template for gre issue essay

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GRE For High Scorers, Part 6: GRE Issue Essays

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Vince's GRE Issue Essay Template

VIDEO: Watch me brainstorm a real issue essay prompt for an example of the Issue Essay template I describe in the below article.

In this article, I'll talk about my favorite template for writing a high-scoring Issue Essay. These tips will work best for you if you're a good writer; however, anyone can benefit from them.

First, here are two to-dos for you:

Action item #1: Read all sample essays and commentary in The Official Guide , as well as those in the  Verbal Practice book. These are great models for your writing since you can see what the ETS graders reward. Pay very close attention to the grader commentary.

Action item #2 :  Read and brainstorm two official  Issue Essay  prompts every time you study.

Bonus: learn more new words with my GRE vocabulary flashcards app !

Ok, assuming you've gotten started on the above, I want to give you some insight about what you need to do to get a 6.

GRE Issue Essay Example That Received A Perfect Score

You may notice that many Issue Essay prompts make statements that are difficult to fully support. The example and response I want to use first is this one about technology (link is to the full sample essay on the GRE's website). Go ahead and read the prompt, then read the "6" response just below it. Now, let's think about its statement:

As people rely more and more on technology to solve problems, the ability of humans to think for themselves will surely deteriorate.

Notice that this statement - like many Issue statements - would be difficult to agree with 100% of the time. Good responses will acknowledge the complexity of the issue and respond in an insightful way to that complexity. This response does that partly by discussing the reasoning that might be used by someone who agrees with the statement (in paragraph 2):

The statement attempts to bridge these dramatic changes to a reduction in the ability for humans to think for themselves. The assumption is that an increased reliance on technology negates the need for people to think creatively to solve previous quandaries. Looking back at the introduction, one could argue that without a car, computer, or mobile phone, the hypothetical worker would need to find alternate methods of transport, information processing and communication. Technology short circuits this thinking by making the problems obsolete.

Good writers often begin this way - they talk about their opponents' views, then respond with their own . This provides context and a framework for their argument. Writing a persuasive essay without addressing the reasoning of other points-of-view is like pretending your point-of-view exists in a vacuum with no one to challenge it.

Now let's look at a paragraph that continues to acknowledge the complexity of the issue in an insightful way (paragraph 3):

However, this reliance on technology does not necessarily preclude the creativity that marks the human species. The prior examples reveal that technology allows for convenience. The car, computer and phone all release additional time for people to live more efficiently. This efficiency does not preclude the need for humans to think for themselves. In fact, technology frees humanity to not only tackle new problems, but may itself create new issues that did not exist without technology. For example, the proliferation of automobiles has introduced a need for fuel conservation on a global scale. With increasing energy demands from emerging markets, global warming becomes a concern inconceivable to the horse-and-buggy generation. Likewise dependence on oil has created nation-states that are not dependent on taxation, allowing ruling parties to oppress minority groups such as women. Solutions to these complex problems require the unfettered imaginations of maverick scientists and politicians.

I like this paragraph a lot because not only does the author make an insightful point that technology gives people more time to think, but that technology itself creates problems that require thinking. This is a step up from what I think the average writer might do - just cite an example of technology that helps us think or that we need to think to use. Now, you don't always need this level of insight, but it's a good example of what might separate a 6 from a 5. Compelling reasoning and depth of thought are rewarded.

I also like that this essay creates a critical context with the first paragraph, defining the scope of what it's going to discuss. It's the one I most talk about if a higher-scoring student wants some kind of GRE issue essay template, too. It's nice to have a go-to structure when you've only got 29 minutes and 37 seconds and the clock is relentlessly ticking...

Another example I like in the Verbal Reasoning Practice Book is the 6 essay response to a prompt about "People should obey just laws and disobey unjust laws". The author spends some time questioning the context to apply "just" - i.e., what is more important, being just to the individual or just to society? The author also questions how to define "just": if a society is brainwashed, can "just" have any meaning? I like this approach, since, again, it acknowledges the complexity and complications of forming a position on that issue.

How To Effectively Choose And Use Examples In The Issue Essay

Many of my students find it difficult at first to think of relevant examples to support the arguments they make when writing the GRE issue essay. In this section, I’ll give you one of my favorite GRE essay tips: how to choose strong examples. Again, just so we have some context, here’s a sample Issue essay prompt: “Employees at all levels of a corporation should be involved in that corporation’s short and long term goal planning.” Now, one trap I want you to avoid falling into is thinking you have to have specialized knowledge of the topic. You might say to yourself that you’ve never worked for a corporation and that you don’t know how corporations typically plan. The good news is that you can still write a good essay about the topic using what you do know.

For example, let’s say you mostly agree with the statement and wanted to think of an example you could use. You could use an example from real life – perhaps you could talk about how employees at Google are encouraged to use 20% of their time to work on projects they think will benefit the company. Even if you couldn’t think of a real life example, you might use a hypothetical example and talk about how if an airline asked all employees about its plans for the future, flight attendants might provide unique insights into what customers like and don’t like . One strategy I like to recommend is to instead of thinking of what the perfect GRE issue essay examples might be, think about what you know well and see if it could fit. This will encourage you to choose examples you know well, making it easier to write insightfully about them. It might be a good idea to make a list of your personal “go-to” topics – things you can easily talk or write about. You’ll find that you can use many of them for many essays – don’t let the first thing that comes to mind box you in. Essay topics are designed so that almost anyone can write about them. For example, I love reading  The Economist . Since I read it every week, I usually have been thinking about some current events that I can apply to many Issue topics. Also, reading like this builds up a storehouse of information that you can dip into, making it increasingly likely you'll be inspired when a random topic pops up on the screen.

How Long Should GRE Essays Be?

In general, the more you write, the better. 500-600 words is a good goal for most people, but write more if you can!

Good writers tend to illustrate and explain well, which equals more words. If your essay paragraphs seem short, try explain why more and writing more detailed "for example" sentences. Your reader will find your argument more compelling, and the GRE computer algorithm* that contributes half of your essay score will reward you as well!

*Yeah - if you didn't know, both a robot and a human read and grade your essay, and your score will be the average of their scores. :)

How Do I Improve My Issue Essay Score?

Remember, the GRE issue essay examples you choose matter, but they must be used skillfully. Practice brainstorming lots of different essay prompts from the ETS website to get used to coming up with examples that you can use to support your point of view.

Improving your score generally will mean improving one of these five grading criteria:

• How compelling is your argument?
• The examples that support your point
• Organization / transitions
• Using standard written English

In my experience, the GRE's analytical writing assessment is the one part of the test that students tend to under-prepare for. No matter how you prepare for the essay, make sure that you at least write a few before you actually take the real GRE.

P.S. I can help you with your essays, but I will charge you for my time. If you don't want to work with me personally, you can ask for feedback on Reddit ( r/GRE ) - it's the most popular and active GRE forum I know of.

(Reddit is nerdy but also useful.)

Final Issue Essay Thoughts

Check out all the 6 responses in the ETS books (there are five "6" responses for the Issue task, and five for the Argument task). These will give you more ideas about what the highest-scoring essays do. Just keep in mind that these are paradigms of "6" responses... you don't always have to be that good to earn a "6". Again, I think one of the most valuable things you can do is to find an essay structure you like and create your own issue essay template out of it, so you have a "go-to" structure on test day.

If you enjoyed this free guide, check out Vince's other free GRE resources .

And, speaking of writing stuff, our graduate school admissions essay expert, Lauren Hammond, can help you write your personal statement !

Testimonial: "I wanted to improve my analytical writing score for the GRE and decided, with one week left before the test, that I should consult an expert for some last minute advice. Vince was awesome and provided me with so much feedback on the sample essays I sent to him. I ended up getting the score I needed, and I know meeting with Vince made that possible! Thanks again!" - Cayleen Harty

The New GRE AWA: Tips to Approach the GRE Essay

The content in this post applies in 2024 to the new, shorter GRE!

The shorter GRE introduced a faster, more streamlined experience for test-takers. As part of the changes, the shorter GRE AWA section was reduced to one essay (instead of two). Great news! So, how do you prepare for the new GRE essay? Read on to find out.

How does the new GRE AWA work?

The new GRE Analytical Writing Assessment (AWA) consists of the Issue essay . You are allotted 30 minutes for your essay. The GRE essay tests your ability to write a cogent thesis statement that you must defend over the course of several paragraphs.

What is the Analyze an Issue essay?

Gre issue essay topics.

It could be argued that the most important technological breakthroughs have happened by chance and through surprise discoveries. However, others argue that deliberate, well-planned research with specific goals is the only way to ensure technological advancement.

Write a response in which you discuss the extent to which you agree or disagree with the statement and explain your reasoning for the position you take. In developing and supporting your position, you should consider ways in which the statement might or might not hold true and explain how these considerations shape your position

The Issue essay asks you to respond to and analyze a general statement, like the ones above, that relates to politics, education, or culture. Essentially, you are taking a position on a complex matter.

Where can I find sample GRE AWA topics?

Good news! ETS publishes the entire pools of Issue topics and Argument topics on its site. The topics you see on your test will be drawn from those pools , so this is an essential resource. Learn more about the seven types of topics you might encounter in our GRE Essay Topics post.

How is the GRE AWA scored?

Deep in a dark room far, far away resides a poor soul who must sort through an interminable stack of GRE AWA essays. In a mere thirty seconds, that person must award a score from a 0.0 – 6.0, based on 0.5 increments. The grader is typically a university literature/writing professor who, according to ETS, has undergone rigorous training in order to qualify.

But that’s only half of the story.

This next part sounds a little nefarious — so hold onto your seats. Over the course of the last decade or so, ETS has developed–and it would say refined–the “E-rater”, an automated essay grader.

While it may seem that HAL , the diabolical talking computer from Stanley Kubrick’s 2001: A Space Odyssey , has been unleashed to wreak grading havoc on your essays, the “E-rater” is only used as a second “grader” to ensure that the human grader isn’t napping at the job. If the “E-rater’s” score differs by 1.5 points or more from the human grader’s score, then a second human grader will look at your essay, the master grader–who, presumably, resides in an even darker room.

Your final score is calculated by taking the two essays, averaging them, and then rounding the result to fit on the half point scale. At least for now, HAL has not completely taken over — the “E-rater” serves only as a check on human error. That is not to say that one day the two human graders will emerge from their dark rooms as anachronisms (as far as GRE AWA grading goes). Let’s hope that such a day never comes, the day in which admission to a top-notch grad school hangs in the precarious balance of a robot grader.

How does the GRE AWA scoring range work?

What exactly does it mean to get a 0.0, or for that matter a 6.0 on GRE Analytical Writing? Well, a 0.0 means you fell asleep, your forehead planted firmly on the keyboard, an endless series of gobbledygook forming on screen. A 6.0 is a consistently insightful and well-crafted essay, running a good 80-plus lines.

You may think I’m jesting with the 0.0, but really I’m not: those essays are deemed “Ungradeable.” Hence, very few students end up getting a 0.0, or, for that matter, a score below a 2.0. Indeed, the vast majority of students fall between a 3.0 and a 5.0.

So what exactly does it mean to get a 3.0 vs. 4.0, or a 4.5 vs. a 5.0? For me to really answer that it would take at least several pages, including example essays. Instead, have a look at the AWA scoring guidelines from ETS. The links to the sample essays are included below.

Is there anywhere I can get my essays graded?

While there is no better teacher than feedback, having someone give you an honest critique of your essay is difficult. ETS offers a service to grade your GRE AWA essays. But that is all you will get. A simple score. No feedback. People have tried, apparently, but nobody at ETS will provide feedback (apparently, the “E-rater” has not yet evolved to this level of sophistication).

Luckily, things aren’t quite as bleak as that. Over the years, I’ve seen many students asking for feedback on the forums ( urch.com , thegradcafe.com ) and munificent souls (usually GRE test takers with strong writing skills) provide insightful analysis. While that may not sound all that reassuring, remember that this feedback is free of charge and there really isn’t much else out there in terms of essay feedback.

More creative ideas on how to get your essay graded here , plus we have a downloadable GRE essay rubric . Let us know if you have any others, we’d love to hear them! 🙂

What do the graders look for?

The graders look for the three C’s: clarity, coherency, and cogency.

First off, you must express your ideas in a clear manner. If you jumble your words, or simply throw in unnecessary words, doing so compromises clarity. But your essay is not just one sentence with a clearly expressed idea; it is a set of ideas that should logically connect to one another. That is coherency.

Next you want to provide convincing evidence to back up your thesis. You can throw in some vague example, but doing so means your essay will probably lack cogency. Develop an example that cogently reinforces your thesis is key to a high essay score.

There are some other factors that play into the human grader’s assessment. Style is important; an essay with choppy sentences and unsophisticated vocabulary will be awarded a lower score, all other things being equal, than an essay with mature syntactical development and GRE-level vocabulary deployed felicitously.

There is also the issue of grammar. Even though the graders doesn’t set out to nitpick at grammar, as soon as you make the tiniest mistake, he or she will notice. Anything from improper use of pronouns to misspelling common words can negatively impact your score. At the same time, a grammatical flub or two won’t preclude an essay from getting a perfect score, as long as everything else about the essay is top-notch.

I should note that the essay grader takes around 30 seconds to grade an essay. He or she scans to make sure that you have clearly organized your information, and that your paragraphs start with a topic sentence and flow into specific examples that support your analysis. The grader looks to make sure you have a conclusion that articulates what you’ve already stated. He or she gives you a score and they move on to the next essay.

How long do my GRE essays have to be?

Believe it or not, out of two essays that are identical, save for length, the longer will receive the higher score. That doesn’t mean you should frantically scribble away, hoping that a seven-paragraph essay will automatically confer the much coveted ‘6’. Substance matters greatly. But as long as all the parts of your essay are there, you should shoot for a five-paragraph essay: an intro, three body paragraphs, and a conclusion.

I should also point out that six paragraphs a long essay do not make. Paragraph length matters too. And, of course, don’t forget that each of those paragraphs has to flow logically and clearly from your thesis.

How do I practice for GRE Analytical Writing?

Essay writing is tough. Practicing for the GRE Analytical Writing Assessment–given that it’s difficult to get feedback–makes things even more unpleasant: you write and write without knowing if you are really improving. But do not despair–there are sample essays, friends and family, and the ETS essay grading service, as well as many GRE writing tips you can use.

By simply writing often you will be able to write with greater command and facility. With diligent practice , words will not seem submerged deep in your hippocampus, but will spring to life on the page.

2. Don’t forget to outline/brainstorm

You must think about what you are going to write before you write. I’m sure many amongst you subscribe to the school of thought that if you write, they will come: the words, the compelling examples, and the nuanced logic. When practicing for the GRE, you must avoid this tendency and instead spend a few minutes coming up with a roadmap (either in your head or on the computer screen). At first this step will slow you down and you will want to go back to the old method. Be patient. Once you become adept at outlining, the essay will write itself.

3. Spend lots of time editing your practice essays

Though you won’t get much of an opportunity to edit your essay test day, sedulously editing your practice essays will make you more aware of your mistakes, both grammatical and logical. Correcting these mistakes will not only help you anticipate them in the future, but will also make the writing and logic in your future essays clearer.

4. Constantly read sample essays

By reading other students’ essays, you will develop a sense of what ETS is looking for. You’ll also be able to better judge your own essays. Throughout practice sessions you should keep tweaking your essays, so they get closer and closer to the next score up. So if you started at a ‘3’, then focus on getting to a ‘4.’ Once you think you’ve done so, shoot your essay over to the ETS grading service. Check out this sample essay to see what it takes to achieve your ideal GRE writing score:

5. Improve grammar

ETS explicitly states that it is looking for the quality and clarity of thought, and not grammar per se. Yet the two are closely related. So if you struggle to articulate something–and in doing so break a grammatical rule (or three!)–you will sacrifice clarity. Even minor grammatical errors (faulty pronouns, subject/verb agreement) will mar the overall quality of your writing.

How do I improve my grammar and style?

Between grammar and style, grammar is much easier to improve. Great style is much more elusive. Indeed, many writers have cultivated their prose style over years of assiduous practice. Rest assured though–to score well on the GRE your prose does not have to be fit for The New York Times . You do want to avoid choppy sentences by varying up your sentence structure. You shouldn’t be averse to trading a simple word for a more complex one as long that word is appropriate for the context.

A great book that offers writing advice, from dangling modifiers to how to construct compelling, dynamic sentences, is William Zinsser’s On Writing Well .

For a more stern approach to writing, Strunk and White’s Elements of Style has helped students for over half a century.

The only reason I mention both of these books is they focus not only grammar but also on style. Many grammar books should suffice, as far as grammar goes–but they are short on teaching writing style, which is a great skill to have for the GRE (and beyond!).

Are there any sample essays I can read?

It is one thing to read the guidelines for what constitutes a ‘6’ essay. In essence you are interpreting the information. But by actually reading you learn what the grader (and the robot) are looking for.

While sample essays abound in prep books, some of them appear written and polished over time, and thus don’t reflect the work of someone who is under the constraints for the essay.

The best source for sample essays are the released sample essays (completed with grader comments!) from ETS:

Sample Issue Essays from ETS

Sample Argument Essays from ETS

The essays here are actual student essays. Use these essays to assess your own level of writing. In other words, determine where in the 0.0-6.0 range you fall, based on the scores given to the other essays.

Chris graduated from UCLA with a BA in Psychology and has 20 years of experience in the test prep industry. He’s been quoted as a subject expert in many publications, including US News , GMAC , and Business Because .

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11 responses to “The New GRE AWA: Tips to Approach the GRE Essay”

Hi how much time does it take for the practice AWA to be graded?

Hi Gunjan, I’m not sure if I understand your question. Which practice AWA are you talking about? If you are asking about feedback from forums or other online resources, you’ll have to check with those websites or perhaps post your essay again. Please note that Magoosh does not provide essay grading and feedback at this time.

I got 2.5 score in awa how can i improve

These blog posts might be helpful for you: 12 tips to ace GRE Writing GRE Issue Strategies and practice essays

In order to improve in the AWA section, you should understand what the graders are looking for, have a strategy for writing a strong essay, and practice as MUCH as possible. I think these blog posts will help you to make a good strategy–don’t forget to keep practicing!

Thank you, Really it helps me a lot. but still i have confusion in argument Section, can you please tell me the deference between issue and argument

Hi Prachi! Sure 🙂 The Issue Task requires you to take a position and defend it. Usually it’s for or against some issue. The Argument Tasks asks you to read a short argument and then explain why it’s terrible. Hope that helps!

Hi! I got a poor score in AWA (2) and I did detect my fault that, in my issue task, I didn’t thoroughly agree or disagree, rather I agreed partially to the prompt and another mistake was I couldn’t conclude my essay with clear conclusive stand of mine, neither I finished my last sentence, let alone editing. Could u plz explain weather partially agree or disagree is allowed in issue task in AWA?

It sounds like you have done a good job of reflecting on your performance and identifying areas for improvement! That’s a great first step. In the AWA Issue task, it’s important to have a strong argument and clearly state your side. Your concession point shows that you have thought about the issue from different angles, but it’s important to stick to your argument and show how it is superior. We do not recommend that students take the “partially agree” approach, since it tends to ‘water down’ your argument and weaken your essay. Remember that this is an essay you are writing for a specific assignment–it doesn’t have to reflect your personal beliefs or ideas, as long as you can craft a strong argument. We have a lot of great resources for you to use to improve on the AWA, take a look 🙂

Thank you for this overall guide with lots of quality information for someone who is new to GRE like me. At the moment, this is quite sufficient for me to kick start my preparation for the test, which roughly happens in two weeks. Anyway, Thanks!

You’re welcome! Best of luck, Huy. 😀

i think it give us more idea in gre test.

• 1. Introduction to GRE Analytical Writing
• 2. Issue Essay vs Argument Essay: 11 Key Differences
• 3. 7 Major Factors That Boost Your AWA Score
• 4. The 6 Step Process to Conquer GRE Analytical Writing
• 5. Examples and Analyses of Perfect 6.0 AWA Essays
• 6. 6 Types of False Reasoning You Should Avoid on the Argument Essay
• 7. How to Finish an Essay in 20 Minutes: 9 Effective Strategies to Save Time on the AWA Section
• 8. Top 101 Transitional Words and Phrases You Should Use to Score a 6.0 on the AWA Section
• 9. 27 Mistakes You Should Avoid When Writing Your AWA Essays
• 10. Bonus Chapter – Mind-Blowing Templates to Score a 6.0 on the AWA Section

The Advanced Guide to GRE Analytical Writing

71 mind-blowing tips, techniques, and strategies to score a perfect 6.0 on the awa.

Written By Jitta & Sachin

Introduction to GRE Analytical Writing

Getting a 99 percentile score on either of Verbal and Quant sections on the GRE requires several weeks, if not months, of diligence, patience, practice, and smart prep. But with only a fraction of the hard work you put in for Math and Verbal, and just a few days of practice, you can easily get a 99 percentile score on the AWA section. Plus, getting a 6.0 on the AWA isn’t a regular occurrence, and only about 8000 test takers around the world do it every year. So, if you can be one of those guys, you will be famous not only among your friends, but also among the admissions committees.

Unfortunately, the AWA is the most neglected section on the GRE. Test takers across the world believe that they can easily master AWA in a day or two. And look at what they end up with: The average AWA score of a GRE test taker worldwide is a mere 4.0, and the average AWA score of an Indian test taker is even lower. Now, to most Indian students, getting a 4.0 on the AWA might seem like an impressive feat. But in reality, 4.0 is considered just average in most countries. And on top of it, getting a 6.0 isn’t really as tough as it seems. It is only that you don’t know how.

If you are looking to score a perfect 6.0 on the AWA section, you will have to be a lot more planned than most other students. Just as with the Verbal and Quant sections, mastering the essay section on the GRE requires the same amount of confidence, persistence, and practice. And in addition to all that, you will also need a solid guide that can help you with all the strategies and tips. You will need an AWA Bible, so to speak.

But sadly enough, there isn’t much useful information on the internet about this frequently neglected section. Yes, there are some good articles and sample 6.0 essays that you can get with a simple Google search, but nowhere on the internet is a definitive guide to help you write a 6.0 essay on the GRE. And that is why, we at CrunchPrep, decided to provide you with a complete, advanced guide to scoring a perfect 6.0 on the AWA. And hey, don’t blame us if the 6.0 percentile goes down from 99 to 80 soon.

What is the AWA all about?

The Analytical Writing Assessment (AWA) portion of the GRE consists of two essays, each of which you will need to write in 30 minutes or less. The two essays you will see on the GRE are, Analysis of an Issue and Analysis of an Argument. These two essays will always come first on your GRE test, no matter what. You cannot simply skip off AWA, move on to the other sections, and come back later. AWA itself is a separate section, and only after you finish writing the two essays can you move on further.

Despite what most students say, you should remember that the AWA only tests how well you can write an essay, and hence measures only your writing abilities. Contrary to popular opinion, the AWA does not analyze your thought process. As long as your essay sounds logical, writing ability is all it measures. We will be discussing more about this in the upcoming sections.

How important is the AWA?

It is a widely known fact that your AWA essay score is not as important as your composite math and verbal score on the GRE, and getting a 5.0 or 6.0 won’t make or break your chances of getting admitted to the university of your choice. Graduate school admissions officers only bother about your AWA score, if it is too low, or significantly lower than their usual class average. Yes, a poor score on the AWA can definitely send up a red flag, and the admissions committee will certainly think twice before letting you in. Sometimes, they even go to the extent of rereading your SOP and LORs, to find out if they were actually written by you or someone else. So, it is rather safe to say that the AWA score is an important enough factor when it comes to admissions.

What is the score range for AWA?

The AWA score ranges between 0 and 6.0, with 0.5 point increments. But what exactly does it mean to get a 6.0, or 4.0 or for that matter, a 0 on the AWA? Well, the scoring system is designed in a way that your responses to each of these essay questions are scored on a 6-point scale, with 6 being the highest score and 1, the lowest. Given below, are the parameters that ETS looks at when grading your AWA essays:

6.0 – Outstanding:

A well-articulated critique of the argument/issue, demonstrating mastery of effective writing, and displaying the following characteristics:

• Clearly identifies and analyzes the most important features of the argument with deep insight.
• Develops cogent ideas, organizes them logically, and connects them properly without sudden transitions.
• Supports the main points of the critique strongly.
• Demonstrates superior control of the English language, including diction, sentence formation, spelling, grammar and syntactic variety used in standard written English.
• Few to no flaws in the essay.

5.0 – Strong

A well-developed critique of the argument, demonstrating good control of writing, and displaying the following characteristics:

• Clearly identifies the important features of the argument and analyzes them thoughtfully.
• Develops ideas clearly, and connects them logically, with appropriate transitions.
• Gives a very sensible support to the main points of the critique.
• Has clear control of language, including diction and syntactic variety
• May have minor flaws like spelling errors, but no major flaws.

4.0 – Adequate

A satisfactory critique of the given argument, demonstrating decent control of writing, and displaying the following characteristics:

• Capable of Identifying and analyzing the main features of the argument.
• Develops and organizes ideas satisfactorily, but some important connections and transitions may be missing.
• Supports the main points of the critique.
• Demonstrates sufficient control of language, but may lack syntactic variety.
• May have many minor flaws or some major flaws.

3.0 – Limited

A satisfactory essay with clearly flawed critique of the argument, demonstrating little control of the elements of writing, and displaying the following characteristics:

• Does not identify or analyze many of the important features of the argument.
• Has limited logical development and no proper organization of ideas.
• Offers support of little relevance and value for points of the critique
• Uses language imprecisely and/or lacks sentence variety
• Contains occasional major errors or frequent minor errors in grammar, usage, and mechanics

2.0 – Seriously Flawed

An unsatisfactory essay with serious weakness in analytical writing skills, and displaying the following characteristics:

• Demonstrates no understanding of the main features of the argument.
• Almost no analyses of the main points have been made.
• Does not develop any ideas or is disorganized
• Provides nil to few relevant evidences.
• Has frequent serious problems in the use of language, grammar, spelling, and sentence structure.

1.0 – Fundamentally Deficient

An essay full of fundamental deficiencies in analytical writing skills, and displaying the following characteristics:

• Provides little to no evidence of the ability to understand and analyze the main idea.
• Failure to develop an organized response.
• Contains severe and persistent errors in language and sentence structure
• Has an unusually frequent pattern of errors in grammar, usage, and logic.
• A totally incoherent response.

0.0 – Unscorable

A paper that is totally illegible or obviously not written on the assigned topic. A score of zero is given to responses that come under one of the following cases:

• The responses are off topic.
• The responses are written in a language other than English.
• The responses are a mere copy of the given topic.
• The responses consist only of random keystroke characters.
• No response.

So, it is safe to say that if you write at least a few sentences in English, you will get a score of 1.0. But rest assured, no university under the sun will accept a score that low.

How is the AWA graded?

Each of your AWA essays is scored on a scale of 0 to 6. Two readers will read your Issue essay and assign it a deserving score and two different readers will read your Argument essay and assign it a score. Each grader will award a 6.0 to the top essays and scores of 0 are reserved for essays written on topics other than the one assigned or written in a foreign language. The graders spend about 30 seconds to 2 minutes on each essay, and give it a score based on pre-defined evaluation metrics such as the overall quality of your critical thinking and writing, as mentioned previously. The graders who evaluate the responses are college and university faculty members from various subject matter areas, including higher education.

Once the readers finish grading your essay, the two scores will be averaged to arrive at a final AWA score. If the grades given by the two readers differ by more than a point, a third, highly experienced grader is brought in to resolve the discrepancy (i.e., determine your final score for that essay).

For each essay, your final score is the average of the scores assigned by the two readers or the adjusted score assigned by the third reader.

Here’s how a typical Analytical Writing score might be derived:

If you earned scores of 6 and 5 on the Analysis of an Issue, then your final score for the Issue essay would be the average of these two i.e., (6 + 5) /2 which equals to 5.5 and if you earned scores of 4 and 5 on the Analysis of an Argument, your final score on the Argument essay would be (4 + 5) /2 which equals to 4.5.

Your final AWA score will be the average of your scores on Issue and Argument essays i.e., (5.5 + 4.5) /2 which equals to 5, which will be your final AWA score.

It should be noted that though your AWA scores range from 0 – 6, about 90 percent of all scores fall between 2 and 5. The average score for the AWA section for all the test takers so far is around 4.2.

Your Analytical Writing Assessment scores are computed and reported separately from the multiple-choice sections of the test and have no effect on your Verbal, Quantitative, or Total scores. Your score report however will not include copies of your responses; only scores are sent. You will receive your essay scores approximately 10-15 days after your test date.

What do graders look for in your AWA essays?

Most students think that essay length the only important factor when it comes to AWA scoring. But, in reality, it is not. Of course, it is one of the most important factors , but it isn’t the only factor. You will have to take many other factors into consideration, if you are looking to get anywhere near the perfect score. We have complied a list of all the factors that affect your overall AWA score, so you can be well prepared, while improving your writing skills on those lines.

The 7 Elements Graders Look For:

This is the most important, and also the most fundamental of all factors that the graders judge your essays on. The grader should understand what you are trying to say, by reading once. This makes their job easier, and they will understand that if it can be understood with just a single reading, then your essay has clarity.

As we discussed earlier, the grader can spend a maximum of only two minutes per essay, and it is your duty to make sure your essays have clearly composed ideas, because more often than not, graders do not bother to reread your essay and waste another couple of minutes. Consequently, you will end up with a score much lower than what you actually deserve.

Ask yourselves these two questions when you are writing the essays. What are you trying to say? What’s your main point? These two questions must have solid answers by the time the grader finishes reading the essay. If you think about it, these are the exact same questions you will have to answer, during Reading Comprehension. Just like how you can easily solve a Reading Comprehension question if you have answers to those two questions, graders assessing your essay will also need to find answers to these exact same questions, if you need a perfect score. Substance matters more than any other factor when it comes to your essays. So, make sure you have solid points, and clear logical reasoning that can be easily understood.

2. Structure

You should have seen it coming; structure is the second most important factor on your essays. The way an article is formatted, has a massive impact upon its readability. Your essays should read like a story; something that can be easily understood, and something that has a proper structure and organization. So, it is important that you break up your essay into distinct paragraphs, each with its own meaning and context, while maintaining a smooth transition between one paragraph and the next.

This way, every paragraph reads like a separate story, and the essay graders can easily scan through your entire response easily. Plus, since the transitions are smooth, and there aren’t any sudden twists in your response, it will make the grader’s job a whole lot easier.

So, ideally, you should have a structure in mind before you begin writing the essay. The general structure is to start with an introductory paragraph followed by 3-4 body paragraphs and finish off with a conclusion paragraph. So, you should make sure that there are at least 5-6 paragraphs in your essay, if you want a solid score on the AWA.

3. Sentence Variety

Even though you are writing several paragraphs on the same topic, you should ideally avoid writing similar or same sentences. If you are an avid reader of news, you get the point. No good writer under the sun writes two exactly same sentences in a single essay or article. Consecutive sentences with the same structure and length can sound monotonous and lifeless, and will obviously bore the reader.

Instead of sounding repetitive and boring, use sentence style skillfully. But this doesn’t mean you should rearrange the words, or chance the voice from passive to active or vice versa. It simply means that you should use a different variety of words to mean the same thing.

For example, if you have already written the sentence ‘The most important virtue of a leader is a strong sense of ethics.’, and if you have to use the same sentence at a later point in the essay, you should try and rephrase that same sentence and write something like this: ‘A strong moral framework is paramount for any leader.’ Get the point?

In this way, you should keep varying the sentence structures, flow and rhythm by switching between short and long sentences. You should also make use of transitional and signal words to vary sentence openings and endings.

4. Vocabulary

There has been a longstanding myth among test takers that the GRE really loves heavy vocabulary, and using it on your AWA essays will boost your score. Well, this isn’t true at all. We have seen students with exceptional vocabulary but poor coherence get paltry AWA scores in the past. And we have seen students with great essay scores without using heavy vocabulary.

Like we said earlier, the AWA is not testing how much vocab you have in your arsenal. There’s Sentence Equivalence and Text Completion for that. AWA only tests how logically you can deduce information and write a reasonable critique about an issue or an argument made by someone else. So, don’t buy those myths. As long as you use sensible reasoning, proper grammar and as long as you can 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.

5. Language and Grammar

Though officially ETS says you may have minor errors in the essay copy, that doesn’t mean you can ignore silly mistakes. Even though the mistakes or errors do not interfere with overall meaning and coherence, you should understand that the time you make your first error on the essay, the grader will notice it, and will be more conscious while reading the rest of the copy. The grader will be even more vigilant to see if there are any visible or obvious blunders that you have made, and this can have a negative impact on your AWA score. So, try and make sure your essay is as spotless as possible, and eliminate all errors before submitting. Take time to proofread your essay, once you finish writing it. Don’t be in a hurry to submit it off and skip to the next section.

6. Reasoning

Reasoning plays a key role in determining the overall quality of your essay. You should always look to include as many logically compelling reasons as you can to support your stance. One of the most important features about a compelling essay is its ability to convince the reader by means of sound logical reasoning. Anyone who reads your response should be totally convinced of your view point, without having second thoughts. To be able to write such a compelling and well-reasoned copy within 30 minutes would be rather difficult, but you can definitely do it with a lot of practice.

So ideally, you should be able to connect your ideas properly to the central theme or idea of the essay, and convince the reader to agree to your point of view. If the essay doesn’t sound logical or reasonable, you will unfortunately have to pay the penalty, no matter how long the essay is.

7. Evidence

In order to make your essay sound reasonable and logically sound, you will obviously need to provide sufficient evidences. If you want to impress the readers, and convince them to agree to your point of view, you will ideally want to provide convincing evidence to back up your thesis. Search for evidences, either direct or implied, and connect them with the essay. You can even create some random examples and evidences, as long as they fit the bill and don’t sound too random. Develop examples that cogently reinforce your thesis is key to a high essay score.

So, those are the 7 most important elements that graders look for in your essays. Make sure you have all these things covered in your essay, and you’re sure to see a perfect score.

Should you skip the AWA section during practice?

This is probably a question that is on the minds of many students. Almost half of the GRE test takers are native English speakers. And these students tend to neglect practicing the AWA section at home, because according to them, it’s not worth investing time on something they are very confident about. But, there are a few vital points that they don’t realize. We’ve observed what students do when they practice for the GRE, how their approaches have affected their scores on test day, and figured out four reasons as to why the AWA section is an extremely important aspect of the GRE exam.

Number 1 Reason Why Practicing GRE AWA is Important: Inflated Scores During Practice:

This is the single most important thing to consider when we talk about the importance of the essay section. Students normally tend to skip the essay section when they take practice tests, so they can directly go to the first section of Math/Verbal. Though this might seem like the obvious choice to you, you should consider the aftereffects before jumping into conclusions.

Think about it. The GRE is not a typical test that you encounter at college or elsewhere. It is a marathon. An intense, 3 hour 45 minute journey, which obviously you aren’t accustomed to. Now, if you skip the essay section during practice, you’ll be forfeiting 60 minutes of the total test time, which means you are going to have to sit for 2 hours and 45 minutes only.

This translates into an inflated overall score during practice, because you are just that much more active than you will be on test day. So, you get accustomed to sitting for 2 hours 45 minutes for the test, and your brain is hardwired to concentrate for that much time only. But, on test day, you still have two more sections to finish after you complete 2 hours and 45 minutes.

Do you get the point? It’s that extra one hour of concentration that requires sudden attention from your brain, which it sadly isn’t ready for. This is exactly why thousands of students score very low on their last two to three sections. They simply aren’t ready for the extra time, because their brains feel tired already. So, if you don’t skip the essay during practice, you’ll be writing in the exact test conditions as on test day, thereby training your brain for the big encounter.

There are a few other important reasons why you should not skip off AWA during practice , and we have discussed them separately.

How Long Should My Essay Be?

The essay graders are aware that you only get 30 minutes to write each AWA essay and they also know that you won’t be able to cover every possible argument, reason and rebuttal. Hence they do not expect you to write a super long detailed analysis of the issue or argument given to you. Remember that most GRE test takers won’t be able to find time to cover everything they would like to cover on the test.

So, how long should your AWA essay be? We see students wondering about this all the time and we know you would like to know about it too. ETS has not spoken out about the ideal length of an essay, and there is no word on the 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.

When closely observed, there is a significant increase in the number of words from a 5.0 graded essay and a 6.0 graded essay. The reality is, longer essay is usually better. To analyze further on this topic, we have done a bit of research, and found out an interesting relation between essay length and the final score. If you look at the statistics below, you will have to concur with me. Longer essays usually score better on every essay topic.

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 us 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.

A column chart with average word count for essays from 500 students

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.

If you’d like to know more about the GRE essay length , we’ve done a separate post on that. Go check it out now.

Categorization of GRE Essay Topics

The most fascinating thing about the GRE essay section is that each and every essay topic that shows up on the real test is already published on the official ETS website. This may sound crazy because giving out the questions in advance is totally unnatural. By knowing the topics beforehand, you can prepare sample responses for all those topics and on the test day, all you need to do is just reproduce your sample response. Isn’t that a great advantage for you? You can get a perfect 6.0 score very easily!

But there’s a catch! You were expecting a few, aren’t you?

Well, there are close to 200 topics in all – far too many to practice responses in advance. Also, practicing each of these topics is not advisable as it is going to take a lot of time and effort and there is no point in mugging them up. You could as well spend this time on learning some math or vocabulary. However, there’s a good news. Just scanning through these two lists of essay topics will give you an excellent idea of the types of issues and arguments that show up on test day.

Now, most of the topics that show up on the GRE Essay section can be broadly grouped into five categories. I made things a bit easy for you and listed those five categories below. Take a look.

• Government/Politics
• Sciences and Technology

So, next time when you practice writing an essay response, make sure you write at least an essay from each of these categories.

How do I get ideas for the essay?

This is most likely the second most frequently asked question in our support mails by students around the world. It’s because a large number of issue and argument prompts on the official essay pool are hard to understand correctly. And when you don’t understand something, how can you write about that something?

So, what can you do about to solve this problem? Here are a couple of things you should work on:

If you were asked to write about a topic from out of nowhere, you would struggle for ideas. But when you already know that there could only be five categories from which your essay topics can show up, then you can turn the table in your favor. You should keep a few related examples for each one of these categories (i.e. education, arts, politics, technology, philosophy) as they will be handy and save you precious time on the test day.

Also, the essay prompts are full of obscure vocabulary and hence are hard to comprehend. Since, every essay prompt that could appear on the GRE is openly accessible on the official ETS website, you should give them a read through. While reading, you should also make note of all the unfamiliar words and later learn them. Learning these new words will ensure that you understand the topic well or at least allow you to take a very good guess.

How to get your essays graded?

Believe it or not, one of the most frequent questions that we receive from students around the world, is how they can get their essays graded. That is a good question, actually. Given the fact that there are so many practice tests for the GRE where you get your Math and Verbal sections graded, there is not even one practice test in the entire world that can grade your AWA score for you. If you are wondering why, it is because it is not at all easy to grade your essay instantaneously.

Think about it. Even on the test day, you will only receive your Math and Verbal scores, but not the AWA score. ETS itself takes about 7-10 days to give you an official report of your AWA score. It is that difficult to assess an essay. Plus, it is required that a human grader reads and grades your essays, if you want an accurate score. Which is obviously impossible if you are taking a practice test at home.

So what can one do? Is there no way to get your AWA essays graded? Well thankfully, there are quite a few options that you can consider. We’ve listed down all the available options, and it is up to you to decide which of them you want to choose.

5 Ways to Get Your AWA Essays Graded

Ets score it now.

The ETS Score It Now, is a great feature available for you to get your essays graded. For a small amount of $13 dollars, the ETS Essay Grader will grade two of your essays. You can submit any two of your essay responses, and the software will get back to you with a graded score of your AWA. Now, for most students around the world, and especially for those from the developing world, $13 is quite a lot of money.

And that is probably the reason why most students don’t even know that such a facility is available. We must agree, that even we at CrunchPrep have never used the service ourselves, or know any student who has, simply because we did not need to. Our expert tutors, on the other hand, have been grading student essays for free for a long time now. But nevertheless, we’re pretty sure that the ETS Score It Now feature will get you an accurate score, because well, it’s ETS who developed it.

And there is one more downside with this feature. The score is all you get, when you submit your essays. No feedback. Now, you would expect that ETS would give you some valuable tips to improve your score, but unfortunately, that $13 you spend is only going to get you a couple of numbers from ETS. So, unless you don’t need feedback, you are really not improving on the essay, and you have money to spend, you should definitely try and consider some other alternatives to this service offered by ETS.

Friends, Family, and Experts

Yes. However unbelievable it might seem, your friends can sometimes help you get better marks. They can help you identify the mistakes you did not find obvious enough, and you also get an outsider’s opinion on your essays, and therefore on your points of view. Now, even though your friends might be untrained, or unaware of the GRE AWA grading system, having a second pair of eyes look at your writing can be really beneficial to finding your flaws. Plus, you receive feedback then and there, right on your face, and it is sometimes the easier way to learn.

But before you let your friends or family judge your essays, you should tell them beforehand that you only had 30 minutes to write your essay, and so they should not expect you to write an award-winning piece. You should also tell them to pay attention to, and then judge you on the following aspects of your essay: structure, logical flow of ideas, and persuasiveness of examples. They should ideally not be looking for impressive words or sentence framing, but it is just an added bonus.

If however, you are too shy to ask your friends or family, try asking an experienced professor at your college, preferably a professor in linguistics or someone who is really good at formal, written English language. These professors not only give you an accurate assessment of your essays, but will also give you valuable insights as to where exactly you can improve your writing skills.

Self-Evaluation

When you don’t have access any professors or wise friends who can help you evaluate your AWA essays, the best option you are left with, is you. Self-evaluation, though most of the time not recommended, can be a really useful option for you. There are hundreds of mock essays on the internet, and with a simple google search, you can get access to various essays for the GRE. Even the ETS website has a few sample answers for essays, and the same questions have sample answers which are purposefully written to mirror a 6.0, or a 5.0 level essay, for example.

So, if you can compare your response with those on the internet, you can roughly estimate whether your answer is closer to the 4.0 or the 5.0 sample. If you can do this a lot of times, you will begin to see a definite pattern, which can help you estimate your average AWA score. Also, most mock essays usually have an explanation at the end, which explain why they have been given their respective scores. This really helps you see if your essay is lacking in similar ways.

This sounds rather difficult, and it actually a really complex and time taking process, which is why you should try and take this approach as a last measure; if you cannot find any other alternative helpful enough.

Internet Strangers

If you are an internet geek, you would probably agree that sometimes, internet strangers are really helpful in nature. There are many GRE forums like Urch , PaGaLGuY , etc, where you will find hundreds, if not thousands, of GRE experts and aspirants, who wouldn’t mind lending a hand. Thousands of GRE aspirants visit these forums every single day, and if you can post your essay and ask for some feedback, more often than not, someone will provide you with the necessary assistance. While this someone may or may not be an expert, it often helps to have a second opinion from someone in your niche.

GMATAWA.com

Alright. We’ve saved the best for the last. GMATAWA.com is probably the most fantastic resource out there, when it comes to grading your essays. It was developed to grade GMAT AWA essays, but rest assured, there’s not much difference between GMAT and GRE AWA essays. The basic structure of essays is the same everywhere, and this website is really helpful in grading your essays.

The grading happens instantaneously, and as soon as you submit your essay, you will receive a composite AWA score, along with various metrics on which your essay has been graded. We, at CrunchPrep, assure you that, other than ETS Score It Now , this is probably the most accurate AWA rater you will see, and you can expect a similar AWA score on your exam as well. So, make full use of this feature, and assess your writing strengths and weaknesses. However, you should remember that the website allows you to grade only 10 essays per email address, so choose wisely which essays you will be sending.

So, those are the five ways that you can get your AWA scores graded. Most often, more than one of the resources mentioned above will definitely be helpful to you. And by the way, remember this: Only two things can make you a better writer – Practice, and Feedback.

Issue Essay vs Argument Essay: 11 Key Differences

The Analytical Writing Assessment (AWA) section of the GRE asks you to complete two separate but complimentary writing tasks: The Issue Essay and the Argument Essay. Each task tests your analytical writing skills, including the assessment of your critical thinking skills. Both these essay questions are allotted 30 minutes each and are scored on a scale of 6.0. And those are the only similarities between them both.

There are lots of differences between these two types of AWA essays that a majority of test takers are unfortunately unaware of. It is common to think that since both these are essay questions, there aren’t many differences between them. And most of the errors that students commit in this section are due to the confusions that exist between these two essay types. GRE Issue Essay and GRE Argument Essay are very different in nature, and hence you need different strategies to tackle them. We will go deep into each of these essay questions you will see on the GRE, but for now, remember that the GRE Issue Essay requires you to construct and support your opinions on a particular ‘issue’ that has been given to you, whereas the GRE Argument Essay requires you to validate the authenticity, or the logical correctness of an argument that someone else has constructed, without letting your opinions interfere with the task. Got the difference? Now, let’s move on to the finer details.

Issue Essay vs Argument Essay:

1. your view vs. their view:.

The GRE Issue Essay basically tests your ability to present an argument with your views, and your ability to convince the reader to agree to your point of view. As you can clearly see here, you should include your own views and add valuable points to your response, in order for the reader to be convinced to agree with you. On the other hand, the GRE Argument Essay requires you to completely analyze a brief argument written by another author, and to effectively critique the argument or the author’s point of view, by providing sufficient evidences, and by asking logical questions.

2. General Topic vs. Specific Topic

In an Issue Essay, the debatable topic that has been given to you to analyze, is very general in nature and can be from any field. It hence doesn’t usually require you to have a very deep knowledge of the topic. The issue is simply provided as a statement, and your job is to pick a side, stick to it until the end without fiddling around, and present your points of view, your analysis, and your final conclusions in a suitable manner.

However, in an Argument essay, the author himself already presents a case with his/her supporting evidences in the form of a paragraph. Your job is to see how logical the argument sounds, and check whether this argument is right or not, whether the argument has been made on solid grounds, with sufficient evidences or not. You should then effectively critique the argument, by choosing sides. If you choose to substantiate the author’s point of view, you can cite your own examples to strengthen the points, and if you wish to go against the given point of view, then you must be able to ask comprehensive questions that check the validity of the evidences provided in the argument.

3. Analysis vs. Reasoning:

The directions for answering the Issue and Argument essays are also different. The directions given for an Argument Essay read somewhat like this:

“Write a response in which you examine the stated and/or unstated assumptions of the argument. Be sure to explain how the argument depends on the assumptions and what the implications are if the assumptions prove unwarranted.”

Or like this:

Discuss how well reasoned you find this argument. In your discussion, be sure to analyze the line of reasoning and the use of evidence in the argument. For example, you may need to consider what questionable assumptions underlie the thinking and what alternative explanations or counterexamples might weaken the conclusion. You can also discuss what sort of evidence would strengthen or refute the argument, what changes in the argument would make it more logically sound, and what, if anything, would help you better evaluate its conclusion.

And the directions given for an Issue Essay are entirely different from the Argument Essay, and unlike the Argument Essay, the Issue Essay can be accompanied with a varied set of instructions, and there is no one particular direction for you to follow. For example, on the day of your test, you may see any one of the following directions, at the end of the issue:

• Write a response in which you discuss the extent to which you agree or disagree with the statement and explain your reasoning for the position you take. In developing and supporting your position, you should consider ways in which the statement might or might not hold true and explain how these considerations shape your position.
• Write a response in which you discuss the extent to which you agree or disagree with the recommendation and explain your reasoning for the position you take. In developing and supporting your position, describe specific circumstances in which adopting the recommendation would or would not be advantageous and explain how these examples shape your position.
• Write a response in which you discuss the extent to which you agree or disagree with the claim. In developing and supporting your position, be sure to address the most compelling reasons and/or examples that could be used to challenge your position.
• Write a response in which you discuss which view more closely aligns with your own position and explain your reasoning for the position you take. In developing and supporting your position, you should address both of the views presented.
• Write a response in which you discuss the extent to which you agree or disagree with the claim and the reason on which that claim is based.
• Write a response in which you discuss your views on the policy and explain your reasoning for the position you take. In developing and supporting your position, you should consider the possible consequences of implementing the policy and explain how these consequences shape your position.

4. Your Conclusion vs. Their Conclusion:

In an Issue Essay, remember that you must be able to introduce the issue at hand in your own words briefly, using your own conclusion , while in an Argument essay, the given argument must be introduced from the author’s point of view using his own conclusion . This is such an important difference between the two essays, and most students tend to do the opposite more often than not, which is why they end up with average scores. You should always be clear on whose conclusion you are taking into consideration: yours, or the authors. And this depends on whether it is an Issue Essay or an Argument Essay.

5. Reasons vs. Flaws:

The second paragraph in the Issue Essay is where you should be stating the side you have chosen, and also your reasons for standing by it. Whereas in an Argument Essay, the second paragraph begins with the biggest flaw that you have identified in the argument made by the author. You should also discuss how his conclusion made by the author overlooks this major flaw. The flaws in the author’s presented argument must be identified before you start writing your response, which makes it easy for you while critiquing the argument.

6. Real Examples vs. Hypothetical Examples:

In the Issue Essay, the body paragraphs (paragraphs 2, 3, and 4) must definitely involve relevant real world examples that support your chosen claim. Remember that the examples you provide must not only be relevant, but they must be real world, true examples. Which means, you cannot create examples out of thin air, on your own. But, in an Argument essay, you have the flexibility to create your own examples, as long as they are relevant to the given topic, and as long as they efficiently substantiate the argument that you are trying to make. The flaws made by the author that you have identified, must be stated with explanations and solid examples, which can sometimes be fake, as long as they fit the scenario you are trying to explain.

7. Appreciating vs. Questioning:

The conclusion statement in an Issue Essay always involves agreeing with the opposing viewpoint in one or two statements. Even though you might not like agreeing with the opposing viewpoint, you should mention that it can be right in a few instances too. You should do this in order to show your emotional maturity level. But, in an Argument essay, the conclusion statements ends on a note of doubt, where you claim that the argument may have one or more valid points but is otherwise entirely flawed, needs more plausible explanations, and requires more solid examples for it to be valid.

8. Agreeing vs. Disagreeing:

Agreeing to the point of view given in the Issue Essay gives you more points to write, since more often than not, the issue presented to you is a general topic, and there will be few points to go against, while there will be plenty of points to support the given claim in the issue. But we still advise students to go the negative route. We will discuss this later on.

But the scenario is entirely different when it comes to the Argument Essay. The Argument given is deliberately made to sound negative, and since the given argument requires a critical analysis of the presented claims rather than your own perspectives, you can, and hence should, go against the author’s point of view. Since more often than not the author’s point of view will be flawed, you will have lots of points to write, and it becomes easier for you to attack the author’s argument instead of trying to support it.

9. Limitation vs. Liberty:

A very important point you should remember is that in an Argument Essay, you should only prove that the evidences supporting the conclusion are inadequate, not that the conclusion itself is wrong. The conclusion is always right, but you should doubt or question the authenticity of the conclusion, meaning, ask how the author came to such a conclusion without sufficient supporting claims. But it is never wise to say that the conclusion itself is wrong, so you should rather limit yourself to saying that the conclusion needs more evidences. On the other hand, in an Issue essay you have the liberty use anything and everything to support your claim. Because the topic given is very general in nature, you may use any evidences to support your statements, even if they say that the conclusion is wrong.

10. Statement vs. Evidence:

The Issue Essay depends on outside, credible facts, because there are no evidences provided within the issue. The issue question is a simple, generalized statement, and there will be no evidences provided. Which is why you should go search for your own evidences, and decide if you want to support or question the conclusion made by the author. But the Argument Essay already has its own evidences provided within the paragraphs, which you will have to analyze and critique.

11. Two Sides vs. One Claim:

The Issue Essay is always like a two sided coin, presented as a contestable topic with two sides where you have the option to go with the side you can present best. The Argument Essay however does not have two sides for you to choose. It has only one claim which must be analyzed and critiqued.

In the GRE, AWA Section is very important as it shows off your communication skills and writing abilities. Looking out for these common differences between the Issue Essay and the Argument Essay, will help you avoid mistakes and prevent misconceptions. A better understanding of these differences and sufficient practice will help you score high in this section.

7 Major Factors That Boost Your AWA Score

It is important to note that the essay graders are reading your essay in a fairly short amount of time, usually between half a minute to two minutes max. So, rest assured that they are not going over your responses with a fine-toothed comb. Nor do the graders have any rulebook which they have to follow in order to add or subtract points from your overall score. There is no rule that says “subtract .5 points for every 3 grammatical errors in the essay.” Or “Add 1 point for every 5 impressive GRE words used in the essay.”

The graders are there to assess your essay holistically. Which means, they are gauging its overall effectiveness, and then assessing it, as humans. But how do they gauge effectiveness? Are there any metrics that usually have in mind while going through the essays? Yes. Fortunately, there are 7 major factors that that may stand out to a grader and help influence your overall AWA score.

Organization

Organization is given the foremost importance by many graders. And it isn’t that hard to understand why. Essays that are well organized are, in fact, easy to read. That’s important because you don’t want to make the grader’s job any more difficult than it already is. The grader has only a couple of minutes to read your entire essay, and poorly organized essays are hard to follow. This will lead the grader to give you a score lower than you actually deserve. But on the other hand, a well-organized argument is easy to follow. Since the graders are looking at your analytical abilities, it helps if they can follow your argument.

If you organization is unclear, however, then your argument is also likely to come across as unclear. In the next chapters, we will be discussing more about how your essay should be organized in order to get a high score.

Syntactical variety is a very key aspect of writing quality content. Your essays should always have a proper syntax, and you should be using a variety of sentences to make your writing look professional enough to get a perfect score. Syntax is a fancy word for how you organize words into sentences. And you already know how important organization is. You should always try to write clear sentences that are crisp and easy to understand. Unlike what most students believe, you don’t have to use extensive vocabulary, unless they really fit into the scenario. So, save the GRE vocabulary for Text Completion, and write your essays simply yet creatively. Again, you should remember that your grader has to read hundreds of essays on the same day, and they sometimes will not be thrilled to untangle a complex sentence that you have used. So, they naturally skip that sentence and read further. So, it is always better to write clearly and simply than to go for risky propositions and complex sentence structures.

A general finding is that longer essays tend to score higher than their shorter counterparts. This may be attributed to various obvious reasons. First of all, if you have written a pretty long essay, it means that you have a lot of insight into the given topic and you are able to address numerous issues relevant to the discussion. Second, if you can write a 500 word essay coherently within 30 minutes, you will be considered as a voracious writer in general. These are the abilities that are usually likely to impress a grader.

But, make sure that the quality of the essay is maintained throughout the length and breadth of your essay, for, if you don’t maintain quality, you might come off as someone who is just trying to impress but is unable to organize and prioritize their thoughts. Long essays that are clearly organized, use professional language, and contain strong supporting evidences, and give enough reasons to the grader to give you a better score. We’ll soon discuss more on this.

Your essay response should definitely contain quality instances of premises, facts or reasons given to support the conclusion that you are trying to make. Your essay needs to contain some sort of supporting evidence, whether it be logical, statistical, factual, or other forms of justifications. Without proper support, your essay will not be able to effectively develop a firm position on the given argument or issue, and it certainly fails to persuade the reader’s opinion. So, make sure you always look for supporting evidences, and provide them wherever needed.

Like discussed erstwhile, you’re going to have to come up with a lot of examples that help illustrate the point you’re trying to prove, if you want to make your essay stand apart from the rest of the pack. Since test takers have a mere 30 minutes to write these essays and will never know the topic beforehand, the graders are used to seeing a lot of hypothetical examples. And this is completely okay. As long as you make sure that the examples fit the point you are trying to explain, it is completely fine. But the way to make your essay stand out is to use real life examples. I know it is very difficult, but if you are lucky enough to have some background about the given topic, you should try to include an expert opinion within the essay, and if you can, you should try and add relevant facts, statistics, and case studies to your essay.

Although the AWA does not test your grammar skills and the caliber of your writing, if your essay has a lot of grammar errors and spelling errors, it raises a serious red flag in the mind of the graders. This often happens because students tend to think that they can outsmart the grader by using fancy sounding words once in a while. While doing this doesn’t hurt, it is important to remember that you should only use words you actually know. Sometimes, students might not know the exact meaning, or even worse, the spelling of a big word that they heard somewhere, but they still go ahead and use it in a sentence. And obviously, they will be wrong, one way or the other. Now, while spelling is not one of the criteria the graders look for in your essay, nothing gives them a red flag like reading “Sevaral entreprenuers” or “primery hypothesys”. These are regular words used every day, and if you cannot spell them right, your score is bound to go down. Remember that unlike MS Word or other desktop word processors, there is no spell check or grammar check available on the GRE AWA. So, don’t hurt your score by using words whose spellings you don’t know.

The word processor on the GRE is quite basic in nature. You’ll have basic keyboard functions, plus three other features: cut, copy, paste, and undo. And that’s all. No other shortcuts or spell checks or other advanced features like bold and underline. Now, these functions work exactly as they do on your computer. You can cut text from a portion of your essay and paste it in at a different point. Or you can use undo to delete your typing. Use these features and reduce the time you spend on editing your essay. Learn how to use these features, if you are new to them, and practice speed typing at home.

This is really essential in these days of email and text messaging, where most of the younger population use chat language and shortened forms of words like lyk, hw, wat, imma etc. While this form of English is of no good anywhere in your life, it is especially frowned upon by the GRE community. So, if you find yourself using these sort of words in your essay, which has often happened in the past with many students, you will see your score go down suddenly and rapidly. So, it wouldn’t hurt to do a little typing practice at home before test day.

So, those are the seven major factors that help you boost your essay score on the GRE. You should analyze your AWA essays whenever you take a practice test, and see if your essays have all of these.

The 6 Step Process to Conquer GRE Analytical Writing

Here we discuss the step by step process you should implement, if you want to write powerful AWA essays in under 30 minutes and get a 6.0 score. Each of these steps discusses what you should exactly do, so as to make things easier for you on test day. All you need to do is follow these steps during practice, and get these tips into your head without much effort. Though the Issue and Argument Essays are quite similar when it comes to answering, we have given you separate step by step process to ace them both.

AWA Issue Essay:

The Analysis of an Issue essay tests your ability to “explore the complexities of an issue or opinion and, if appropriate, to take a position that is informed by your understanding of those complexities.” What this means is you should properly analyze the given issue and take a strong position: either negative or positive, and then elucidate examples as to why you have chosen that particular side.

The specific directions for the issue essay task are given like this: “In this section, you will need to analyze the issue presented and explain your views on it. There is no “correct” or “best” answer. Instead, you should consider various perspectives as you develop your own position on the issue.”

Before you begin writing your response, you should take a couple of minutes to think about the issue and plan a proper response before you begin writing. This helps you organize your ideas and develop them fully. Make sure to leave sufficient time to reread your response and make any revisions that you think necessary.

Following are the six simple steps that you should follow in the same order, if you want to pen down a powerful AWA Issue essay.

Step 1: Read the Essay

Obviously, this must be your first step. But you don’t just read the essay. You must perform a ‘smart read’. A smart read is where you read the prompt and figure out the central issue, and jot down this issue on your scratch paper, including some of the important concepts from the given topic. This is what more than 95% of students fail to do. Rather than juggling all your thoughts inside your mind, it is a lot easier to pen down whatever you have understood from reading the prompt in your own words.

Your work on this first step gets you grounded for the essay ahead. After reading the given issue, and writing it down in a few concise words, you should be able to understand exactly what the issue is and also what some of the crucial concepts related to that issue are.

Step 2: Brainstorm Reasons and Examples

This is perhaps the most crucial step of all, and this step is also where most of the heavy lifting gets done. Once you know what points you want to prove and what examples you will use to prove that point, writing the essay will be very easy. Half of the duty lies in brainstorming efficient examples and supporting reasons to supplement your point of view. So, make sure you spend adequate time on this step. Pre-planning before you start writing is of the utmost importance, because then, you will have a continuous flow of thought while writing, and there won’t be any wastage of time. If you start writing without thinking through the issue or planning the structure of your essay, you run the risk of wasting time on editing and re-editing your points.

Or even worse, you might reach a dead end and there is no more evidence left with you to substantiate your point of view, but you’ve already spent 20 minutes on the essay that you cannot go back and write a fresh piece. So, it is important that you take the time to brainstorm some examples and then pick a side. After you’ve written down the central issue and the key concepts, you should ideally make a “pro” and “con” list on the scratch paper. Start thinking of reasons for both agreeing with and disagreeing with the given issue. Once you have enough reasons to pick a side, you can move further. You should think about how your personal experiences relate to the issue at hand. Think about things you have observed or experienced in daily life, read about in magazines or newspapers, or even heard about from your family members and friends.

Next, you should be coming up with some examples of your own, that support or illustrate your point of view. Good supporting examples can be the difference between a score of 4.0 and 6.0, so it is worth spending a little time trying to generate them. Don’t spend more than two or three minutes on this part because you can still write a good essay without perfect examples.

Step 3: Pick a Thesis

After you have some reasons and examples for side that you have chosen to go with, you will have to pick a proper thesis based on which you will write your opinion. This is because you don’t have to actually believe the position you write about; sometimes, you may disagree with the issue at hand, but find it easier to come up with examples and reasons for the other side of the argument. So, you need to decide which thesis you are comfortable writing about. Don’t mull over it for minutes together. Just choose whichever thesis allows you to write the strongest essay. In most cases, you find the “con” side easier to argue. You can find a lot of examples that way. And that is completely fine.

Now your thesis needs to state why you believe this position is correct. Take a moment to think about this, and jot your thesis down on your scratch paper. Now you are ready to outline you essay.

Step 4: Outline Your Essay

Don’t start writing your essay altogether. Instead, outline your essay in the direction you want to take. Figure out what you want to write in the introduction, how you want to start off, and how you want to end the conclusion. Then, figure out what you want to write in the body paragraphs. More importantly, you will have to consider how to introduce the opposing side of the argument and how counter it with your point of view. Mentioning the other side of the coin makes the graders think that you are mature enough to have considered the various perspectives on the issue, without going ahead blindly based on intuition.

Step 5: Write Your Response

If you have finished all the previous steps properly and as planned, then this is by far the easiest step of all. All you need to do is write your response in a proper order, something that looks like this:

• Introduction – hook the reader with an amazing intro and state your most important thesis
• Agreeing to the given issue
• Bringing up the negative side of the issue along with supporting facts and quotes
• Building up the negative side further with examples and support

This is the most basic essay outline, and the most famous out there. But you can also follow an unconventional structure and still write a great essay. Some of the other structures that you can follow are:

• Introduction
• First argument for the side you take
• Refute your first take and argue for the opposite side
• Second argument for the side you take
• Refute your take again and argue for the opposite side

This structure allows you to take a neutral step, and hence interweave the arguments for both sides, just like in a debate.

Another structure that can be used in many situations is:

• Argument for your side
• Argument against your side
• Conclusion: evaluate both sides and arrive at thesis

This structure is probably the hardest of all, but has the advantage of being new and uncommon. Graders will definitely appreciate a new structure once in a while, and tend to reward essays that move beyond the norm.

But, the point is, the writing part of the essay should really be the easiest part. Most people who think they have trouble writing actually don’t have difficulty with writing, but they have trouble figuring out what exactly they are trying to say. So if you’ve completed the previous steps, you should know more or less what it is that you want to say about the topic.

Step 6: Proofread

Proofreading is another step that is often neglected, mainly because test takers don’t have the time to. They think they cannot afford to waste one or two minutes proofreading the essay, while they can use the same time to write an additional sentence or two. But as a matter of fact, a perfect 400 word essay gets a higher score than an imperfect 450 word essay. So, you should rather focus on improving what you have already written, and try to spend at least three to four minutes on proofreading what you have written.

Since you don’t have a spell checker on the AWA, you don’t know if you misspelled any word in a hurry. So, be sure to check every single word, and try to refine your essay as much as you can, before the time runs out. Make sure you have all the necessary parts of your essay and the examples you meant to use. Doing these things will clean up the overall appearance of your essay and can only positively affect your score.

AWA Argument Essay

While the Analysis of an Issue task measures your ability to create your own argument, the Analysis of an Argument essay measures your ability to evaluate someone else’s argument. In the words of the test writers, the argument essay tests “your ability to formulate an appropriate and constructive critique of a specific conclusion based upon a specific line of thinking.”

There are two key points in these directions; “evaluate the argument,” and most importantly (it’s so important the directions place it in italics), “do not present your own views on the subject!” Some test takers end up basically writing an analysis of an issue essay when they are supposed to be writing an analysis of an argument essay. Your job here is simply to evaluate and critique the argument presented, not offer your own position on the subject. If you do not answer the question appropriately, you can say goodbye to a good score.

The steps for the Analysis of an Argument essay are somewhat similar to the steps for Analysis of an Issue:

Step 1: Evaluate the Argument

The Analysis of an Argument task presents you with a passage exactly like the passages found on Critical Reasoning questions. Your first task is to break the argument down into its conclusion and premises. Once you have the conclusion and the premises, the next step is to find the assumptions underlying the argument.

Step 2: Brainstorm Assumptions

These arguments are usually full of holes, even more so than Critical Reasoning arguments. You should be able to find two or three major assumptions necessary to make the conclusion work. Look for the common argument patterns: causal, sampling, and analogy. Of course, there may be a lot of assumptions spread around the entire argument, but you only need two or three good assumptions to construct your essay. Now that you have the major assumptions, you can plan the general format of your essay.

Picking a thesis on the argument section is rather easy and involves just one step. Just assume that whatever assumptions that the author has made have no evidences, and go completely negative on that, and prepare a thesis in your mind in that direction.

Once you have laid out the assumptions of the argument, you need to evaluate the strength of these assumptions. Since your task is to evaluate and critique the logic of the argument, you must consider how viable these assumptions are. Generally, the arguments on the GRE are poorly reasoned, so you should basically be looking for reasons the assumptions fail to lead to the conclusion. Think about ways you could weaken and strengthen the argument. A typical essay plan looks like this:

• Introduction: Describe the premise and point out the flaws or state your intention
• Detail first assumption; explain problems with it and how to weaken/strengthen the argument
• Repeat for second assumption
• Repeat for third assumption
• Conclusion: Give final evaluation of the validity of the argument

This is the most basic format for the argument essay, but feel free to make changes as and when you need. You may also use one of the following structures that are less commonly used.

• Introduction: Describe the premises, conclusion, and assumptions of the argument
• Weaken the argument by attacking the assumptions
• Strengthen the argument by bolstering the assumptions
• Conclusion: Present final evaluation of the strengths and weaknesses of the argument

Another variation goes right to the assumptions in the argument:

• Detail first assumption; explain problems with it and how to weaken/strengthen the argument.
• Repeat the same for second assumption.
• Repeat the same for third assumption.
• Conclusion: Evaluate the strength of the argument based on the assumptions.

Step 5: Write

The writing process on the argument essay is in some ways a little easier than that of the issue essay. Because the focus of this essay is the logic of the argument, there is no need for creative prose. Instead, you are merely presenting the flaws of the given argument in an objective fashion. Your delivery on the argument essay can be straightforward and simple and you can still get a great score, provided your analysis is sound. Following is what each paragraph needs to contain.

Introduction Paragraph

Your introduction paragraph needs to lay out the basic parts of the argument and let the reader know what the purpose of the essay is. Your introduction should have these elements:

• A statement of the conclusion
• A statement of the premises
• A statement of the essay’s purpose

Body Paragraphs

The body paragraphs of an argument essay should describe the assumptions necessary to the argument and then critique them. A good critique should reveal the weaknesses of the assumptions and also show how the argument could be strengthened. Argument essays do not require specific examples and in many cases, specific examples would be inappropriate. Focus instead on dissecting the logic of the given argument. A body paragraph should have the following components:

• A description of an assumption
• An explanation of the weaknesses of the assumption
• An evaluation of the conclusion in light of the assumption

Conclusion Paragraph

The conclusion paragraph of an argument essay doesn’t need to do much, but as with the issue essay, you need to have one. All you have to do is make a final evaluation of the soundness of the argument.

Before you leave your essay, spend one or two minutes proofreading your essay. Make sure you have all the necessary parts of your essay and that your essay is free from grammatical and spelling errors. Correct any typographical errors. Doing these things will clean up the overall appearance of your essay and can only positively affect your score.

Examples and Analyses of Perfect 6.0 AWA Essays

Now that you know how exactly you should structure your AWA essays, it is time to understand what a perfect essay looks like. In this chapter, we will discuss a couple of examples for perfect 6.0 Argument and Issue essays, and we will also analyze the reasons these essays deserve a perfect score. This will give you a basic idea of the various key aspects of the AWA essays that you should include while writing. These essays have been taken from the ETS Essay Pool itself.

Example and Analysis of a Perfect 6.0 Issue Essay

“When someone achieves greatness in any field such as the arts, science, politics, or business that person’s achievements are more important than any of his or her personal faults.”

When individuals attain greatness, their achievements are more important than their personal faults. While historians should not whitewash the personal foibles of great individuals, the impact that these mortals have had in their fields should tower over any personality defects. To focus on the personal weaknesses of great individuals is to miss the importance of their achievements.

The course of human history is decorated with individuals able to rise above their peers and reach the zenith in their fields. These individuals are often the subject of intense scrutiny from contemporaneous skeptics and later historians. But no one can lead an exemplary private life all the time; no human being is able to withstand such surveillance and historical scrutiny without personal faults coming to light. Great individuals are no exception. However, it is misguided to focus on their personal faults rather than their achievements. To do so is to miss the importance of their work, without which our culture would be worse off.

For example, Abraham Lincoln was arguably one of the greatest Presidents the United States has ever had. He managed to bring the country through a substantial revolution and to end slavery despite powerful economic and social forces working against him day and night. However, Lincoln was not a saint. He was moody and prone to depressive funks that disrupted his family life and slowly eroded his marriage. These personal faults did not reduce his success as a President. While we do not have to ignore questions about whether he was a depressive, we also should not consider them an important part of his political heritage. In contrast, many people criticize Lincoln’s decision to suspend the right of habeas corpus. This (presumed) failing is not personal in nature, but relates directly to Lincoln’s work in his field. Criticisms of this sort are entirely relevant, whereas personal criticisms are not.

Another example of a great individual dogged by criticism of his personal conduct is Albert Einstein. Einstein developed a number of the most important theories in modern physics, including an explanation of the photoelectric effect, an explanation of Brownian motion, special and general relativity, and Bose-Einstein quantum statistics. Each one of these theories would have been considered a great life’s work for a scientist; for one man to contribute this much is remarkable. However, Einstein also had life-long problems with infidelity. The fact that he cheated on his wife is in no way relevant to his accomplishments in the field of physics, and indeed most references to Einstein properly ignore it. To focus attention on the faults of his personal life is to obscure the impact he made on history.

Great individuals have personal faults, as all human beings do. Yet it is incorrect to assert that these faults detract from those individuals’ accomplishments. We are better able to appreciate the gravity of great accomplishments when we are not burying our heads in the sand, in search of personal failings.

Explanation:

The essay above deserves a perfect score, because it takes all the 7 major elements that graders look for, as we have already discussed in chapter 3: Clarity, Structure, Sentence Variety, Vocabulary, Grammar, Evidence, and Reasoning.

The thesis provided by the student is very clear and concise. There is no confusion about which side the student took. The issue essay tests how well we can present a position on an issue effectively and persuasively, and this essay passes both the tests.

The piece is also very well organized. The most popularly used structure “intro-body-body-body-conclusion” really works well for this type of an issue, and the student made good use of it. While the response included only two examples as opposed to the suggested three, the two examples presented are extremely strong. President Lincoln is an ideal case study of a leader whose greatness should be not be obscured by his domestic problems. The same can be said with Einstein; his infidelities may have wounded his family emotionally, but his contribution to modern science and technology will be remembered throughout the history of mankind. So, obviously, two of the most historic and the most apt examples were presented by the student here.

Additionally, the conclusion is substantial and does an excellent job of summing up the essay. The student uses a variety of sentences in order to make the conclusion unique, and not sounding too much like the introduction itself. He/She does a great job of restating the introduction paragraph without sounding overly redundant. Lastly, this essay is extremely well-written, and shows the student’s grasp over written English language. The grammar and syntax are almost flawless, and it is hard to write a better essay response to this issue, in under 30 minutes.

These are the reasons why this essay deserves a straight 6.0 score.

Example and Analysis of a Perfect 6.0 Argument Essay

The following appeared in the editorial section of a national news magazine:

“The rating system for electronic games is similar to the movie rating system in that it provides consumers with a quick reference so that they can determine if the subject matter and contents are appropriate. This electronic game rating system is not working because it is self-regulated and the fines for violating the rating system are nominal. As a result an independent body should oversee the game industry and companies that knowingly violate the rating system should be prohibited from releasing a game for two years.”

Discuss how well reasoned you find this argument. Point out flaws in the argument’s logic and analyze the argument’s underlying assumptions. In addition, evaluate how supporting evidence is used and what evidence might counter the argument’s conclusion. You may also discuss what additional evidence could be used to strengthen the argument or what changes would make the argument more logically sound.

The argument claims that the electronic games rating system, although similar to the movie rating system, is not working because it is self-regulated and violation fines are nominal; Hence, the gaming rating system should be overseen by an independent body. Stated in this way the argument fails to mention several key factors, on the basis of which it could be evaluated. The conclusion relies on assumptions, for which there is no clear evidence. Therefore, the argument is rather weak, unconvincing, and has several flaws.

First, the argument readily assumes that because the electronic game rating system is self-regulated, it is not working well. This statement is a stretch and not substantiated in any way. There are numerous examples in other areas of business or commerce, where the entities are self-regulated and rather successful. For instance, FIA, the Formula1 racing organization is self-regulated. Yet, the sport is very popular and successful, drawing millions of spectators around the world each year. Tickets are rather expensive, races are shown on pay-per-view, and nearly all drivers are paid very well.

Another example is the paralleled movie rating system that the argument mentions. The author fails to clarify whether it is working well, but it is clear that the movie rating system is pretty well received by people, who often base their decisions to go see a movie with kids or not on the movie rating. It has never been a case when someone would feel cheated by the movie rating and express disappointment afterwards. Since the movie rating system is also self-regulated, it follows that this regulatory method is working pretty well and it is not obvious how it can be the reason for the poor electronic game rating system. The argument would have been much clearer if it explicitly gave examples of how the self-regulatory system led to bad ratings and customer dissatisfaction.

Second, the argument claims that any violation fees for bad electronic game ratings are nominal. It thus suggests that this is yet another reason for the rating system not working. This is again a very weak and unsupported claim as the argument does not demonstrate any correlation between the monetary amount of the fines and the quality of the electronic game rating system. In fact, the argument does not even draw a parallel with the mentioned movie rating system and its violation fines. If any such correlation had been shown for the movie rating system, which supposedly works well, then the author would have sounded a bit more convincing. In addition, if the argument provided evidence that low violation fines lead to electronic game manufacturers to ignore any regulations with respect to the game rating system, the argument could have been strengthened even further.

Finally, the argument concludes that an independent body should oversee the game industry and companies that violate the rating system, should be punished. From this statement again, it is not at all clear how an independent regulatory body can do a better job than a self-regulated one. Without supporting evidence and examples from other businesses where independent regulatory bodies have done a great job, one is left with the impression that the claim is more of a wishful thinking rather than substantive evidence. As a result, this conclusion has no legs to stand on.

In summary, the argument is flawed and therefore unconvincing. It could be considerably strengthened if the author clearly mentioned all the relevant facts. In order to assess the merits of a certain situation, it is essential to have full knowledge of all contributing factors.

The piece is also very well organized. The most popularly used structure “intro-body-body-body-conclusion” really works well for this type of an argument, and the student made good use of it. The response included sufficient examples that are pretty solid, and more than satisfy the student’s take. The examples provided are also real-life in nature, as opposed to many hypothetical examples that students write. This gives this essay response quite an edge.

The student uses a variety of sentences in order to make his/her point strong enough to concur with. He/she does a great job of restating the introduction paragraph without sounding overly redundant. All the paragraphs are very well written, and the structure, writing, and vocabulary used by the student shows the student’s grasp over written English language. The grammar and syntax are almost flawless, and it is hard to write a better essay response to this issue, in under 30 minutes.

6 Types of False Reasoning You Should Avoid on the Argument Essay

In order to confuse test takers, the AWA essays will always contain some flawed reasoning or illogical statements. In particular, some of the paragraphs on the AWA Argument essay will contain flawed reasoning, which can appear in many forms. While these forms can potentially be unlimited in number, most of them can be categorized into 6 groups. These are potentially the 6 types of false reasoning that you frequently see on the AWA Argument essays:

• Creating stereotypes. Assuming that characteristics of a group in general apply to each member of that group.
• Assuming that a certain condition is necessary for a certain outcome
• Drawing a weak analogy between two things
• Confusing a cause-effect relationship with a correlation (famously known as post hoc ergo propter hoc, i.e. correlation does not imply causation)
• Relying on inappropriate or potentially unrepresentative statistics
• Relying on biased or tainted data (methods for collecting data must be unbiased and the poll responses must be credible)

Almost all of the argument essays contain more than one of the following flaws, so it is important that you are aware of each and every possible flawed reasoning.

1. The Stereotypical Assumption

We see this happen quite often in our everyday life. People resort to creating stereotypes of a particular person, or a group of people. However, common sense says that it is pretty unrealistic to describe a group and then expect that every single member fulfills the very same characteristics.

For example, saying that ‘Girls are weaker than guys’ or that ‘Asians are geniuses’ is just plain wrong, because in both the cases, the statements are generalized in nature. While both the statements can seem to be true for the most part, we all know that in the real world, some girls are stronger than guys, and that some Asians fail their tests. Which means, one cannot simply make a sweeping statement in either of the aforementioned cases.

Now, you can easily remember this type of false reasoning on the AWA, by relating it to stereotypes. We generally think of stereotypes as harmful because they unfairly limit a certain group to a predefined characteristic that often has little to no evidence. Hence, in order to avoid falling trap to this stereotypical assumption fallacy, you should immediately consider any sentence that generalizes a particular group as plain wrong, and attack that assumption when you are writing your response.

2. The Necessity Assumption:

This is a very frequent type of false reasoning that hides in plain sight. Most students simply cannot identify that this type of reasoning is wrong. The author of an argument usually assumes that a certain condition is necessary to achieve the desired result. This sounds reasonable, but the problem here is, the author simply says that it is necessary to do something to achieve something, and does not provide the necessary evidence which proves that there is no other means of achieving a similar result.

For example, the arguments says that, if students have to perform better in schools, it is necessary that the teachers be more active in the classroom.

Now, this looks like a perfectly logical statement to anyone. But the problem is, the author has not considered whether there are any other ways students can perform better in schools. The author makes a simple statement that outlines only one necessity – the teachers being active – and does not talk about the relevant evidences, or the possibility of other ways to achieve the same result. Of course, there are other factors involved: maybe students can perform better if they study every day at home, or if the school redesigns the curriculum to suit the needs of students, etc. So, you should keep in mind to attack this necessity assumption, and also to include the alternative factors or possibilities.

3. The Illogical Analogy:

Analogy is when someone comes to a conclusion about something on the basis of another thing. For example, if a giant conglomerate has doubled its sales in the last one year because it had spent over $10 million on advertising, then in order for another giant conglomerate to double its sales, it has to spend more than $10 million on advertising.

Now, on the first glance, this might seem like a logical argument. But, if you think about it carefully, it is an illogical analogy that the author has made in order to prove his/her point. The argument may seem sound enough to agree to, but one simply can’t analogize these two scenarios, even though the size of the companies is similar.

First of all, we don’t know if the two companies are based in the same country or not. The demographics in their respective countries may respond to different incentives. And there are several other factors like industry, market size, product quality, support system, target audience, consumer trends, economic situation in the country, etc., that need to be addressed, before the author can make such a comparison. Without this thorough background info, one simply can’t make this analogy, and test takers should hence not fall into such traps.

4. The Correlation – Causation Confusion:

As confusing and bemusing as the title is, this is one of the more frequent fallacies that appear on the AWA argument essays. More famously known as the post hoc fallacy, this is easily one of the most common types of false reasoning you’ll encounter on test day. So it is very important that you master it.

Many arguments try to confuse test takers by arguing that correlation and causation are one and the same. But in fact, they aren’t. There is actually a world of difference between them both. While correlation just means that two events have occurred simultaneously, causation means that one event is the result of another event. Now you understand how different these two are. To illustrate further, let us take this as an example: In the year 2000, Company X released their new computer called Series 5, and that same year, the US witnessed a huge economic recession. Again in 2008, the company released its second computer called Series 6, and the US had undergone another economic recession. So, whenever this company releases a new computer, the economy goes down.

Do you see how illogical it sounds? That is the difference between correlation and causation. The above example shows correlation, and not causation. So, one should be careful enough to understand that just because one event happens after another, it doesn’t mean that the first event caused the other to occur.

5. The Statistical Irrelevance:

You will often find that the AWA arguments cite statistical evidence to support their claims. Now, while we appreciate any kind of statistical data that further bolsters the author’s point of view, we must also be careful to analyze the relevance of the statistical data in a particular scenario.

Sometimes, the argument may cite a statistic according to a survey where a small group of people were asked a question, and based on their views, the author generalized the opinion of the people of the entire city/state/country. For example, if a survey of 1000 people in New York City say that they really need a new park in the city, does it mean that the entire population of the city feel the same? In order to draw a conclusion about anything, a larger sample is required. In order to really identify the voice of the people, the survey should at least include a majority of people in the city. If the population of New York City is 10 million, then the survey should try to include the opinions of at least half that number.

Hence, test takers should keep an eye on statistics mentioned in the arguments made by the author, and try to validate the relevance or significance of the given statistical data.

6. The Data Bias:

Sometimes, even though surveys include a large number of people or a certainly large sample space, it is not enough to conclude that the results obtained from the survey are really true. Biased data is another reason why data can be manipulated with, or tainted easily. For any survey or data to be considered legitimate it has to be collected in an unbiased, fair, and scientific manner.

For example, if a survey was conducted among children in a city, on the question “What is your favorite color?” and the children were given only two options, Blue and Red, one cannot conclude that Red is the most favorite color for the children in the city, even though 83% of the children chose Red. The survey clearly does not ask an open ended question, and is biased towards either Red, or Blue, or both. The survey is designed, consciously or unconsciously, to yield certain desired responses, and this definitely manipulates responses by providing narrow options.

Hence, test takers should question the statistical legitimacy of a survey, and question the author whether the survey or data obtained is scientific and unbiased or not.

Checklist for Argument Essay Task:

Here is a checklist you should use when you practice writing argument essays. Ask yourself these questions to identify the flaws in the given argument.

• Are the facts stated in the argument real or are they just preposterous exaggerations? (Hint: you can always question the source of the information provided in the argument)
• If the argument draws conclusions from any sample statistical data, then is the connection between the data and the conclusion strong?
• Is the sample data taken from the group similar to the other group for which the conclusions were made?
• Is the sample data significant enough?
• Is the provided sample data inconclusive or invalid? Did it exclude other important factors?
• Are the statements mentioned in the argument from an authority on the subject or from individuals trying to voice their concerns/opinions?
• Do you have any real world examples that invalidate the conclusion? (examples from your personal experiences, from articles you read before, from the news or from historical incidents)

Is there anything missing in the argument? Maybe there is really something that should have been mentioned to make the argument more concrete.

How to Finish an Essay in 20 Minutes: 9 Effective Strategies to Save Time on the AWA Section

When it comes to acing any section on the GRE, it all boils down to mastering one key factor – time. Time is the only reason why 99% of the test takers cannot get a perfect score on the GRE, let alone on the AWA. But then, just as pretty much with everything related to the GRE, we at CrunchPrep have cracked the code in order to finish off a brilliantly written essay in under 20 minutes. That’s right, 20 minutes only.

Just as with other sections on the GRE, there are a few time saving strategies that you can adopt on test day, if you want to finish off the AWA section quickly, and still score a perfect 6.0. Here are the 9 most effective time saving strategies that you should implement on test day.

1. Finish off Introduction and Conclusion First

This is an amazing technique that not only saves time for you, but also relieves you of the pressure of writing something in reply. All you have to do is, as soon as you are ready to pen down your response, finish off writing the introduction and the conclusion paragraphs first. Don’t bother touching the other paragraphs yet.

Now you may wonder, how on earth one can write the conclusion part without ever concluding the essay in the first place. Simple. As we have already discussed in the previous chapters, you first outline your essay before you start writing it. So, by the time you are about to start penning down your response, you will have already figured out what you want to write in the introduction, how you want to start off, and how you want to end the conclusion. So, it becomes rather easy for you to get started.

Finish these two very important paragraphs as early as you can, preferably in the first 5 minutes. Now, if you can do this well, you only have three more paragraphs to write, and you have over 20 minutes of time left. You can easily write each paragraph in 5 minutes, and the entire essay will be finished before you know it.

2. Always Be Negative

Even though we asked you to pick a thesis in the previous chapters, you should know that if you want to save time, you will have to try and stay on the negative side. This applies to both the Issue and the Argument essays. If you are wondering why, you should understand how the human brain works when analyzing a controversy. It takes no time for us to point out mistakes in others, while it takes a lot of thinking and courage to appreciate something that is controversial, because our brains are evolutionarily hardwired to stay away from something foreign, in order to protect us. And given the incredibly limited time that you have on your hands, it will be easier for you to criticize the author’s point of view, than to take his/her side.

So, let us go with some prejudice here. Before you even start reading the essay question, you should be in a negative state of mind, and be ready to counter the given essay with lots of criticism. You should believe that whatever the author has written is false, no matter how logical it may seem. This sort of thinking will help you brainstorm the relevant points quickly.

3. Attack the Assumptions

In both the Issue and the Argument essay questions, the author will have made multiple assumptions in order to come to a particular conclusion. It is your job now to attack the very assumption that the author makes. There is no point in attacking mere facts, because we never know if the facts are true or false. Which means, you cannot simply claim that the facts presented are wrong.  But you can always say that the assumption is wrong. So, as soon as you start reading the essay question, figure out where the author has made assumptions, and think about how you can attack them.

4. Don’t Be A Perfectionist

This is a big problem among students today, especially those who really want to get a perfect 6.0 score. Wanting a 6.0 score is okay, but the problem is, these students try to be perfectionists about everything they write. They try to make sure every little thing about their essay response is perfect. Now, while this is a good practice in normal life, you should remember that this will hit you badly on test day. You cannot simply make sure everything you write is perfect, especially when the clock is running after you, and when you are totally stressed out.

A better strategy is to keep writing even though you make mistakes, as once you think you are done with the writing part, then you can start proofreading your copy for mistakes and small errors.

5. Use the Scratch Paper

One of the biggest sins that GRE test takers commit, is that they don’t use the scratch paper to its fullest. Don’t be under the impression that the scratch paper is given only to help you solve quant problems. The scratch paper can be used effectively to score higher on the AWA section too. Use the scratch paper to pen down your thoughts as you are reading the given topic, and also make use of it to outline your essay, and to devise a proper answering strategy.

If you need more details, on how to use the scratch paper on the GRE , we have done a separate post on that. Check out more scratch paper tips and strategies here .

6. Practice Typing

If there is one thing that can help you write a 500-600 word essay in under 20 minutes, it is the ability to type fast. Considering the fact that you will take about 2-3 minutes to read and understand the given question, another 2-3 minutes to figure out what you want to write, and another couple of minutes to outline your essay, you will be left with roughly 20 minutes to write a 600 word essay. Considering the fact that you should save some time to proofread your essay, you should probably be able to type around 600 words in 15 minutes, which means, 200 words every 5 minutes.

Yes, it is possible to type a couple hundred words in 5 minutes, if you already know what you are going to write. Don’t worry about it. 200 words in 5 minutes equals 40 words per minute, which is exactly the global average for typing speed. But still, if you think you can’t type that fast, start practicing today. There are some fantastic free resources like Keybr and TypingWeb available online, that help you learn fast typing.

7. Practice Keyboard Shortcuts

Learning keyboard shortcuts can be really helpful on test day. The word processor on the GRE is quite basic in nature. You’ll have basic keyboard functions, plus three other features: cut, copy, paste, and undo. And that’s all. No other shortcuts or spell checks or other advanced features like bold and underline. Now, these functions work exactly as they do on your computer. You can cut text from a portion of your essay and paste it in at a different point. Or you can use undo (Ctrl + Z) to delete your previous typing. Use these features and reduce the time you spend on editing your essay.

8. Practice! Practice! Practice!

As straightforward as it gets. Just as with the other sections on the GRE, the more you practice writing long essays at home, the higher you score on test day. But there is a catch here: you should practice typing essays on a computer keyboard. This is rather important, because most of us today use laptops and tablet phones to communicate, and the keyboards we normally use differ greatly from those of the desktop computers. You will have to type on a desktop computer keyboard on test day, and it is recommended that you get used to the new keyboard at home itself.

9. Read The Entire AWA Question Pool

We generally don’t recommend this to every student, since most of them don’t have the time to. But if your test is months away from now, it will do you a world of good if you can go through each and every AWA question from the ETS Essay Pool. There are separate question pools for Issue Essays and Argument Essays , and they are not too many in number. You could probably finish them all in a month or two.

Remember that the AWA questions you will see on test day will be from these essay pools only . So, it won’t hurt to check them all out.

Top 101 Transitional Words and Phrases You Should Use to Score a 6.0 on the AWA Section

The difference between a normal essay and a great essay, is the way it is written. Normal essays are lifeless, and they bore readers a few lines into the story. But on the other hand, great essays meticulously use persuasive language, and gain the reader’s attention. In addition to writing compelling reasons and connecting stories, you should also include powerful vocabulary, if you want to get a perfect score. Since a lot of students who take the GRE are non-native speakers, they will not be able to naturally write essays that sound truly professional.

So, here are some of the words and phrases you should be using when you write your AWA essays. You might have seen these words countless times in books, newspapers, or magazines. But it is time for you to include them in your writings, and make your essays sound professional.

Supporting words – for instance, for example, to illustrate, to demonstrate, such as, particularly, specifically, notably

Additional support – moreover, furthermore, in addition, similarly, in the same way, with respect to, as well as

Putting same idea in a different way – in other words, to put it simply, in view of this, with this in mind, to put it differently, that is to say

Opposing words – by contrast, on the other hand, in comparison, on the contrary, instead, though, while, despite, although

Consequential words – as a result, accordingly, thereupon, thence, thus, because, for this reason, in effect

Time indicating words – immediately, formerly, currently, meanwhile, eventually, first, second, finally, previously, henceforth, in due time, subsequently

Certainty words – without doubt, most importantly, indubitably, undoubtedly, needless to say

Comparison words – in comparison, however, likewise, even so, nevertheless, nonetheless, all the same

Positive words – magnificent, grandeur, magnanimous, phenomenal, marvelous, prodigious, formidable, notable, glorious, wonderful, paramount, sublime, flamboyant

Negative words – unfounded, doubtful, questionable, oversimplified, problematic, unconvincing, unacceptable, biased, unreliable, defective, presumptuous, vague, unwarranted, weak

Against the point of view words – one cannot deny that, to be fair, it could be argued that, granted, admittedly, a stark contrast, as contrasted with, on second thoughts

Concluding words – in summary, consequently, hence, in closing, in conclusion, therefore, ultimately, to summarize, on the whole, for the aforementioned reasons

Ultimately, it is the content of the essay that really matters. If you are able to write an astounding essay, you really don’t need any advanced words or phrases. But since it is a herculean task for many students, especially the non-native students, to write a perfectly professional essay in under 30 minutes, it would definitely help if some of these words are included.

But at the same time, students should be careful enough to not simply scatter these words across the essay as they please. These words and phrases should really fit in the context of the essay, and the sentences must smoothly integrate into one another. Hence, refrain from using these words and phrases improperly, and learn when and where to use them in your AWA essay.

27 Mistakes You Should Avoid When Writing Your AWA Essays

Until now, we have discussed numerous techniques and strategies to score a perfect 6.0 on the AWA section. But, we think it would be beneficial if you have all the probable mistakes at one place, so you can safely avoid them all at once. Here are the 27 mistakes that you should strictly avoid while writing your AWA essays. Now, some of these points may sound repetitive since we have already discussed a lot up until now, but think of this as a checklist that can help you figure out the danger zones and possible pitfalls.

1. Writing a cliché ridden essay

While using cliché phrases and sentences may seem like an idea choice for anyone writing an essay, it would more often than not be detrimental to someone writing the GRE. Understanding the fact that hundreds of thousands of students write the same essays every year, you should try and be a bit different, a bit unique. Using the same examples that everyone uses really won’t help you much, because it only looks like you have lifted those lines from someone else’s passage or an online journal. So, try to use your own examples, and your own sentences while writing the AWA essays.

2. Not citing the original author

Sometimes, it would really help if you can use a killer essay quote or two, in your AWA essays. But it is important to remember that you should cite the original author, lest there is chance that you might come off as pretentious. Whenever you are quoting someone’s lines, it is customary to give them the credit. Doing this will not only reinforce your image as a trustworthy individual, but also gives the grader an impression that you are an intellectual person. After all, only uber-smart people can remember great quotes along with their authors’ names.

3. Writing mixed-up paragraphs

If you remember what we discussed about writing and organization in the previous chapters, you should recollect the fact that you must allocate separate paragraphs for every idea or point that you are writing about. Often times, test takers tend to stuff a paragraph with two or three ideas, and end up mixing it up pretty badly. This can often cause confusion, not only to the grader, but also to you. Discussing more than one point in a single paragraph is not at all recommended. Dumping all ideas into a single paragraph is a very bad idea, and shows poor organization. So, make it a point to not mix up paragraphs.

4. Giving away too much in the intro

The most important aspect about writing an article or an essay is to avoid giving away too much information in the very beginning itself. Don’t believe us? Ask any content marketer. The key to writing exceptional essays is to keep the reader intrigued until the last word. This is one of the reasons why we hate our textbooks but love fiction novels: the latter simply keep you interested until the end. So, you might want to implement the same strategy when writing your essays. Do not give away too many key points, or at least your main idea, in the first paragraph itself. There are separate paragraph for that.

5. Using irrelevant examples

Just as we already discussed multiple times throughout this guide, avoid using irrelevant examples as much as you can. Sometimes it is fine to make up your own examples, but remember that they should be very relevant to the rest of the essay. So, as much as you can, try and come up with strong and concrete examples to support your point of view.

6. Not summarizing effectively

One of the more overlooked mistakes in writing is that many test takers tend to not summarize their essays properly. A perfect conclusion paragraph not only includes the main idea or point of view that you chose to side with, but also has a neat summary of all the points that have already been discussed in the previous paragraphs. Now, this doesn’t mean you need to write them all over again, but a quick conclusive line about each paragraph would do you a world of good.

7. Introducing new points in the conclusion

Yes, this happens quite often, and is one of the major reasons why many are not getting close to that perfect AWA score. Sometimes, you finish off writing the entire body of the essay, and move on to the conclusion paragraph. As you are writing it, you are struck with a new point or an idea that you think should be on the essay at all costs. So, what do you do? You somehow try to fit that point somewhere in the conclusion paragraph, and you think it will add to your existing robust set of points. But guess what? You haven’t backed it up properly anywhere in the essay, and hence the entire point sounds irrelevant or insufficient at that point of time. So, avoid introducing new ideas or points in the last paragraph. Be content with what you have already written.

8. Writing immediately

If you have read the previous chapters thoroughly, you would understand that there is a step by step process that you need to follow in order to get closer to the 6.0 score. But, a majority of the students give in to the temporal pressure, and start off writing as soon as they read the question. This will only lead to chaos in the next few minutes, as you will find your head clogged with ideas. So, give it a minute or two, and think about what you are going to write, before you start typing.

9. Not ideating correctly

A poorly presented idea is as good as an idea not presented at all. Whatever point it is that you are trying to make, you should make it correctly. An improper presentation, or a poorly organized idea will only make your essay sound more amateur that anything else.

10. Taking too much time for ideation

As straightforward as it can it, time is the most valuable resource on the GRE. Taking too much time just to gather ideas is not at all good for your score. Almost all the essays you will see on the GRE are quite simple to criticize, and anyone with decent practice can crack the code easily. So, in order to avoid wasting too much time trying to ideate, you should do a bit of practice at home.

11. Not sticking to one side

We’ve already said it out: Go negative! There is no way an average GRE test taker can write a perfectly balanced essay response in under 30 minutes, which is why most of them tend to sway towards a particular side. You should follow suit, if you want to score higher on the AWA section. Not sticking to any one of the sides shows that you are too afraid to stand your ground, or that you are too confused to pick a side. Neither of this is a good image for you, so always pick a side no matter what.

12. Not using templates/structure

There are a few basic structures for writing the AWA, and adopting them would be a good idea, since you don’t have to reinvent the wheel all over again. We have already done most of the hard work for you, and provided some basic structures and templates that you can easily follow. If you can’t make good use of them, at least try to create your own organization or structure. Otherwise, your essay response ends up being too clumsy to understand.

13. Not being specific enough

Whichever side you choose to take, or whatever point you are trying to make, be specific. Never try to beat around the bush and expect to get away with. You are not a politician. Never use vague statements that only lead the grader to more confusion.  Be very specific about your opinions, and have a clear idea of what exactly you are going to write, even if it might sound a bit negative, or a bit harsh on the author.

14. Using complex words just for the sake of using

To paraphrase Maya Angelou’s epic quote, ‘You should use a word only if you know what it exactly means.’ Keep this in mind at all times. Do not use a word just for the sake of using, and end up sounding like a novice writer who is trying to impress people he doesn’t know. Instead, use nice little words that sound simple and professional enough to get you a good score.

15. Not using transitional words

Your essay should read like a story. Every paragraph that you write should have a smooth beginning and a smooth ending, thus making the entire essay readable. This can only happen when you use transitional words and phrases that are like bridges linking one paragraph with another. Not using transitional words can make your prompt sound abrupt and hence, not perfect.

16. Not sounding confident enough

Whether it is an Issue essay or an Argument essay, you are asked to give your opinion. Which means, you are entitled to write whatever it is that you have in mind. Nobody is going to argue, or disagree with you, so there is no need to get defensive at all. Using words such as ‘I think’, ‘in my opinion’, ‘perhaps’, ‘Maybe’, etc., will give the reader the impression that you are not confident enough to put your ideas forth. So, be more confident, and more authoritative when you are writing your opinions. Write like an expert editor of a newspaper, not like a newly recruited intern.

17. Using the word ‘I’ very often

While it is perfectly alright to sound like an expert, it is not alright to sound narcissistic and repetitive. A lot of students use the word ‘I’ way too often that it puts the reader off. Yes, everybody already knows that it is you who wrote the essay and that all the ideas presented in the essay are yours. There is no point in saying ‘I think this’, or ‘I would do that’ etc. A few times is fine, but too many times isn’t welcome at all.

18. Using the same sentence structure over and over again

If you remember what we said earlier, sentence variety is as important as anything else. Using monotonous sentence structures or repetitive phrases throughout the essay is a pretty bad idea, since it tells the reader that you, as a writer, lack variety, or creativity. So, try to rephrase the same sentences and write something else that means the same. Like many other things in life, this comes with a lot of practice.

19. Not including a counter argument

Agreeing with the author to some extent will give the grader a great impression about you as a writer, but if you keep on agreeing with the author’s points of view, without including any new information from your side, you will surely come off as someone without any knowledge about the given subject. Given the fact that almost all essays come from a wide range of topics, and that they don’t need any special prior knowledge, it would be bad if you cannot counter the author’s deliberately wrong point of view along with your two cents.

20. Contradicting yourself

With so many arguments and counter arguments clogged inside your mind, and with the speeding clock on the screen, it is possible that you somehow contradict your own argument. Sometimes, when writing the third or the fourth paragraphs, test takers contradict their own opinions or points of view that they put forward in the first one or two paragraphs. This clearly shows that you get confused easily. So, don’t contradict your own statements, and always read what you have written.

21. Letting writer’s block take over your AWA

Writer’s block is when an author loses the ability to write something new. This has happened to the greatest of writers, and will probably happen to you too, if you don’t practice well enough before the test. If you are someone who is not used to writing a lot, then should start practicing for the AWA, unless you want to end up staring at the screen pondering how to begin the essay.

22. Affecting other sections due to mistakes in AWA

Also you already know, you will face the AWA section first. Don’t let the AWA section set the tone for the rest of the test. Sometimes AWA goes great, and you’ll feel extremely confident (or overconfident) about the remaining sections. Sometimes, you may not do well on the AWA and feel gusted about yourself, which affects the other sections. So, try to stay unaffected by the result. Remember; you are the one who sets the tone, not a couple of essay questions.

23. Focusing a lot on grammar and vocabulary

Even though grammar and vocabulary are really important when it comes to scoring higher on the AWA, you should not overstress their importance. Write whatever you can and as much as you can. Do not bother about silly grammatical errors or workaday vocabulary. Once you think you are done with writing, then go back and read everything, correct those grammatical mistakes, or replace those boring words with good vocabulary. But, do it only once you are done with the essay.

24. Writing unnecessarily long sentences

Mark Twain once said ‘If I had more time, I would have written a shorter letter.’ That shows how difficult it is to write short and concise sentences. Anybody can write long gibberish in a short time, but it takes lots of practice, time and talent to keep it simple. Now, even though you are not blessed with a lot of time during the GRE test, you should try to minimize your sentences to make them sound smarter. Don’t try to use filler words or phrases so you could increase the word count. Quality trumps quantity any day.

25. Using slang language.

Writing as if you are chatting with a friend is something that happens quite often during exams. Using chat language and shortened forms of words like u, hw, y, etc. is bound to happen, especially if you are not very adept at writing often. If however, you find yourself using these sort of words in your essay, your chances of getting a good AWA score will rapidly decrease. So, it wouldn’t hurt to do a bit of practice at home before test day.

26. Attacking the issue task as if it’s an argument

Or vice versa. It is possible to get confused between an issue essay and an argument and test takers often mistake one for the other. This could be the gravest mistake you will ever make on the AWA section, because if you cannot understand whether the given question is an Issue or an Argument task, then you cannot write a proper response at all. So, make sure you don’t get confused between the two essay formats or structures, and that you have a clear understanding of both the question types.

27. Not leaving time for proofreading

Proofreading is often neglected because test takers simply don’t have the time. They think they cannot afford to waste one or two minutes proofreading the essay, while they can use the same time to write an additional sentence or two. But as a matter of fact, a perfect 400 word essay gets a higher score than an imperfect 450 word essay. So, you should rather focus on improving what you have already written, and try to spend at least three to four minutes on proofreading what you have written.

So, this is the most comprehensive list of mistakes that you can avoid on the AWA section of the GRE. With this, we come to the end of this ultimate guide. And if this were any other guide, we would have finished it here. But since this is an advanced guide for the AWA, we would like to give you something special. Something that is exclusive to only you. In our bonus chapter, we would like to give you a bonus: A couple of super-secret templates that you can use, if you want to speed up your AWA preparation.

Bonus Chapter – Mind-Blowing Templates to Score a 6.0 on the AWA Section

This bonus chapter includes mind boggling AWA Essay templates that will get you a sure shot 6.0 score. We have created these templates after examining several hundreds of AWA essays and responses from students across the world. This chapter contains both AWA Issue Essay Template and AWA Argument Essay Template separately. Using these templates will get you guaranteed results, and you will see a perfect 6.0 score on your own essays, guaranteed.

NOTE: But wait! Just because we have given you a couple of templates, it doesn’t mean that you just copy the same content during your actual GRE test. Remember, this website gets thousands of visitors every day, and if every single one of you use the same template, very soon, all your AWA scores will be cancelled and your essay response will be held for plagiarism. We definitely don’t want that to happen, do we? So, better be careful.

We strongly advise you to use these templates as frameworks, and use them to create your own templates for both the essay questions. The templates provided here are just for reference, and it will only help you if you create similar templates for yourself, rather than using the ones given here.

Download the AWA essay template right now!

So, that’s about it. We have come to an end of this epic guide to ace the analytical writing section on the GRE. We have discussed about 71 invaluable strategies that you could use to improve your writing skills, and thereby get a perfect score on the AWA section.

This is by far the most comprehensive GRE Analytical Writing guide in the world. It was created to help you ace the Analytical Writing section in the GRE. If you think this is very helpful, or if you really loved it, share it with your friends right now! Our goal is to help as many students as we can. So what are you waiting for? Go share or tweet the living daylights out of this guide!

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• What is the GMAT?
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Home » Free GRE Prep Course » Free GRE Prep Course » Template

ESSAY STRUCTURE

As with the Issue essay, there is no single “correct” way to organize an Argument essay.

Video Courtesy of Kaplan GRE prep.

Introductory Paragraph (2-4 sentences)

Try to accomplish three goals in your introductory paragraph:

• Briefly restate the argument in your own words.
• Briefly trace the argument’s line of reasoning.
• Indicate the extent to which the argument is logically convincing.
• If possible, sum up your arguments in one sentence (or two brief sentences).

The following is a sample template for the first paragraph that accomplishes these goals:

The author concludes that____________, because ________. The author’s line of reasoning is that ______________. This argument is unconvincing for several reasons; it is____________ and it uses _____________.

First Body Paragraph (3-5 sentences)

In the first body paragraph, your goal is to critique one of the following:

• The reasoning of the argument
• One of the premises of the argument
• One of the assumptions of the argument

The following is a sample template for this paragraph that accomplishes this goal:

First of all, ____________________________ is based upon the questionable assumption ________________________________. That _______________, however, _________________. Moreover, ________________________.

The purpose of the second paragraph is to address one of the following:

Secondly, the author assumes that_________________________. However, __________________________. It seems equally reasonable to assume that____________________.

Third (and optional Fourth) Body Paragraph

In this paragraph, your goal is to critique one of the following:

Finally, _______________________________________. The author fails to consider__________________________________. For example, __________________. Because the author’s argument _________________.

Final Paragraph (2-3 sentences)

In the final paragraph, your goals are to:

• Summarize your critique of the argument
• State the main point of your essay

The final paragraph is not the place to introduce new arguments or issues. Sample template:

In sum, I agree that______________________. However, ____________________; on balance, _____________________.

The numbers of sentences indicated for each paragraph are guidelines, not hard-and-fast rules.

Do not be a Parrot The transitional phrases used here are purposely simplistic; do not simply “parrot” them word-for-word in your essay or adopt a fill-in the blank approach. If you do, your essay might appear stilted or contrived.

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• Eliminating Fill Sentences
• Analysis of Argument Questions
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GRE Issue Essay Template and Sample Issue Essay

• April 6, 2023

The first essay you’ll have to write when you sit down to take the GRE is the GRE Issue Essay. It’s only 30 minutes and can be a bit of a challenge…

So you need a strong game plan.

But should you really worry about the essays since they don’t factor into your quantitative and verbal scores?

Absolutely!

We tell our students that while the essay scores may not be of importance to graduate programs, the ease of writing them should be important to you. The Analysis of an Issue and Argument essays are the first sections of the GRE. You don’t want to go into them frazzled and anxious. You definitely don’t want to finish them feeling like you could have done better. Unfortunately, this anxiety will carry into the rest of the test and NOT pave the road to earning your best GRE score.

To help you relax into the essays and the rest of the test, we’re sharing the exact template and sample essay we show our GRE students. Before you take a look, read these tips on how to practice with them.

GRE Issue Essay Practice Tips

1. Words to use in every issue essay are in blue on the template.

You want to have these transitions and links well practice so that you can use them automatically on the test. Obviously, if you’re not Arab, you should change the Arabic saying part to your language or culture.

2. Your GRE issue essay should be 4 or 5 paragraphs depending on the question.

Some questions ask you to evaluate another opinion, discuss a disadvantage, or give an opposing viewpoint. Therefore, you need another body paragraph to respond to that part of the prompt.

3. The sample GRE issue essay is directly from ETS, so don’t copy the essay.

Think about how your examples and reasons can be used to respond to the prompt.

PEEL means Point – Example – Explanation – Link. The blue in the sample essay shows how well the body paragraphs conform to the PEEL writing format.

5. Always outline your essay first.

It is very obvious to a trained reader when students don’t outline their essays first. You just have to jot down your opinion and reasons or examples in a quick list. This quick outline will help keep you focused and make your writing more cohesive.

6. Check out the full list of GRE issue essay prompts .

You shouldn’t write essays for each prompt (there are a lot). However, you should read over the whole list looking for differences in the ways questions are asked. Then, pick 10 prompts to practice outlining. Of those 10, pick 5 essays to write fully.

7. For extra practice, work on the parts, rather than the whole.

Just write an introduction, a body paragraph, or a conclusion for some of the essay prompts. After outlining, of course. This type of focused writing will improve the individual parts of the essay, resulting in an entire essay that is much better overall. You don’t have to write the parts for the same essay. Switch it up!

8. When you write a full essay, do it in 30 minutes.

Practice the way you are going to perform. By the time you write your second full essay, you should be writing in only 30 minutes. Set a timer and type the essay on the computer without using spell check or Grammarly. Ideally, you will write the essays when you do a full-length GRE practice test . It’s important to develop stamina for the full 4-hour test.

GRE Issue Essay Template

In Arabic we have a saying, “[relevant quote here even if you have to make it up].” Write your thesis as a direct response to the statement in the prompt. Preview your reasons in 1 sentence.

First, write your first reason here. For example, put your example here. Explain your example making sure to include as many vivid details as possible. [Example name] ’s example demonstrates that [reason 1 again].

Second, write your second reason here. For instance, put your example here. Explain your example making sure to include as many vivid details as possible.

[You may need another paragraph depending on what the prompt asks you to do.]

In summary, restate thesis. Restate your two reasons here. The examples of [example 1] and [example 2] show that [something profound related to the thesis].

GRE Issue Essay Sample Prompt

As people rely more and more on technology to solve problems, the ability of humans to think for themselves will surely deteriorate.

Discuss the extent to which you agree or disagree with the statement and explain your reasoning for the position you take. In developing and supporting your position, you should consider ways in which the statement might or might not hold true and explain how these considerations shape your position.

Sample GRE Issue Essay

[Hook] Surely there has been no time in history where the lived lives of people have changed more dramatically. [Thesis] Over the past century, technology has positively affected free thinking and human experience. [Preview of reasons] Not only does technology offer humans the necessary efficiency to tackle big problems, but it also unlocks the imagination to design solutions.

[Point] First, technology releases additional time for people to live more efficiently. [Example] For example, most people commute to work in an automobile that runs on an internal combustion engine. During the workday, chances are high that the employee will interact with a computer that processes information on silicon bridges that are .09 microns wide. Upon leaving home, family members will be reached through wireless networks that utilize satellites orbiting the earth. [Explanation] Without a car, computer, or mobile phone, the average worker would need to find alternate methods of transport, information processing and communication. [Link] Technology allows humans to spend time solving important high-level problems, rather than generating repetitive solutions to mundane issues.

[Point] Second, technology frees the human imagination to achieve once impossible goals. [Example] Consider how the late 20th century witnessed the complete elimination of smallpox. [Explanation]  This disease had ravaged the human race since prehistorical days, and yet with the technology of vaccines, free thinking humans dared to imagine a world free of smallpox. Using technology, battle plans were drawn out, and smallpox was systematically targeted and eradicated. [Link] By increasing reliance on technology, doctors were able to use it to provide hope to the future of humanity.

[This paragraph is necessary because the prompt asks to consider when your opinion might not hold true.]

[Point] The efficiency and imagination stimulated by technology does not preclude the need for humans to think for themselves. In fact, technology frees humanity to not only tackle new problems, but may itself create new issues that did not exist without technology, thereby requiring even more imagination to solve them. [Example] For instance, the proliferation of automobiles has introduced a need for fuel conservation on a global scale. With increasing energy demands from emerging markets, global warming becomes a concern inconceivable to the horse-and-buggy generation. [Explanation] Likewise, dependence on oil has created nation-states that are not dependent on taxation, allowing ruling parties to oppress minority groups such as women. [Link] Solutions to these complex problems require the unfettered imaginations of maverick scientists and politicians.

[Restatement of thesis] In summary, there is no need to fear the deleterious effects of technology on humans’ ability to think. [Restatement of reasons] Technology can free time and imagination for solving important problems. [Restatement of examples] Technology will always mark the human experience, from the invention of the automobile to the implementation of nanotechnology. Given the history of the human race, there will be no limit to the number of problems, both new and old, for us to tackle. [Closer] There is no need to retreat to a Luddite attitude to new things, but rather embrace a hopeful posture to the possibilities that technology provides for new avenues of human imagination.

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PrepScholar GRE Prep

Gre prep online guides and tips, 328 official gre essay topics to practice with.

ETS has published the complete pool of 328 GRE essay topics which will ever appear on the Analytical Writing section of the test. While these collections of prompts provide unparalleled Analytical Writing practice, some test takers may find the sheer number of possible essay topics to be a bit overwhelming.

In this article, we’ve assembled over 60 official GRE essay topics for both the Issue and Argument tasks and used them to illustrate the 14 different kinds of GRE writing prompts you could see on test day. With this expert analysis, you’ll know how to tackle any GRE essay prompt that comes your way.

feature image credit: Female Typing /used under CC BY 2.0 /Resized and cropped from original.

GRE Essay Topics Pool: How It Works

ETS has publicly listed all the essay topics that will ever appear on the GRE for both the Analyze an Issue and the Analyze an Argument Analytical Writing tasks.

There are 152 different possible GRE essay topics in the GRE Issue pool and 176 different GRE essay topics in the GRE Argument pool , which means it’s unlikely you’ll run out of official prompts to practice with. And while there’s only a 1/328 chance that one of the GRE writing prompts you practice with ends up being on the test, that’s still better odds than if you practiced with non-official prompts, especially if you end up using a lot of practice prompts.

Each set of GRE essay topics can further be broken down by the specific task you’re asked to complete in your answer . We’ll start by looking at the six different possible GRE Issue essay topics.

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GRE Issue Pool

Each Analyze an Issue essay topic “consists of an issue statement or statements followed by specific task instructions that tell you how to respond to the issue” (source: ETS ). The specific words used for the topics might be a little different on the test, but in general what you see in the GRE issue pool is what you’ll get.

ETS also warns test takers that there might be some mix-and-matching of different issues with different task instructions among the prompts , so don’t skip over the prompt if you recognize the issue; it’s possible that you’ll have written about the issue before in response to a different task.

The specifics of the task you’re asked to do differ depending on the prompt, but the core of all the Issue tasks is this one question: Do you agree or disagree with this (statement, view, claim, conclusion, recommendation, policy) and/or its basis?

There are 152 different pairings of issues and tasks in the GRE issue pool. Among these GRE essay topics, however, there are actually only six tasks you’ll be asked to perform , and not all tasks are equally common.

Below, we’ve analyzed these six GRE essay prompts. In addition to presenting each task as it will appear on the GRE , we’ve also determined the likelihood of the task showing up on the test and provided a sampling of the issues that you might see paired with the task.

Issue Task 1: Agree/Disagree With a Statement

Write a response in which you discuss the extent to which you agree or disagree with the statement and explain your reasoning for the position you take. In developing and supporting your position, you should consider ways in which the statement might or might not hold true and explain how these considerations shape your position.

What they’re really asking : Explain your reasons for agreeing or disagreeing with a given statement .

Number of topics in the GRE issue pool on this task : 54/152 ( 35.5% )

Examples of the statements to be analyzed

• To understand the most important characteristics of a society, one must study its major cities.
• In any field of inquiry, the beginner is more likely than the expert to make important contributions.
• There is little justification for society to make extraordinary efforts – especially at a great cost in money and jobs – to save endangered animal or plant species.
• Unfortunately, in contemporary society, creating an appealing image has become more important than the reality or truth behind that image.
• Government officials should rely on their own judgment rather than unquestioningly carry out the will of the people whom they serve.
• The best test of an argument is the argument’s ability to convince someone with an opposing viewpoint.
• If a goal is worthy, then any means taken to attain it are justifiable.
• The primary goal of technological advancement should be to increase people’s efficiency so that they have more leisure time.
• We can learn much more from people whose views we share than from people whose views contradict our own.
• Any leader who is quickly and easily influenced by shifts in popular opinion will accomplish little.
• True success can be measured primarily in terms of the goals one sets for oneself.

Issue Task 2: Agree/Disagree With a Recommendation

Write a response in which you discuss the extent to which you agree or disagree with the recommendation and explain your reasoning for the position you take. In developing and supporting your position, describe specific circumstances in which adopting the recommendation would or would not be advantageous and explain how these examples shape your position.

What they’re really asking : Explain your reasons for agreeing or disagreeing with a recommendation for a course of action .

Number of topics in the GRE issue pool on this task : 24/152 ( 15.8% )

Examples of the recommendations to be analyzed

• Governments should focus on solving the immediate problems of today rather than on trying to solve the anticipated problems of the future.
• College students should be encouraged to pursue subjects that interest them rather than the courses that seem most likely to lead to jobs.
• Scientists and other researchers should focus their research on areas that are likely to benefit the greatest number of people.
• Nations should suspend government funding for the arts when significant numbers of their citizens are hungry or unemployed.
• Educators should base their assessment of students’ learning not on students’ grasp of facts but on the ability to explain the ideas, trends, and concepts that those facts illustrate.

Issue Task 3: Agree/Disagree With a Claim

Write a response in which you discuss the extent to which you agree or disagree with the claim. In developing and supporting your position, be sure to address the most compelling reasons and/or examples that could be used to challenge your position.

What they’re really asking : Explain your reasons for agreeing or disagreeing with a claim .

Number of topics in the GRE issue pool on this task : 25/152 ( 16.4% )

Examples of the claims to be analyzed

• Universities should require every student to take a variety of courses outside the student’s field of study.
• It is no longer possible for a society to regard any living man or woman as a hero.
• Critical judgment of work in any given field has little value unless it comes from someone who is an expert in that field.
• In most professions and academic fields, imagination is more important than knowledge.
• Nations should pass laws to preserve any remaining wilderness areas in their natural state.

Issue Task 4: Which view aligns with your own?

Write a response in which you discuss which view more closely aligns with your own position and explain your reasoning for the position you take. In developing and supporting your position, you should address both of the views presented.

What they’re really asking : Explain which two views you most agree with and back it up with reasoning.

Number of topics in the GRE issue pool on this task : 18/152 ( 11.8% )

Examples of the views to be analyzed

• Some people believe it is often necessary, even desirable, for political leaders to withhold information from the public. Others believe that the public has a right to be fully informed.
• Some people claim that you can tell whether a nation is great by looking at the achievements of its rulers, artists, or scientists. Others argue that the surest indicator of a great nation is, in fact, the general welfare of all its people.
• Some people believe that corporations have a responsibility to promote the well-being of the societies and environments in which they operate. Others believe that the only responsibility of corporations, provided they operate within the law, is to make as much money as possible.

Issue Task 5: Agree/Disagree With a Claim and Its Basis

Write a response in which you discuss the extent to which you agree or disagree with the claim and the reason on which that claim is based.

What they’re really asking : Analyze an issue by explaining your reasons for agreeing or disagreeing with not just the claim, but the reason on which the claim is based .

Number of topics in the GRE issue pool on this task : 19/152 ( 12.5% )

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• Claim: When planning courses, educators should take into account the interests and suggestions of their students.Reason: Students are more motivated to learn when they are interested in what they are studying. Write a response in which you discuss the extent to which you agree or disagree with the claim and the reason on which that claim is based.
• Claim: Any piece of information referred to as a fact should be mistrusted, since it may well be proven false in the future.Reason: Much of the information that people assume is factual actually turns out to be inaccurate.
• Claim: Imagination is a more valuable asset than experience.Reason: People who lack experience are free to imagine what is possible without the constraints of established habits and attitudes.
• Claim: Knowing about the past cannot help people to make important decisions today.Reason: We are not able to make connections between current events and past events until we have some distance from both.

Issue Task 6: Explain Your Views on a Policy

Write a response in which you discuss your views on the policy and explain your reasoning for the position you take. In developing and supporting your position, you should consider the possible consequences of implementing the policy and explain how these consequences shape your position.

What they’re really asking : Explain your stance on a policy .

Number of topics in the GRE issue pool on this task : 12/152 ( 7.9% )

Example of a policy to be analyzed

• In any field – business, politics, education, government – those in power should be required to step down after five years. Write a response in which you discuss your views on the policy and explain your reasoning for the position you take. In developing and supporting your position, you should consider the possible consequences of implementing the policy and explain how these consequences shape your position.

GRE Argument Pool

For the Argument task on the GRE, you’ll be asked to read a short passage containing an argument and then analyze that argument according to instructions.

As with the Issue task, there might be some very slight variations in wording between the way the tasks are written on the test as compared to the way they are online , but for the most part what you see online is what will be on the GRE. Similarly, there may be some arguments that are repeated across prompts in the GRE Argument pool, but they’ll each be followed by a different task, so it’s important to read the entire essay prompt (including the task) before beginning your analysis .

There are some commonalities across all of the essay prompts on the GRE Argument pool page, even beyond the fact that every task asks you to look at some kind of argument and analyze it. Of the 176 possible Argument topics , there are just eight different tasks you’ll be asked to perform, and of those eight tasks, numbers 3, 4, 6, 8 below are all basically different ways of asking you to “evaluate this stance and explain why you’ve determined whether or not it has a reasonable basis.”

Below, we’ve presented each of the eight GRE writing prompts  as they will appear on the exam, figured out how likely the task is to show up , and given some examples of arguments you might be asked to analyze.

Argument Task 1: Evaluate an Argument and Evidence

Write a response in which you discuss what specific evidence is needed to evaluate the argument and explain how the evidence would weaken or strengthen the argument.

What they’re really asking : Discuss how different, specific evidence could weaken or strengthen the argument.

Number of topics in the GRE argument pool on this task : 52/176 ( 29.5% )

Examples of the arguments to be analyzed

• The following appeared in a letter from a firm providing investment advice to a client. “Homes in the northeastern United States, where winters are typically cold, have traditionally used oil as their major fuel for heating. Last year that region experienced twenty days with below-average temperatures, and local weather forecasters throughout the region predict that this weather pattern will continue for several more years. Furthermore, many new homes have been built in this region during the past year. Because of these developments, we predict an increased demand for heating oil and recommend investment in Consolidated Industries, one of whose major business operations is the retail sale of home heating oil.”
• The following appeared in a memorandum from the manager of WWAC radio station. “To reverse a decline in listener numbers, our owners have decided that WWAC must change from its current rock-music format. The decline has occurred despite population growth in our listening area, but that growth has resulted mainly from people moving here after their retirement. We must make listeners of these new residents. We could switch to a music format tailored to their tastes, but a continuing decline in local sales of recorded music suggests limited interest in music. Instead we should change to a news and talk format, a form of radio that is increasingly popular in our area.”
• Three years ago, because of flooding at the Western Palean Wildlife Preserve, 100 lions and 100 western gazelles were moved to the East Palean Preserve, an area that is home to most of the same species that are found in the western preserve, though in larger numbers, and to the eastern gazelle, a close relative of the western gazelle. The only difference in climate is that the eastern preserve typically has slightly less rainfall. Unfortunately, after three years in the eastern preserve, the imported western gazelle population has been virtually eliminated. Since the slight reduction in rainfall cannot be the cause of the virtual elimination of western gazelle, their disappearance must have been caused by the larger number of predators in the eastern preserve.
• The following appeared in a recommendation from the president of Amburg’s Chamber of Commerce. “Last October the city of Belleville installed high-intensity lighting in its central business district, and vandalism there declined within a month. The city of Amburg has recently begun police patrols on bicycles in its business district, but the rate of vandalism there remains constant. We should install high-intensity lighting throughout Amburg, then, because doing so is a more effective way to combat crime. By reducing crime in this way, we can revitalize the declining neighborhoods in our city.”
• The following appeared in a memo from the vice president of Butler Manufacturing. “During the past year, workers at Butler Manufacturing reported 30 percent more on-the-job accidents than workers at nearby Panoply Industries, where the work shifts are one hour shorter than ours. A recent government study reports that fatigue and sleep deprivation among workers are significant contributing factors in many on-the-job accidents. If we shorten each of our work shifts by one hour, we can improve Butler Manufacturing’s safety record by ensuring that our employees are adequately rested.”
• The following appeared in a letter to the editor of Parson City’s local newspaper. “In our region of Trillura, the majority of money spent on the schools that most students attend – the city-run public schools – comes from taxes that each city government collects. The region’s cities differ, however, in the budgetary priority they give to public education. For example, both as a proportion of its overall tax revenues and in absolute terms, Parson City has recently spent almost twice as much per year as Blue City has for its public schools – even though both cities have about the same number of residents. Clearly, Parson City residents place a higher value on providing a good education in public schools than Blue City residents do.”
• Milk and dairy products are rich in vitamin D and calcium – substances essential for building and maintaining bones. Many people therefore say that a diet rich in dairy products can help prevent osteoporosis, a disease that is linked to both environmental and genetic factors and that causes the bones to weaken significantly with age. But a long-term study of a large number of people found that those who consistently consumed dairy products throughout the years of the study have a higher rate of bone fractures than any other participants in the study. Since bone fractures are symptomatic of osteoporosis, this study result shows that a diet rich in dairy products may actually increase, rather than decrease, the risk of osteoporosis.
• The following appeared in a memo at XYZ company. “When XYZ lays off employees, it pays Delany Personnel Firm to offer those employees assistance in creating resumes and developing interviewing skills, if they so desire. Laid-off employees have benefited greatly from Delany’s services: last year those who used Delany found jobs much more quickly than did those who did not. Recently, it has been proposed that we use the less expensive Walsh Personnel Firm in place of Delany. This would be a mistake because eight years ago, when XYZ was using Walsh, only half of the workers we laid off at that time found jobs within a year. Moreover, Delany is clearly superior, as evidenced by its bigger staff and larger number of branch offices. After all, last year Delany’s clients took an average of six months to find jobs, whereas Walsh’s clients took nine.”
• An ancient, traditional remedy for insomnia – the scent of lavender flowers – has now been proved effective. In a recent study, 30 volunteers with chronic insomnia slept each night for three weeks on lavender-scented pillows in a controlled room where their sleep was monitored electronically. During the first week, volunteers continued to take their usual sleeping medication. They slept soundly but wakened feeling tired. At the beginning of the second week, the volunteers discontinued their sleeping medication. During that week, they slept less soundly than the previous week and felt even more tired. During the third week, the volunteers slept longer and more soundly than in the previous two weeks. Therefore, the study proves that lavender cures insomnia within a short period of time.

Argument Task 2: Examine Assumptions and Implications

Write a response in which you examine the stated and/or unstated assumptions of the argument. Be sure to explain how the argument depends on these assumptions, and what the implications are for the argument if the assumptions prove unwarranted.

What they’re really asking : Discuss assumptions made in the argument and how the argument would be strengthened or weakened if the assumptions are wrong .

Number of topics in the GRE argument pool on this task : 50/176 ( 28.4% )

• Nature’s Way, a chain of stores selling health food and other health-related products, is opening its next franchise in the town of Plainsville. The store should prove to be very successful: Nature’s Way franchises tend to be most profitable in areas where residents lead healthy lives, and clearly Plainsville is such an area. Plainsville merchants report that sales of running shoes and exercise clothing are at all-time highs. The local health club has more members than ever, and the weight training and aerobics classes are always full. Finally, Plainsville’s schoolchildren represent a new generation of potential customers: these schoolchildren are required to participate in a fitness-for-life program, which emphasizes the benefits of regular exercise at an early age.
• The following was written as a part of an application for a small-business loan by a group of developers in the city of Monroe. “Jazz music is extremely popular in the city of Monroe: over 100,000 people attended Monroe’s annual jazz festival last summer, and the highest-rated radio program in Monroe is ‘Jazz Nightly,’ which airs every weeknight. Also, a number of well-known jazz musicians own homes in Monroe. Nevertheless, the nearest jazz club is over an hour away. Given the popularity of jazz in Monroe and a recent nationwide study indicating that the typical jazz fan spends close to $1,000 per year on jazz entertainment, a jazz music club in Monroe would be tremendously profitable.”
• The following appeared in a letter to the editor of a journal on environmental issues. “Over the past year, the Crust Copper Company (CCC) has purchased over 10,000 square miles of land in the tropical nation of West Fredonia. Mining copper on this land will inevitably result in pollution and, since West Fredonia is the home of several endangered animal species, in environmental disaster. But such disasters can be prevented if consumers simply refuse to purchase products that are made with CCC’s copper unless the company abandons its mining plans.”
• Humans arrived in the Kaliko Islands about 7,000 years ago, and within 3,000 years most of the large mammal species that had lived in the forests of the Kaliko Islands had become extinct. Yet humans cannot have been a factor in the species’ extinctions, because there is no evidence that the humans had any significant contact with the mammals. Further, archaeologists have discovered numerous sites where the bones of fish had been discarded, but they found no such areas containing the bones of large mammals, so the humans cannot have hunted the mammals. Therefore, some climate change or other environmental factor must have caused the species’ extinctions.
• The following appeared in a memo from the vice president of marketing at Dura-Sock, Inc. “A recent study of our customers suggests that our company is wasting the money it spends on its patented Endure manufacturing process, which ensures that our socks are strong enough to last for two years. We have always advertised our use of the Endure process, but the new study shows that despite our socks’ durability, our average customer actually purchases new Dura-Socks every three months. Furthermore, our customers surveyed in our largest market, northeastern United States cities, say that they most value Dura-Socks’ stylish appearance and availability in many colors. These findings suggest that we can increase our profits by discontinuing use of the Endure manufacturing process.”
• When Stanley Park first opened, it was the largest, most heavily used public park in town. It is still the largest park, but it is no longer heavily used. Video cameras mounted in the park’s parking lots last month revealed the park’s drop in popularity: the recordings showed an average of only 50 cars per day. In contrast, tiny Carlton Park in the heart of the business district is visited by more than 150 people on a typical weekday. An obvious difference is that Carlton Park, unlike Stanley Park, provides ample seating. Thus, if Stanley Park is ever to be as popular with our citizens as Carlton Park, the town will obviously need to provide more benches, thereby converting some of the unused open areas into spaces suitable for socializing.
• While the Department of Education in the state of Attra recommends that high school students be assigned homework every day, the data from a recent statewide survey of high school math and science teachers give us reason to question the usefulness of daily homework. In the district of Sanlee, 86 percent of the teachers reported assigning homework three to five times a week, whereas in the district of Marlee, less than 25 percent of the teachers reported assigning homework three to five times a week. Yet the students in Marlee earn better grades overall and are less likely to be required to repeat a year of school than are the students in Sanlee. Therefore, all teachers in our high schools should assign homework no more than twice a week.
• The following appeared in a memo to the board of directors of Bargain Brand Cereals. “One year ago we introduced our first product, Bargain Brand breakfast cereal. Our very low prices quickly drew many customers away from the top-selling cereal companies. Although the companies producing the top brands have since tried to compete with us by lowering their prices and although several plan to introduce their own budget brands, not once have we needed to raise our prices to continue making a profit. Given our success in selling cereal, we recommend that Bargain Brand now expand its business and begin marketing other low-priced food products as quickly as possible.”
• The following is a recommendation from the personnel director to the president of Acme Publishing Company. “Many other companies have recently stated that having their employees take the Easy Read Speed-Reading Course has greatly improved productivity. One graduate of the course was able to read a 500-page report in only two hours; another graduate rose from an assistant manager to vice president of the company in under a year. Obviously, the faster you can read, the more information you can absorb in a single workday. Moreover, Easy Read would cost Acme only $500 per employee — a small price to pay when you consider the benefits. Included in this fee is a three-week seminar in Spruce City and a lifelong subscription to the Easy Read newsletter. Clearly, Acme would benefit greatly by requiring all of our employees to take the Easy Read course.”

Argument Task 3: Evaluate a Recommendation and Its Basis

Write a response in which you discuss what questions would need to be answered in order to decide whether the recommendation and the argument on which it is based are reasonable. Be sure to explain how the answers to these questions would help to evaluate the recommendation.

What they’re really asking : Discuss the different, specific questions that would need to be answered to determine how reasonable the recommendation is.

Number of topics in the GRE argument pool on this task : 24/176 ( 13.6% )

• The following appeared in a memo from a vice president of Alta Manufacturing. “During the past year, Alta Manufacturing had thirty percent more on-the-job accidents than nearby Panoply Industries, where the work shifts are one hour shorter than ours. Experts believe that a significant contributing factor in many accidents is fatigue caused by sleep deprivation among workers. Therefore, to reduce the number of on-the-job accidents at Alta, we recommend shortening each of our three work shifts by one hour. If we do this, our employees will get adequate amounts of sleep.” Write a response in which you discuss what questions would need to be answered in order to decide whether the recommendation and the argument on which it is based are reasonable. Be sure to explain how the answers to these questions would help to evaluate the recommendation.
• Since those issues of Newsbeat magazine that featured political news on their front cover were the poorest-selling issues over the past three years, the publisher of Newsbeat has recommended that the magazine curtail its emphasis on politics to focus more exclusively on economics and personal finance. She points to a recent survey of readers of general interest magazines that indicates greater reader interest in economic issues than in political ones. Newsbeat ‘s editor, however, opposes the proposed shift in editorial policy, pointing out that very few magazines offer extensive political coverage anymore. Write a response in which you discuss what questions would need to be answered in order to decide whether the recommendation and the argument on which it is based are reasonable. Be sure to explain how the answers to these questions would help to evaluate the recommendation.
• The following appeared in an article in the Grandview Beacon . “For many years the city of Grandview has provided annual funding for the Grandview Symphony. Last year, however, private contributions to the symphony increased by 200 percent and attendance at the symphony’s concerts-in-the-park series doubled. The symphony has also announced an increase in ticket prices for next year. Given such developments, some city commissioners argue that the symphony can now be fully self-supporting, and they recommend that funding for the symphony be eliminated from next year’s budget.” Write a response in which you discuss what questions would need to be answered in order to decide whether the recommendation and the argument on which it is based are reasonable. Be sure to explain how the answers to these questions would help to evaluate the recommendation.
• Twenty years ago, Dr. Field, a noted anthropologist, visited the island of Tertia. Using an observation-centered approach to studying Tertian culture, he concluded from his observations that children in Tertia were reared by an entire village rather than by their own biological parents. Recently another anthropologist, Dr. Karp, visited the group of islands that includes Tertia and used the interview-centered method to study child-rearing practices. In the interviews that Dr. Karp conducted with children living in this group of islands, the children spent much more time talking about their biological parents than about other adults in the village. Dr. Karp decided that Dr. Field’s conclusion about Tertian village culture must be invalid. Some anthropologists recommend that to obtain accurate information on Tertian child-rearing practices, future research on the subject should be conducted via the interview-centered method.

Argument Task 4: Evaluate Advice and Questions

Write a response in which you discuss what questions would need to be answered in order to decide whether the advice and the argument on which it is based are reasonable. Be sure to explain how the answers to these questions would help to evaluate the advice.

What they’re really asking : Discuss the different, specific questions needed to determine if the advice and the argument it’s based on are reasonable .

This task is pretty much the same as task 3; the main difference is in the way the prompt is worded (as advice vs. a recommendation being given).

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Number of topics in the GRE argument pool on this task : 2/176 ( 1.1% )

Examples of the advice to be analyzed

• The following appeared in a newsletter offering advice to investors. “Over 80 percent of the respondents to a recent survey indicated a desire to reduce their intake of foods containing fats and cholesterol, and today low-fat products abound in many food stores. Since many of the food products currently marketed by Old Dairy Industries are high in fat and cholesterol, the company’s sales are likely to diminish greatly and company profits will no doubt decrease. We therefore advise Old Dairy stockholders to sell their shares, and other investors not to purchase stock in this company.”

Argument Task 5: Evaluate a Recommendation’s Likely Results

Write a response in which you discuss what questions would need to be answered in order to decide whether the recommendation is likely to have the predicted result. Be sure to explain how the answers to these questions would help to evaluate the recommendation.

What they’re really asking : Discuss specific questions and information that would be needed to show the recommendation would have the expected outcome .

Number of topics in the GRE argument pool on this task : 21/176 ( 11.9% )

• The following appeared in a letter from the owner of the Sunnyside Towers apartment building to its manager. “One month ago, all the showerheads on the first five floors of Sunnyside Towers were modified to restrict the water flow to approximately one-third of its original flow. Although actual readings of water usage before and after the adjustment are not yet available, the change will obviously result in a considerable savings for Sunnyside Corporation, since the corporation must pay for water each month. Except for a few complaints about low water pressure, no problems with showers have been reported since the adjustment. Clearly, restricting water flow throughout all the twenty floors of Sunnyside Towers will increase our profits further.”
• The following memorandum is from the business manager of Happy Pancake House restaurants. “Butter has now been replaced by margarine in Happy Pancake House restaurants throughout the southwestern United States. Only about 2 percent of customers have complained, indicating that 98 people out of 100 are happy with the change. Furthermore, many servers have reported that a number of customers who ask for butter do not complain when they are given margarine instead. Clearly, either these customers cannot distinguish butter from margarine or they use the term ‘butter’ to refer to either butter or margarine. Thus, to avoid the expense of purchasing butter and to increase profitability, the Happy Pancake House should extend this cost-saving change to its restaurants in the southeast and northeast as well.”
• The following memo appeared in the newsletter of the West Meria Public Health Council. “An innovative treatment has come to our attention that promises to significantly reduce absenteeism in our schools and workplaces. A study reports that in nearby East Meria, where consumption of the plant beneficia is very high, people visit the doctor only once or twice per year for the treatment of colds. Clearly, eating a substantial amount of beneficia can prevent colds. Since colds are the reason most frequently given for absences from school and work, we recommend the daily use of nutritional supplements derived from beneficia. We predict this will dramatically reduce absenteeism in our schools and workplaces.”
• The following appeared in an e-mail sent by the marketing director of the Classical Shakespeare Theatre of Bardville. “Over the past ten years, there has been a 20 percent decline in the size of the average audience at Classical Shakespeare Theatre productions. In spite of increased advertising, we are attracting fewer and fewer people to our shows, causing our profits to decrease significantly. We must take action to attract new audience members. The best way to do so is by instituting a ‘Shakespeare in the Park’ program this summer. Two years ago the nearby Avon Repertory Company started a ‘Free Plays in the Park’ program, and its profits have increased 10 percent since then. If we start a ‘Shakespeare in the Park’ program, we can predict that our profits will increase, too.”

Argument Task 6: Evaluate a Prediction and Its Basis

Write a response in which you discuss what questions would need to be answered in order to decide whether the prediction and the argument on which it is based are reasonable. Be sure to explain how the answers to these questions would help to evaluate the prediction.

What they’re really asking : Discuss the specific questions that need to be answered to determine how reasonable the prediction and its basis are .

Number of topics in the GRE argument pool on this task : 14/176 ( 8.0% )

Examples of the predictions to be analyzed

• The following appeared in a memorandum from the manager of KNOW radio station. “Several factors indicate that KNOW radio can no longer succeed as a rock-and-roll music station. Consider, for example, that the number of people in our listening area over fifty years of age has increased dramatically, while our total number of listeners has declined. Also, music stores in our area report decreased sales of rock-and-roll music. Finally, continuous news stations in neighboring cities have been very successful. We predict that switching KNOW radio from rock-and-roll music to 24-hour news will allow the station to attract older listeners and make KNOW radio more profitable than ever.”
• The council of Maple County, concerned about the county’s becoming overdeveloped, is debating a proposed measure that would prevent the development of existing farmland in the county. But the council is also concerned that such a restriction, by limiting the supply of new housing, could lead to significant increases in the price of housing in the county. Proponents of the measure note that Chestnut County established a similar measure ten years ago, and its housing prices have increased only modestly since. However, opponents of the measure note that Pine County adopted restrictions on the development of new residential housing fifteen years ago, and its housing prices have since more than doubled. The council currently predicts that the proposed measure, if passed, will result in a significant increase in housing prices in Maple County.

Argument Task 7: Discuss Alternative Explanations

Write a response in which you discuss one or more alternative explanations that could rival the proposed explanation and explain how your explanation(s) can plausibly account for the facts presented in the argument.

What they’re really asking : Discuss alternative explanations that would reasonably explain the evidence discussed in the argument.

Number of topics in the GRE argument pool on this task : 11/176 ( 6.3% )

Examples of the explanation and argument to be analyzed

• The following appeared in a memo from the director of a large group of hospitals. “In a controlled laboratory study of liquid hand soaps, a concentrated solution of extra strength UltraClean hand soap produced a 40 percent greater reduction in harmful bacteria than did the liquid hand soaps currently used in our hospitals. During our recent test of regular-strength UltraClean with doctors, nurses, and visitors at our hospital in Worktown, the hospital reported significantly fewer cases of patient infection (a 20 percent reduction) than did any of the other hospitals in our group. The explanation for the 20 percent reduction in patient infections is the use of UltraClean soap.”
• There is now evidence that the relaxed pace of life in small towns promotes better health and greater longevity than does the hectic pace of life in big cities. Businesses in the small town of Leeville report fewer days of sick leave taken by individual workers than do businesses in the nearby large city of Masonton. Furthermore, Leeville has only one physician for its one thousand residents, but in Masonton the proportion of physicians to residents is five times as high. Finally, the average age of Leeville residents is significantly higher than that of Masonton residents. These findings suggest that the relaxed pace of life in Leeville allows residents to live longer, healthier lives.

Argument Task 8: Evaluate a Conclusion and Its Basis

Write a response in which you discuss what questions would need to be addressed in order to decide whether the conclusion and the argument on which it is based are reasonable. Be sure to explain how the answers to the questions would help to evaluate the conclusion.

What they’re really asking : Discuss the specific questions that need to be answered to determine if the conclusion and its basis are reasonable .

Examples of conclusions to be analyzed

• A recent sales study indicates that consumption of seafood dishes in Bay City restaurants has increased by 30 percent during the past five years. Yet there are no currently operating city restaurants whose specialty is seafood. Moreover, the majority of families in Bay City are two-income families, and a nationwide study has shown that such families eat significantly fewer home-cooked meals than they did a decade ago but at the same time express more concern about healthful eating. Therefore, the new Captain Seafood restaurant that specializes in seafood should be quite popular and profitable.

GRE Essay Prompts: 3 Terrific Tips

No matter which of the GRE essay topics you encounter on test day, the following tips will help you prepare.

#1: Keep Strict Timing

When you’re working on practice GRE writing prompts, make sure you stick to a strict 30-minute time limit for each Analytical Writing prompt.

If you need to build up to writing within this time limit, you can start out by giving yourself extra time and then working your way down to 30 minutes. However, try not to only practice with extra time , or you’ll be unprepared for the real GRE Analytical Writing essays.

#2: Type Your Essays

To get the best practice for the computer-based GRE, you should write all your practice essays on a computer .

If possible, use the simple word processor in the PowerPrep Test Preview Tool or practice tests to do every practice essay. You’ll need to get used to the lack of spellcheck and familiar shortcuts or features of your own word processor that you might not realize how often you use, like select all, copy, cut, paste, or undo; it’s surprising to find how much not being able to use CTL+A to select all or CTL+V to paste can affect your writing and editing speed.

Even if you’re not writing about the GRE essay prompts given in PowerPrep, you can still use the text box and timer in the test preview tool or one of the practice tests to write practice essays on other prompts . Just be sure to save your essay into a separate document on your computer so you can go back and read and score it afterwards.

#3: Grade Your Essays

Once you’ve written your practice Issue and Argument essays, score them by using the essay rubrics and by comparing your writing to the sample essays ETS provides at each score point .

The rubrics for the Issue essay and the Argument essay are similar when it comes to the importance of clarity of writing and adherence to standard English grammar, spelling, and punctuation; they only really differ when it comes to assessing the specifics of the issue or argument analyses. You can try using the rubric yourself on your own essays and determine where on the rubric your essay fits; alternatively, you can see if you can find a GRE buddy who is willing to grade you and give you feedback based on the rubric, since it’s sometimes easier to be objective about someone else’s work.

While the rubrics are useful as guidelines for what to include in your essays, however, it can be difficult to envision what a perfect scoring essay might look like from the laundry list of qualities alone. That’s why the best way to learn what makes a difference between different essay scores is studying examples of high-scoring essays, analyzing what they do well, and finding the differences between them and lower-scoring essays on the same topic . We do this analysis for you in our articles on how to get a perfect 6 on the GRE Issue essay and Argument essay .

The object of grading your essays is not to feel bad that you didn’t live up to the ideals of a perfect essay score but instead to zero in on your weak spots so you can improve. Whether it’s disorganized writing, running out of time (and so not finishing your essay), insufficient analysis, or some other issue entirely, identify the main issues with your essay, then focus your practice on improving those areas.

What’s Next?

Looking for more great advice to increase your GRE AWA score? Read our article on GRE essay tips and strategies .

Want to find out more about what’s on the essay rubrics? We have a complete guide to how the GRE essays are scored here .

Learn more about what’s on the GRE and what a good GRE score is .

Ready to improve your GRE score by 7 points?

Author: Laura Staffaroni

Laura graduated magna cum laude from Wellesley College with a BA in Music and Psychology, and earned a Master's degree in Composition from the Longy School of Music of Bard College. She scored 99 percentile scores on the SAT and GRE and loves advising students on how to excel and fulfill their college and grad school dreams. View all posts by Laura Staffaroni

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Table of Content

• GRE AWA Template Format

How to Write GRE AWA Essays?

Prepare for gre with yocket prep, frequently asked questions about gre awa template, gre awa template: how to write the gre awa essays.

The GRE analytical writing assessment tests your analytical and writing skills. The assessment has a time duration of 60 minutes, and entails 2 tasks. The first being “Analyse an Issue” and the other being  “Analyse an Argument”. As the name itself suggests, the "Analyse an Issue” task assesses your understanding of an issue and how well you interpret it with reasons. The other section analyses given arguments through logical reasons.

Your essay must be convincing and easy to comprehend if you wish to score good in this section. Whether you are confident about the GRE AWA section or not, practice is the key to help you complete this section within the given time frame. Here we have prepared a complete guide with GRE analytical writing template, suggestions for writing better while also managing your time and also help you understand how your skills will be measured and scored by raters.

GRE AWA Template Format 

First of all, we need to understand the essay format using AWA template GRE . The task is to time yourself properly so as to read, comprehend, compose and answer within 30 minutes. The basic GRE analytical writing template must comprise 5-paragraphs while some of you may prefer to have 4 or 6 paragraphs depending on how you divide the body of the essay Here is what the basic 5-paragraph GRE AWA template must include:

• Introduction
• Body (Para 1)
• Body (Para 2)
• Final Body (Para 3)

Let us closely discuss what each of these paragraphs must highlight in your GRE AWA template:

1. Introduction

To start the essay, you must first state the given issue or topic and briefly explain it in your own words. This part is the kickstart of your essay and is very important to catch the attention of the reader. In the final few lines of your introduction, introduce what’s coming next for the reader to hold their attention. Try to keep the introduction as specific as possible such that it shows you have clearly understood the central idea of the topic.

2. Body (Para 1)

This is the part where you must put your best foot forward i.e. come up with the best and most relevant example or argument you have in mind. You can bring up examples from any background, be it social, political, cultural, historical, and on and so forth, but you must be confident that it matches your position in the essay.

3. Body (Para 2)

Being the 3rd paragraph of your essay, you must start it with a smooth transition from the previous paragraph and follow the same pattern of giving an example along with a suitable explanation and reinstating your thesis in the essay. If you wish to keep 4 paragraphs in your essay, this will be the final body paragraph and you will move on to the conclusion.

4. Final Body (Para 3)

Decide a transition phrase again before citing another example. Since this is the 3rd example, keep in mind that it is something other than what you have already specified in the above paragraphs. Wind up your discussion by gradually pointing towards the conclusion.

5. Conclusion

The last part of the GRE AWA essay is the conclusion which is equally important as the other parts in the paragraph. So don’t be in haste to complete the essay by mentioning general lines at the end to fulfil the word limit. This is where you summarise the entire essay in a few lines and also refute the opposite viewpoint. Include a few analytical statements to make the conclusion effective.

Now that you have learnt about the template for GRE issue essay and argument essay, let us take a look at some useful tips. Here are a few suggestions that will help you to structure GRE argument and GRE issue essay template better:

• Practice is the key to perfection, therefore rather than being worried about your paper, keep practising various topics that are relevant to the real world.
• While framing your essay try to be concise and relevant.
• A well-organised essay following GRE AWA templates is always preferred.
• While citing examples, see that your example does not occupy most part of the essay.
• The central idea and your take on it must be emphasised upon.
• Writing in first person speech is not a very good idea especially for the introduction and conclusion.
• A smart way to conclude your essay is by mentioning the opposing views and then invalidating it by stating your own reasoning and ending it with a strong conclusive statement.
• At the end, try to save yourself a few minutes to give a quick read to your essay and spot any grammatical errors so that it does not affect your scores.

This was all about the GRE AWA essay template. To ace the GRE AWA, you must look at sample topics, previous year responses, the GRE AWA template, marking scheme and understand expected topics. There is no restriction on the subject area from which questions can be expected. It could be related to social sciences, humanities, fine arts, etc. so keep exploring topics from all these subjects.

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The GRE ® General Test

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Analyze an Argument Task (in General Tests administered before September 22, 2023)

The "Analyze an Argument" task assesses your ability to:

• understand, analyze and insightfully evaluate an argument written by someone else according to specific instructions
• effectively communicate your evaluation in writing

Each topic consists of a brief passage in which the author makes a case for some course of action or interpretation of events by presenting claims backed by reasons and evidence.

Where to begin

Your task is to discuss the logical soundness of the author's case by critically examining the line of reasoning and the use of evidence. This task requires you to read the argument and instructions carefully. Read the argument more than once and make brief notes about points you want to develop more fully in your response. Pay special attention to what is:

• offered as evidence, support or proof
• explicitly stated, claimed or concluded
• assumed or supposed, perhaps without justification or proof
• not stated, but necessarily follows from or underlies what is stated

In addition, consider the  structure  of the argument — the way in which these elements are linked together to form a  line of reasoning . You should recognize the separate, sometimes implicit steps in the thinking process and consider whether the movement from each step to the next is logically sound. In tracing this line, look for transition words and phrases that suggest the author is attempting to make a logical connection (e.g., however, thus, therefore, evidently, hence, in conclusion).  

What you aren’t being asked to do

An important part of performing well on the Argument task is remembering what you are  not  being asked to do. You aren’t being asked to:

• discuss whether the statements in the argument are true or accurate
• agree or disagree with the position stated
• express your own views on the subject being discussed (as you were in the Issue task)

Instead, you’re being asked to evaluate the logical soundness of an argument of another writer and, in doing so, to demonstrate the critical thinking, perceptive reading and analytical writing skills that university faculty consider important for success in graduate school.

Task instruction sets

Each task is accompanied by one of the following sets of instructions that you must be sure to address when writing your response:

• Write a response in which you discuss what specific evidence is needed to evaluate the argument and explain how the evidence would weaken or strengthen the argument.
• Write a response in which you examine the stated and/or unstated assumptions of the argument. Be sure to explain how the argument depends on these assumptions, and what the implications are for the argument if the assumptions prove unwarranted.
• Write a response in which you discuss what questions would need to be answered in order to decide whether the recommendation and the argument on which it is based are reasonable. Be sure to explain how the answers to these questions would help to evaluate the recommendation.
• Write a response in which you discuss what questions would need to be answered in order to decide whether the advice and the argument on which it is based are reasonable. Be sure to explain how the answers to these questions would help to evaluate the advice.
• Write a response in which you discuss what questions would need to be answered in order to decide whether the recommendation is likely to have the predicted result. Be sure to explain how the answers to these questions would help to evaluate the recommendation.
• Write a response in which you discuss what questions would need to be answered in order to decide whether the prediction and the argument on which it is based are reasonable. Be sure to explain how the answers to these questions would help to evaluate the prediction.
• Write a response in which you discuss one or more alternative explanations that could rival the proposed explanation and explain how your explanation(s) can plausibly account for the facts presented in the argument.
• Write a response in which you discuss what questions would need to be addressed in order to decide whether the conclusion and the argument on which it is based are reasonable. Be sure to explain how the answers to the questions would help to evaluate the conclusion.

"Analyze an Argument" is a critical thinking task requiring a written response. Consequently, the analytical skills displayed in your evaluation carry great weight in determining your score; however, the clarity with which you convey ideas is also important to your overall score.

Understanding the context for writing: Purpose and audience of the Argument task

The purposes of the task are to see how well equipped you are to insightfully evaluate an argument written by someone else and to effectively communicate your evaluation in writing to an academic audience. Your audience consists of GRE raters carefully trained to apply the scoring criteria identified in the scoring guide for the "Analyze an Argument" task. To get a clearer idea of how GRE raters apply the Argument scoring criteria to actual essays, you should review scored sample Argument essay responses and rater commentary. The sample responses, particularly those at 5 and 6 score levels, will show you a variety of successful strategies for organizing and developing an insightful evaluation. The rater commentary discusses specific aspects of analytical writing, such as: cogency of ideas; development and support; organization; syntactic variety; and facility with language. The commentary points out aspects that are particularly effective and insightful as well as any that detract from the overall effectiveness of the responses.

Preparing for the Argument task

The Argument task is meant to assess analytical writing and informal reasoning skills you’ve developed throughout your education. You won’t be expected to know specific methods of analysis or technical terms.  

Understand key concepts

You should be familiar with the directions for the Argument task and with certain key concepts, including the following:

• alternative explanation — a competing version of what might have caused the events in question that undercuts or qualifies the original explanation because it too can account for the observed facts
• analysis — the process of breaking something (e.g., an argument) down into its component parts to understand how they work together to make up the whole
• argument — a claim or a set of claims with reasons and evidence offered as support; a line of reasoning meant to demonstrate the truth or falsehood of something
• assumption — a belief, often unstated or unexamined, that someone must hold to maintain a particular position; something that is taken for granted but that must be true in order for the  conclusion  to be true
• conclusion — the end point reached by a line of reasoning, valid if the reasoning is sound; the resulting assertion
• counterexample — an example, real or hypothetical, that refutes or disproves a statement in the  argument
• evaluation — an assessment of the quality of evidence and reasons in an argument and of the overall merit of an  argument  

Published topic pools

An excellent way to prepare for the "Analyze an Argument" task is to practice writing on some of the  published Argument topics (PDF) . Even if you choose not to write a full essay response, you should find it helpful to practice evaluating a few of the arguments and sketching out your responses.

There’s no one way to practice that’s best for everyone. Some prefer to start practicing without adhering to the 30-minute time limit, so they have all the time they need to evaluate the argument and craft their response. Others prefer to take a “timed test” right away.  

Plan your response

Regardless of which approach you take, consider the following steps:

• Carefully read the argument and the specific instructions — you might want to read them more than once.
• Identify as many of the argument's claims, conclusions and underlying assumptions as possible and evaluate their quality.
• Think of as many alternative explanations and counterexamples as you can.
• Think of what specific additional evidence might weaken or lend support to the claims.
• Ask yourself what changes in the argument would make the reasoning more sound.

Write down each of these thoughts. When you've gone as far as you can with your evaluation, look over the notes and put them in a good order for discussion (perhaps by numbering them). Then write an evaluation according to the specific instructions by fully developing each point that is relevant to those instructions.

When you become quicker and more confident, you should practice writing some Argument responses within the 30-minute time limit so that you will have a good sense of how to pace yourself in the actual test. For example, you will not want to discuss one point so exhaustively or to provide so many equivalent examples that you run out of time to make your other main points.  

Evaluate your response

When you’re finished writing your practice response, assess how you did to see how and where you can improve.

• Get feedback on your response(s) from a writing instructor, philosophy teacher or someone who emphasizes critical thinking in their course
• Trade papers on the same topic with fellow students and discuss each other's responses in terms of the scoring guide. Focus less on the "right scores" and more on seeing how the responses meet or miss the performance standards for each score point and what you need to do to improve.
• Look at the  scoring guide for the Argument topic  and try to determine how your essay meets or misses the criteria for each score point in the guide. Comparing your own response to the scoring guide will help you see how and where to improve.

How to interpret numbers, percentages and statistics in Argument topics

Some arguments contain numbers, percentages or statistics offered only as evidence in support of the argument's conclusion. For example, an argument might claim that a certain community event is less popular this year than it was last year because only 100 people attended this year as compared with 150 last year, a 33% decline in attendance.

It is important to remember that you are not being asked to do a mathematical task with the numbers, percentages or statistics. Instead, you should evaluate these as evidence intended to support the conclusion. In the example above, the conclusion is that a community event has become less popular. You should ask yourself, "Does the difference between 100 people and 150 people support that conclusion?" In this case, there are other possible explanations, e.g., the weather might have been much worse this year, this year's event might have been held at an inconvenient time, etc.

Any one of these could explain the difference in attendance and weaken the conclusion that the event was "less popular." Similarly, percentages might support or weaken a conclusion depending on what actual numbers the percentages represent. Consider the claim that the drama club at a school deserves more funding because its membership has increased by 100%. This 100% increase could be significant if there had been 100 members and now there are 200 members, whereas the increase would be much less significant if there had been five members and now there are 10.

Remember that any numbers, percentages or statistics in Argument tasks are used only as evidence in support of a conclusion, and you should always consider whether they actually support the conclusion.

Tips for the Argument Task

Keep the following tips in mind:

• You’re free to organize and develop your response in any way that will enable you to effectively communicate your position.
• You can incorporate writing strategies you learned in English composition or writing-intensive college courses.
• GRE raters will not be looking for a particular developmental strategy or mode of writing. In fact, when GRE raters are trained, they review hundreds of Argument responses that, although highly diverse in content and form, display similar levels of critical thinking and persuasive writing.
• For example, raters will see some essays at the 6 score level that begin by briefly summarizing the argument and then explicitly stating and developing the main points of the evaluation. The raters know that a writer can earn a high score by developing several points in an evaluation or by identifying a central feature in the argument and developing that evaluation extensively. You might want to look at the sample Argument responses, particularly those at the 5 and 6 score levels, to see how other writers have successfully developed and organized their responses.
• Make choices about format and organization that you think support and enhance the overall effectiveness of your evaluation. This means using as many or as few paragraphs as you consider appropriate for your response, e.g., create a new paragraph when your discussion shifts to a new point of evaluation.
• You might want to organize your evaluation around the structure of the argument itself, discussing it line by line. Or you might want to first point out a central questionable assumption and then move on to discuss related weaknesses in the argument's line of reasoning.
• Using examples can help illustrate an important point in your evaluation or move your discussion forward. However, remember that it’s your critical thinking and analytical writing that is being assessed, not your ability to come up with examples. What matters is not the form your response takes, but how insightfully you evaluate the argument and how articulately you communicate your evaluation to academic raters within the context of the task.

Sample Argument task, strategies, responses and rater commentary

For more information, review a sample Argument task, including strategies for the topic and essay responses with rater commentary at each score level.

The sample responses, particularly those at 5 and 6 score levels, will show you a variety of successful strategies for organizing and developing an insightful evaluation. The rater commentary discusses specific aspects of analytical writing, such as:

• cogency of ideas
• development and support
• organization
• syntactic variety
• facility with language

The commentary also points out aspects that are particularly effective and insightful, as well as any that detract from the overall effectiveness of the responses.

Pool of Argument topics

When you take the GRE General Test, you’ll be presented with one Argument topic from the pool. To help you prepare, we’ve published the entire pool of tasks from which your issue will be selected.

🤯 Are you feeling overwhelmed with your GRE prep? Check out our newest resource -- The I'm Overwhelmed Study Plan 🤯 Are you feeling overwhelmed with your GRE prep? Check out our newest resource -- The I'm Overwhelmed Study Plan

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How to Write a Great GRE Argument Essay

When you take the GRE , you’ll have to write two essays : an Issue essay and an Argument essay. In your GRE Argument essay, you’ll get to demonstrate how well you can understand, analyze, and evaluate an argument. Here are ten GRE Argument essay tips you should know.

Fact #1: It doesn’t matter who is right

Fact #2: you'll have just 30 minutes for the gre argument essay, fact #3: graders will not pore over your essay, fact #4: quality matters, but so does quantity, fact #5: the prompt will tell you everything you need to know.

Make sure you read the prompt two or three times. You’ll want to make sure you truly understand it. Pay attention to what evidence is provided, what is stated in the prompt, and what is claimed by the author. A great way to identify fallacies is to determine what the author has assumed, and then try to explain why that assumption may be wrong. Here are four things to look for:

• Lack of evidence to support an assumption : You’ll want to mention this dearth in your essay—and note the type of information that would strengthen the argument.
• Non-specific language : Does the author make generalizations without providing specifics? You will want to point that out!
• Jumping to conclusions : Most Argument prompts will jump to conclusions at least once. As you read each sentence in the prompt, look for the author’s reasoning. If you can’t find a clear line of argument, you should note that the author has jumped to conclusions.
• Data values : Just because the author provides numbers doesn’t mean they’re necessarily objective or even true. Consider—and discuss within your essay—the reliability of any data, or data collection methods, that are presented in the prompt.

Fact #6: Structure will save you

After you read the prompt, brainstorm the logical fallacies you want to address. Then, choose your top three or four, and formulate a brief outline before you start your essay. There is nothing worse than having to stop writing your essay to come up with new ideas, so you’re going to want to follow a strict organizational format. Here’s a good general template to keep in mind:

• Intro : This should consist of three or four sentences in which you provide an overview of all the fallacies you plan to address.
• Fallacies : Each should get its own indented paragraph. You’ll want to discuss it in detail, and you may even opt to quote from the prompt in making your case.
• Suggestions for improving the prompt argument : Time-permitting, you’ll ideally want to include a paragraph in which you detail how the author could make a stronger case.
• Conclusion : As short as the introduction, this should summarize your body paragraphs (the fallacies and suggestions) and tie up any loose ends. Don’t skip this part! Even if you only have time for a single sentence, write one. An essay without a conclusion will almost certainly receive a lower score than one that is finished.

Fact #7: Clear writing is key

Fact #8: you’ll get one combined score for both essays, fact #9: you don’t have to be perfect to earn a perfect score, fact #10: you can plan ahead.

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