General Educational Development (GED) tests are a group of four subject tests which, when passed, provide certification that the test taker has American or Canadian high school-level academic skills.Although the "GED" initialism is frequently mistaken as meaning "general education degree" or "general education diploma", the American Council on Education, which owns the GED trademark, coined the initialism to identify "tests of general educational development" that measure proficiency in science, mathematics, social studies, reading, and writing.