GED® Algebra for Money & Business: Real-World Math
Use algebra the way working adults do — to handle money. This GED® course covers wages and overtime, markup and discounts, simple interest, commission, and the break-even and profit formulas every small business relies on. Each lesson and practice question comes with a complete step-by-step solution.
📚 Course Curriculum
Every paycheck for an hourly worker is built from one simple algebra idea: pay is a rate multiplied by an amount of work. Understanding this …
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Retailers rarely sell an item for exactly what they paid for it. They add a markup to cover overhead and profit, and later apply discounts …
Open trial session →Interest is the price of money: a lender charges it because they are giving up the use of their money for a while, and a …
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Many sales jobs — from car dealerships to real estate to retail — pay a modest guaranteed base salary plus a commission, a percent of …
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Running a small business means constantly comparing what you spend to what you earn. This lesson introduces three linked formulas that reappear throughout the rest …
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Not every job pays a flat hourly rate. Some workers are paid piecework — a fixed amount for each unit they produce, which rewards speed …
Open trial session →Gross pay is what you earn before anything is taken out — the number from Sessions 1 and 6's formulas. Net pay, often called take-home …
Open trial session →Sales tax is a percent added on top of a purchase price to fund state and local government services, and it uses exactly the same …
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Prices, wages, and expenses rarely stay fixed over time. A percent increase (like a rent hike or a raise) and a percent decrease (like a …
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Stores often apply two discounts in a row — a seasonal sale price, then an extra coupon or loyalty discount at checkout. It's tempting to …
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Grocery stores sell the same product in many different package sizes, which makes it hard to tell at a glance which option is actually the …
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A monthly budget is really just a linear equation in disguise: income has to be enough to cover fixed expenses, variable expenses, and whatever amount …
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Compound interest pays interest on both the original principal and on interest that has already been earned — which is why it is sometimes called …
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Simple interest (Session 3) grows by the exact same dollar amount every single year. Compound interest (Session 13) grows by a larger dollar amount each …
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Buying an expensive item like a car often starts with a down payment — an upfront cash payment — with the remaining balance repaid as …
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Credit card interest is charged on whatever balance is carried from one month to the next — unlike the loans in Session 15, there is …
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Profit is what is left after a business covers its costs, and profit margin expresses that profit as a percent of revenue — which is …
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Fixed costs (like rent or equipment leases) stay the same no matter how much a business produces, while variable costs (like raw materials) rise with …
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Session 5 found the break-even point algebraically, by setting cost equal to revenue and solving for \(x\). This session builds the same idea visually: the …
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When two pricing or service plans both depend on the same variable — like the number of items produced or the minutes used on a …
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Businesses that resell goods buy inventory at a wholesale unit cost, mark it up to a retail price (using the same multiplier idea from Session …
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Converting between currencies works like any other rate problem: multiply by the exchange rate to convert from one currency to another, and divide (or multiply …
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Depreciation models how an asset's value decreases over time as it ages, wears out, or becomes outdated. The most common method on the GED® is …
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This final session combines skills from across the entire course into multi-step problems, the way they tend to appear on the actual GED® Mathematical Reasoning …
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Course Syllabus
This self-paced GED® Math course follows a 5-lesson sequence. Work through the modules in order so that each skill supports the next.
Course sequence
Module 1 - Lessons 1-3
- Wages and Overtime Pay
- Markup, Discounts, and Sale Prices
- Simple Interest
Module 2 - Lessons 4-5
- Commission and Total Earnings
- Cost, Revenue, and Break-Even
Practice and completion
- Use worked examples and lesson practice to check understanding after each module.
- Review incorrect answers, explain the correction, and repeat weak skills.
- Complete the available mixed or final course practice to demonstrate readiness.
Course Outcomes
By the end of this course, learners will be able to:
- Explain and apply the mathematical ideas in Wages and Overtime Pay.
- Solve multi-step problems involving Markup, Discounts, and Sale Prices and show a clear method.
- Interpret representations and check the reasonableness of work involving Simple Interest.
- Choose efficient strategies for unfamiliar questions related to Commission and Total Earnings.
- Combine skills from Cost, Revenue, and Break-Even with earlier topics in mixed practice.
- Use feedback and answer explanations to diagnose and correct mistakes.
- Complete mixed, exam-style practice with clearer reasoning and greater independence.
📝 Practice Questions
294 interactive questions with instant feedback and explanations.
Enroll for free to unlock the full practice bank after the trial sessions.