After identifying the general area from the sample GRE essays, read the GRE writing samples and analysis in this guide to find real instances of the rubric criteria.
The best thing to do is to incorporate the features which are highlighted in the analysis below.
The unlikely marriage of medicine and economics has healed hyperinflation, tense environments from eastern Europe to South America.
For a perfect issue essay score, having a clear position is not enough. The position must also throw more light on the issue. The author of the essay also accomplishes the second part by picking a two-pronged approach to answer the question of the essay. Instead of explaining how cooperativeness may lead to positive outcomes in the workforce an government, the author explains how such competitiveness can lead to negative outcomes.
How To Write GRE Essays
For a perfect-scoring essay, you need one last quality. This one ensures that you demonstrate your flow in writing and precision of language. The author of the sample fulfills this by using language to economically and precisely pass a message throughout her essay. Consider this example of effective and precise use of languages in her essay:
Second Issue Essay: Competition Vs. Cooperation
(this sample is written in response to a prompt about the values of competition vs. cooperation):
The sample essay issue, which is written in response to the topic above, takes a stance that competition is not a preferable value for young people to learn, but cooperation will take them a long way in preparation for government.
The Analytical Writing Assessment section of the GRE consists of two separately timed tasks:
The GRE's Analytical Writing Assessment (AWA) measures your analytical writing and critical thinking skills, both of which are crucial to success in almost any graduate degree program. The Analytical Writing Assessment gauges your ability to understand complex ideas and rhetorical techniques and to express that understanding in written form. It does not test your knowledge of any specific academic discipline. It is also not an assessment of talent in creative writing, and even the most gifted writer will falter if s/he fails to focus on meeting the criteria required for a high score.
Commit your mental outline to print in this section. You may wish to start by typing the first sentence of each paragraph, which should summarize that paragraph. You will then have the option of filling in each paragraph either in succession or according to difficulty level (many writers prefer to compose the conclusion first and the introduction last). Make every effort to vary your sentence structure and vocabulary, but if you find yourself affected by writer’s block, don’t obsess over a word or phrase (you can always come back to it later). Fill in the internal paragraphs with the points that occurred to you during the ideation phase, using as coherent a rhetorical structure as possible (such as least important to most important). When time expires on this segment, you should have a draft of your essay. A 500-word essay can be built from four paragraphs of 125 words each or 30-35 sentences of 15-20 words each (it is not necessarily wrong to have paragraphs of uneven length, but there should be some balance). With sufficient practice, your GRE essays will reach the target length, but do not waste time counting words (counting lines is much more efficient).
Manhattan Review GRE Prep is part of the multi-national test prep firm Manhattan Review. Founded in 1999 by Dr Joern Meissner, an internationally renowned business school professor, the firm helps students gain entrance to their desired degree programs by working to improve their admission test scores. Headquartered in New York City, Manhattan Review operates in many cities in the United States and in selected major cities around the world.
2 minutes: Read
In this segment, you will brainstorm and generate ideas for your essay. Start by thinking about the main focus of your essay, whether it's your position on an issue or analysis of a given argument. Try to find a single sentence that will summarize your essay. After your thesis has been clarified, start developing points that support your position and create a rough mental outline. Think in terms of a four-paragraph structure: a thesis/introduction, two supporting paragraphs, and a conclusion. Mentally organizing your thoughts in this fashion will help you type your essay more quickly.
This stage should emphasize final editing and proofreading, and you should resist the temptation to add any new content to your essay. Be sure to read your essay at least twice, and correct any grammar and spelling mistakes as you read. Do your best to ensure that proper transition words have been used as you move from one point to the next. Don't try to use erudite words, quotes or expressions unless you are completely sure of their meaning. Stick to formal English and keep the language clear, precise, and relevant.
A perfect Analytical Writing Assessment score of 6.0 is the result of choice, not chance. You don't have to be the next Hemingway to write a great GRE essay, but you do have to understand the essay tasks, produce content that accomplishes those tasks, and demonstrate sound construction in written communication. All of these skills can be acquired with professional instruction and sufficient practice. If you work both hard and smart on your GRE essay writing, a 6.0 AWA score is eminently possible.
ETS has written about the ideal length nowhere, and still remains tight lipped on this. Also, there is no word limit as such. But there seems to be a pattern that appears on GRE sample essays that come along with the ETS official guide to the GRE.
You should vary the sentence flow and the rhythm by switching between short and long sentences. You should also make use of transitional and signal words to vary sentence openings.
Vocabulary – Another myth about GRE essays is that the usage of GRE words in the essay has a correlation with the essay score. Not really! As long as you use proper grammar and defend your point intelligently and use precise vocabulary to convey meaning effectively, you should be alright. It is not needed that you use heavy vocabulary or GRE words.
This is the most egregious of the myths, and it’s been around for a long time.
So what’s the ideal length?
Reasoning – You should include as many logically compelling reasons as you can to support your stance.
If you are a long-essay fan and insist to pen a high scoring AWA essay on the GRE, you should write anywhere between 500-600 words. Don’t ask me why. The research shows that’s how it is, and if it true for a sample of 500 students, it must be true on a larger scale as well.
So to sum things up, both of these myths should be shunned in favor of a more strategic approach to essay length. Longer is not necessarily better. Shorter is not necessarily better. And human readers do actually read your essays.
I tend to get carried away. And when that happens, it would be great to know if all this extra writing is actually helping me score better or hurting my AWA score. Of course, I want to impress the essay graders, but I want to do it the right way.
In the end, I warn you against getting stuck up on essay length. If you focus on word count only, then you would be scribbling gibberish and unnecessary sentences hoping to get a perfect 6.0 score. The essay substance and content matters more than the essay’s length.
There’s no magic number on word count that’s going to get you the perfect AWA score. At the same time, the statistics from the above analysis proves that longer essays tend to get higher scores.
If you are a long-essay fan and insist to pen a high scoring AWA essay on the GRE, you should write anywhere between 500-600 words. Don’t ask me why. The research shows that’s how it is, and if it true for a sample of 500 students, it must be true on a larger scale as well.
The general structure is to start with an introductory paragraph followed by 3-4 body paragraphs and finish off with a conclusion paragraph. So, make sure there are at least 5-6 paragraphs in your essay.
Longer is usually better
In fact, E.T.S. claims this grading software is used today, along with human raters, to grade GRE and TOEFL examinations, and without human raters in various practice tests.
I want you to understand that if ETS were to use an automated essay grader to evaluate your essay then don’t you think gaming a software would be too easy? You must keep in mind that there is a human reader who will also grade your essay along with the e-rater, and both their scores are averaged to obtain the final AWA score. So, even if you try and game the software, the human reader will give you the actual score you deserve, which will bring down the average. So, there is no point in trying to game the e-rater. Instead, you should try other tactics, such as using impressive AWA quotes, or writing coherent paragraphs, which will naturally raise your score.
As you can see, the longer the essay, the higher the grades. Notice that a 5+ point essay has length exceeding 500 words. Another interesting fact is, it seems as if 600 is an upper limit for word count. If you go beyond 600 words, you can see how the scores go down. This isn’t surprising, though. Almost no student on this planet can write a perfect 800 word essay under pressure in 30 minutes. If someone is shooting for a high word count, they are surely sacrificing on quality. So, it’s safe to say that 500-600 is what you should be looking at.
Reasoning – You should include as many logically compelling reasons as you can to support your stance.
Personally, I think current events are wonderful to draw from, and by using them you are demonstrating that you care about society and have opinions on how to improve it (something graduate schools are looking for from applicants). I tell my students to watch the news or read The Economist for two weeks leading up to their test day. Take the time to really reflect on a couple events and develop an opinion about them.
Not only do you need to have sentences dedicated to analyzing your examples, the amount of these sentences should exceed the amount of example sentences. Remember, your number one goal is to show the reader you are an analytical person and can think deeply (hence, “Analytical” Writing measure).
Students who do not spend time drafting their essays before they start typing tend to end up with jumbled ideas that have no concrete focus. You must think about what you want to say as a whole and ask yourself the most basic question, “Does it make sense?” Starting to write early on may lead to a longer essay, but if it does not logically flow the amount of words will do little to increase your score.
If the human reader and E-Rater both give your essay a similar score, the average of their two scores becomes that essay’s score. If the scores given were very different, a second human reader will read your essay and grade it from zero to six. In this case, your final score for that essay will be the average of the two human readers scores.
4. Analyze and Then Analyze Some More
- Introduction
- Body Paragraph 1
- Body Paragraph 2
- Body Paragraph 3
- Conclusion
When it comes to practicing for the GRE, it is not uncommon to practice everything but the timed essays. At the test prep company I work for, we have a saying that “smooth is fast.” If you want your Analytical Writing section to go smoothly, which will lead to you maneuvering through the section quickly, you must be willing to practice. Let me tell you, it is a terrible feeling to have the clock run out as you are in the middle of typing out a sentence on test day.
It is not enough to have specific examples written throughout your body paragraphs that demonstrate your expertise if they do not truly support your claim. Many test-takers write the introduction to their body paragraph, follow it up with examples, and then conclude the paragraph. They write zero analysis explaining HOW the examples support their thesis.
The Issue task will broadly speak to an issue and provide instructions on how to respond to that issue. This essay is probably the most similar to what you have done in school. You will need to consider the issue from multiple points of view and then take a stance on the topic. You will need to demonstrate your critical reasoning skills by using logical examples to support your claim.