Onsego GED course is a great alternative to the GED Rapid course from Kaplan.
There is a big difference in price between these 2 courses, so I want to review the Onsego/Covcel GED course and Kaplan’s GED Rapid course.
First, the price:
- Onsego costs $99 for 12 months, and you have access to all four GED® subjects.
- Kaplan’s GED Rapid costs $129 per 3 months, and you also have access to all four subjects.
The teaching method is totally different.
- Onsego divides each subject into short, up to 5 minutes video lessons. There are a lot of these videos. For example, the Onsego math course has 124 lessons.
- Every video is related to just one concept. Under the video, there is a transcript of the lesson in text form and a few questions in the form of quizzes.
- After every part, such as Number Sense, there is also a longer practice test, and at the end of the course, there are final practice tests ( a lot of them) and tips for passing the GED exam fast and efficiently.
- Kaplan’s course, on the other hand, has just 4-5 videos per subject. These videos are around 30 minutes long and include a lot of concepts put together.
- There is the possibility to print the text, but that’s kind of hidden as at the bottom of the page, there is a link called “download lecture notes”, which opens a pdf document that in Math has 114 pages. You should be aware of this, just in case if you want to print these notes. I didn’t see any questions or practice tests. The lectures are long and kind of boring. After a while, It was difficult for me to keep listening. But that, of course, is a personal preference.
Onsego dashboard
And when it comes to guarantees, neither Onsego nor Kaplan GED Rapid offers a score guarantee. This seems to be a trend when it comes to GED preparation courses. I didn’t see anyone offering a guarantee of the score; however, this practice is quite popular between SAT/ACT prep courses.
For example, the Princeton Review course guarantees you a score of 31 for the ACT and 1400 for the SAT. If you don’t get it, you can take the prep program again or get your money back.
It would be nice to see this option for the GED test as well.
Another interesting option that both courses could ‘borrow’ from the Princeton Review is proctored online practice tests.
Proctored online testing gives students a chance to experience ‘real-world testing’ and might be a very helpful tool. With Princeton, students have the option to take four or such ‘proctored’ practice tests.
Then again, these are, of course, only suggestions.
About the GED test
The GED test consists of four independent modules (sub-tests). The four sub-tests have the following four academic subject fields: Social Studies, Science, Math, and Literacy. Test results will (thanks to automation) be available right after testing, except for the essay part. The GED test passing score is 145 points on each of the four tests.
You can register to take the GED test if you don’t have a high school diploma or similar and are not currently partaking in any other school program.
There are a lot of free classes in community colleges that prepare people for the test. However, if you work or simply don’t want to go back to school, you can get prepared using one of many free or paid GED courses.
The Onsego program and Kaplan GED Rapid are both paid courses. However, some of the Onsego lessons are published free of charge on the BestGEDClasses.org website.
Please note that GED Testing Service recently stopped offering the GED exam in Canada. Consequently, the new Canadian-made CAEC (Canadian Adult Education Credential) was launched in most Canadian provides and territories in May 2024. Canadian students are advised to use the website Cansego.ca and benefit from an accredited, engaging CAEC prep course that will prepare them for the new exam efficiently.
This new assessment is similar to the former Canadian GED exam, but it is also available on a computer. Only British Columbia, which already stopped using the GED in 2014, and Yukon have not made arrangements to introduce the new CAEC (pronounced ‘cake’).