6. Common trouble spots in this set
Q4 and Q6 both reward students who noticed a stated motive or a reframing — that Reuben talks “not for them,”
and that the narrator reframes patience as something he stopped withholding. Students who skim will miss the shift.
Q12 and Q16 turn on the concession in paragraph 4. Weak readers see the author admitting a limit and conclude he
has switched sides; have them read paragraph 4 as part of the argument, not against it.
Q19 asks what would weaken the argument — students often pick an option that merely disagrees with the
author rather than the one that breaks the specific claim that the behaviors “harm no one.”
Q2, Q14, and Q18 are the figurative and idiomatic items (“the visible edge of a mind,” “taste dressed up as a
standard,” “be a little strange in peace”). If a student misses these, have them restate each image as a plain sentence.
Q20 is the synthesis question and the best single predictor of readiness for the extended response.
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.
Pair or group students only after they have completed the work alone — otherwise stronger readers simply hand over answers.
Structure every exchange around reasons, not scores. The student instruction is “point to the words in the passage”; your job is to hold them to it.
For the multiple-choice items, treat disagreements as the most valuable moments. Ask each student to make the best case for their choice
before you weigh in — the act of explaining often reveals the error without your intervention. When a genuine dispute remains, resolve it
from the passage itself, so the focus stays on evidence.
For the essay, use structured reader feedback (“one strength, one place needing support”) rather than line editing. Students learn more
from naming what a reader experienced than from receiving corrections.
Rotate partners across practice sets so students meet different reasoning styles rather than settling into one.
8. Editing task (21) — what it targets
The paragraph contains ten errors: four subject-verb agreement errors (singular subjects such as
being patient, a person, a coworker, and respecting... quirks), one comma splice,
one affect/effect error, one missing introductory comma, one sentence fragment
beginning with a relative pronoun (“Which is often...”), one missing possessive apostrophe (someones),
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.
9. Extended response (22) — scoring guidance
Score
Description
4
Takes 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 treats all discomfort as legitimate interference without showing that the specific
behavior actually prevents anyone's work). Organized, controlled sentences, few conventions errors.
3
Clear 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.
2
Position stated but unevenly supported; leans on one source or on personal opinion. Opposing view mentioned but not
analyzed. Organization loose; conventions errors sometimes interfere.
1
Position unclear or shifting. Little textual evidence, or summary substituted for analysis. Frequent conventions
errors that interfere with meaning.
0
No 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.