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Overview of the Analytical Writing Measure

Analytical writing measure (beginning september 22, 2023).

The Analytical Writing measure of the GRE General Test administered beginning September 22, 2023, assesses your critical thinking and analytical writing skills by assessing your ability to:

articulate and support complex ideas
construct arguments
sustain a focused and coherent discussion

It doesn’t assess specific content knowledge.

The Analytical Writing measure consists of a 30-minute “Analyze an Issue” task. This task presents an opinion on an issue and instructions on how to respond. You’re required to evaluate the issue, consider its complexities and develop an argument with reasons and examples to support your views.

You’ll use a basic word processor developed by ETS to type your essay responses. The word processor contains the following functionalities: insert text, delete text, cut-and-paste and undo the previous action. Tools such as a spellchecker and grammar checker are not available.

Analytical Writing Measure before September 22, 2023

The Analytical Writing measure of the GRE General Test administered before September 22, 2023, assesses your critical thinking and analytical writing skills by assessing your ability to:

construct and evaluate arguments

The Analytical Writing measure consists of two separately timed analytical writing tasks:

The "Analyze an Issue" task presents an opinion on an issue and instructions on how to respond. You’re required to evaluate the issue, consider its complexities and develop an argument with reasons and examples to support your views.
The "Analyze an Argument" task requires you to evaluate an argument according to specific instructions. You’ll need to consider the logical soundness of the argument rather than agree or disagree with the position it presents.

The two 30-minute tasks are complementary. The Issue task requires you to construct your own argument, while the Argument task requires you to evaluate someone else's argument.

Preparing for the Analytical Writing measure

Everyone — even the most practiced and confident of writers — should spend time preparing for the Analytical Writing measure to understand the skills measured and how the tasks are scored. It may also be useful to review the scoring guides, sample topics, scored sample essay responses and rater commentary for each task.

The tasks in the Analytical Writing measure relate to a broad range of subjects — from the fine arts and humanities to the social and physical sciences — but don’t require specific content knowledge. Each task has been tested by actual GRE test takers to ensure that it possesses several important characteristics, including the following:

GRE test takers, regardless of their field of study or special interests, understood the task and could easily respond to it.
The task elicited the kinds of complex thinking and persuasive writing that university faculty consider important for success in graduate school.
The responses were varied in content and in the way the writers developed their ideas.

Published topic pools for the Analytical Writing measure

To help you prepare for the Analytical Writing measure, the GRE Program has published the entire pool of tasks from which your test tasks will be selected. You might find it helpful to review the Issue and Argument pools:

Issue Topic Pool (PDF)
Argument Topic Pool (PDF) (the Argument task was removed from the General Test beginning September 22, 2023)

Test-taking strategies for the Analytical Writing measure (in the General Test beginning September 22, 2023)

Before taking the GRE General Test, review the strategies, sample topics, sample essay responses with rater commentary, and scoring guide for the task. This will give you a deeper understanding of how raters evaluate essays and the elements they're looking for in an essay.
It is important to budget your time. Within the 30-minute time limit, allow sufficient time to consider the issue and the specific instructions, plan a response, and compose your essay. You want your essay response to be the best possible example of your writing that you can produce under the testing conditions.
Save a few minutes at the end of the timed task to check for obvious errors. An occasional spelling or grammatical error won’t affect your score, but serious and persistent errors detract from the overall effectiveness of your writing and lower your score accordingly.

Writing Center: Sample GRE Essay Prompts

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Sample GRE Essay Prompts

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Each of these prompts was published on the official GRE ETS accounts.

Analyze an Issue essay

Governments should offer college and university education free of charge to all students.

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.

Teachers' salaries should be based on their students' academic performance.

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.

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.

Analyze an Argument essay

A recently issued twenty-year study on headaches suffered by the residents of Mentia investigated the possible therapeutic effect of consuming salicylates. Salicylates are members of the same chemical family as aspirin, a medicine used to treat headaches. Although many foods are naturally rich in salicylates, food-processing companies also add salicylates to foods as preservatives. The twenty-year study found a correlation between the rise in the commercial use of salicylates and a steady decline in the average number of headaches reported by study participants. At the time when the study concluded, food-processing companies had just discovered that salicylates can also be used as flavor additives for foods, and, as a result, many companies plan to do so. Based on these study results, some health experts predict that residents of Mentia will suffer even fewer headaches in the future.

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.

The following appeared in a letter to the editor of a local newspaper.

"Commuters complain that increased rush-hour traffic on Blue Highway between the suburbs and the city center has doubled their commuting time. The favored proposal of the motorists' lobby is to widen the highway, adding an additional lane of traffic. But last year's addition of a lane to the nearby Green Highway was followed by a worsening of traffic jams on it. A better alternative is to add a bicycle lane to Blue Highway. Many area residents are keen bicyclists. A bicycle lane would encourage them to use bicycles to commute, and so would reduce rush-hour traffic rather than fostering an increase."

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.

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.
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GRE Writing Prompts: Your Guide

Many students preparing for test day are apprehensive about the GRE Analytical Writing essay. After all, there is no way to know exactly which GRE Writing prompts test-takers will see. So, understandably, students worry that there is no way to be fully prepared for all of the possible GRE essay topics that could pop up.

In that respect, however, GRE essay questions are no different from any other type of GRE question you may encounter. After all, you can’t predict exactly which Quant or Verbal concepts will be tested on any given GRE, or what the exact topics discussed in Reading Comprehension passages will be.

Nevertheless, there is still much we can learn about what we’ll face in GRE Quant and Verbal . And, we can still adequately prepare ourselves for whatever may come our way in those sections on test day. The same goes for GRE Writing topics. In fact, in some ways, we have even more information about what we’ll face in GRE essay prompts.

So, breathe a sigh of relief! There is plenty you can learn about the GRE essay topics, so that you go into your exam well-prepared. To help with that preparation, this article will discuss key aspects of the GRE essay prompts and Analytical Writing topics. We’ll also look at some real examples of AWA prompts.

Here is what we’ll cover:

What is gre analytical writing, how many writing prompts are on the gre, the basics of gre essay topics, gre issue topics, using the ets issue topics pool, gre issue tasks: example 1, gre issue tasks: example 2, gre writing prompts: key takeaways, what essays are on the gre, are you only given one prompt per gre essay, how long should gre essays be, can i skip writing on gre test day, is it hard to get a 4 on gre writing, is a 5.0 on gre writing good, what’s next.

To start, let’s review what the GRE Analytical Writing section consists of and what it asks you to do.

The first section you’ll see on the GRE is Analytical Writing. The GRE Analytical Assessment (AWA) prompts you to write an essay, which you have 30 minutes to complete. So, you’ll spend the first half-hour of your exam on Analytical Writing.

Your basic job in GRE Analytical Writing is to write a logically organized essay that demonstrates the following:

critical thinking and logical reasoning skills
an ability to communicate your ideas clearly and effectively
basic English grammar and spelling skills.

You’ll write your essay using the basic word processing program within the GRE test platform. The program features common functions such as delete , undo , cut , and paste .

However, since your own grammar and spelling skills will factor somewhat into the GRE essay scoring, the program does not feature automated spelling or grammar check.

There is no automated spelling or grammar check in GRE Analytical Writing.

Now that we know what the Analytical Writing section is, let’s discuss the basics of GRE Analytical Writing prompts. We’ll start with how many essay prompts you’ll see.

One of the first questions I hear from students who are just learning about GRE Writing prompts is, “How many essay prompts are you given on the GRE?”

Some of this confusion comes from the fact that there used to be 2 essay tasks on the GRE: Analyze an Argument and Analyze an Issue. However, as of September 22, 2023, when the new GRE test (aka the shorter GRE) was released, there is no longer an Argument task in AWA.

So, the Analytical Writing section includes only 1 essay task: the Analyze an Issue task. Let’s discuss what that task requires you to do.

In GRE Analytical Writing, there is only 1 essay task, Analyze an Issue.

The GRE Issue Essay

The Analyze an Issue task, commonly known as the GRE Issue essay, presents a statement of opinion. Your job is to write a response to that opinion.

The opinion may be presented in a single statement that is 1 or 2 sentences long. Alternatively, it may be presented as a 1-sentence “claim” followed by a 1-sentence “reason,” in which the “claim” is the opinion and the “reason” is the reasoning underlying the opinion.

In either case, following the presented opinion, there will be instructions on how to respond to it — that is, what your essay should discuss or accomplish. (We’ll look at some examples of GRE Issue essay prompts shortly.)

Importantly, whether you agree or disagree with the opinion presented in the prompt does not affect your essay score. In other words, there is no “right answer.”

Rather, you should choose whatever position allows you to craft the most logical, coherent, and convincing essay possible. Your position should demonstrate sound reasoning and analysis, and you should be able to support your position with examples.

The GRE Issue essay presents an opinion that you must respond to in your essay.

Now that we understand what the GRE Issue essay is, let’s discuss the topics GRE writing prompts involve.

Let’s start with the good news: GRE Writing topics do not require you to have particular subject matter knowledge. So, there won’t be any GRE Issue topics for which you’re at a disadvantage because you don’t have experience in a certain field of study.

All the information you need to write an effective response to a GRE Issue prompt will appear in the prompt, be common knowledge, or be things you happen to know and can use in your essay.

All the information you need to write an effective response to a GRE Issue prompt will appear in the prompt or be common or incidental knowledge you can draw upon.

That said, there are a few GRE essay themes or broad categories that GRE AWA topics tend to fall into. Let’s take a look.

Broadly speaking, topics for GRE Analytical Writing fall into a few general categories:

government and politics
society and culture
education and research
human nature

Remember, you will not need specialized knowledge of any of these GRE Issue categories. But how might GRE Issue essay prompts cover these topics? Well, a GRE Issue prompt might present an opinion about one of the following, for example:

a type of program that governments should or shouldn’t fund
a way that scientists should conduct their research
a procedure that colleges should follow to benefit their students
the effect of certain technologies on some aspect of society.

Of course, those are just a few examples. You’ll be happy to know that, regardless of the topic covered or how it’s covered, the opinions presented in GRE Writing prompts will not be expressed in highly technical terms or using obscure references.

Rather, they will be much like opinions you might hear during routine conversations with friends or colleagues, hear on a podcast or opinion segment on the news, or read in a newspaper editorial.

GRE essay themes include government and politics, society and culture, education and research, technology, and human nature.

Now, let’s explore an often-discussed subject among students investigating the GRE essay topics: the ETS Pool of Issue Topics.

The GRE Published Pool of Topics

You may be surprised to learn that the ETS writing prompts that can appear on the GRE are publicly available. In other words, there is a list of possible essay questions for GRE General Tests. This list is called the Pool of Issue Topics, and it features actual GRE Analytical Writing prompts that have in the past and could in the future appear on the test. You can view the GRE Issue essay topic pool PDF online here .

Now, when some people hear that a list of GRE essay topics is readily available online, they make it their mission to pore over every inch of that list. Here’s the thing: there are dozens of sample GRE essay questions in the Pool of Issue Topics. (In total, the GRE essay topics pool is nearly 40 pages long.) So, it is neither practical nor necessary to read through all of the GRE AWA writing prompts in order to be prepared for test day.

Furthermore, it is certainly a waste of your time to attempt to memorize the AWA sample prompts. For one, the wording you see in prompts in the GRE Writing Issue Pool may vary slightly in prompts on your actual exam.

Secondly, you’ll need to carefully read the prompt you see on test day regardless of how many GRE sample prompts you’ve read before. So, please don’t make the mistake of spending your valuable study time trying to commit the GRE list of essay topics to memory.

Let’s discuss how you should use the GRE Issue Pool.

You may be wondering how to most effectively make use of having so many sample GRE Issue topics at your fingertips. First, it is worthwhile to read through some of the prompts in ETS’s GRE Pool of Issue Topics to get a feel for how GRE essay prompts are worded and the ways they cover topics.

Then, as your GRE essay practice in preparation for test day, you should randomly select a few sample GRE essay questions to write responses to. Before you write those practice essays, you may want to check out these GRE writing examples , which feature sample essay responses with scores and reader commentary. You also may want to have a look at the GRE scoring rubric for Analytical Writing , to see the essay characteristics that are associated with different scores.

Now, let me make one important point clear: it is not a wise use of your time to attempt to write responses to every prompt in the GRE Analytical Writing pool, for the following 3 reasons:

You do not need anywhere near such a large amount of practice to be able to write a high-scoring GRE essay. So, in writing so many practice essays, you will waste valuable study time you need for other sections of the test.
You will burn yourself out on essay-writing by the time test day rolls around.
After writing so many essays, even if you recognize the prompt you see on test day, you almost certainly will not remember how you responded to it in your practice essay.

Practice writing responses to a few GRE Writing sample prompts from the ETS Issue Pool online, but don’t go overboard.

Now, let’s look at a couple of GRE Writing prompt samples from the ETS Issue Pool.

Example GRE Essay Questions

To get a feel for what to expect in the Analytical Writing section, let’s review a couple of example essay questions from the GRE Writing Issue Pool. You can find these GRE essay examples in the PDF linked above.

Some people believe that the purpose of education is to free the mind and the spirit. Others believe that formal education tends to restrain our minds and spirits rather than set them free.

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.

Notice the format of the question: first, an opinion is presented. Below that opinion, we see a few italicized lines of instructions on how to respond to the presented opinion. This format is standard for GRE Issue essay prompts.

Notice also that, while we can say that the topic of the prompt is “education,” a test-taker would not need any particular knowledge of education practices or policies in order to write an effective response.

In other words, a person of any background can form an opinion about the “purpose of education.” Forming that opinion does not require having specialized knowledge or training.

Let’s look at another example from the GRE list of essay topics.

Leaders are created by the demands that are placed on them.

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.

Notice that the language in the instructions in the prompt above is similar in some ways to that in the first prompt, though not exactly the same. If you scan the GRE Writing examples in the ETS Issue pool, you’ll notice some common language among many of the prompts.

However, there are several variations of instructions that could appear in GRE Issue prompts. So, it’s imperative that you always read the instructions in a prompt very carefully. It would be a mistake to skim or read only part way through a prompt because you recognize the wording, and thus assume you know what the instructions are asking you to do.

Always read through the entirety of the instructions in a GRE essay prompt, even if the instructions look similar to ones you’ve seen before!

Now that we’ve done some GRE practice writing prompts, let’s wrap up with the key takeaways from this article and answer some common questions about GRE Analytical Writing.

GRE Analytical Writing is the first section you’ll see on your test.
The Analytical Writing section features 1 essay prompt, Analyze an Issue, which you have 30 minutes to complete.
Your essay should demonstrate critical thinking and logical reasoning skills, clear and effective communication of your ideas, and basic English grammar and spelling skills.
The GRE Issue essay presents a 1-2 sentence opinion that you must respond to. Whether your response agrees or disagrees with the presented opinion does not affect your essay score.
You do not need specialized subject knowledge to effectively respond to GRE essay prompts.
The pool of Issue topics GRE tests can feature is available online. That list features actual ETS GRE Writing prompts.
Review and practice some of the example GRE essay questions in the ETS Issue Pool to get accustomed to GRE essay challenges and refine your GRE writing strategies.
Do not attempt to memorize all of the GRE Issue essay prompts or determine how to address each GRE Writing question in the topic pool.

Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ)

Let’s answer a few common questions about GRE Analytical Writing.

As of September 22, 2023, there is 1 essay task on the GRE, the Analyze an Issue task.

There is only 1 prompt per GRE essay. So, you will see only 1 prompt on any given GRE test.

There is no minimum or maximum word count required for the GRE essay. So, conceivably, you could write a high-scoring essay that is 350 words or one that is 600 words. There is no magic number.

That said, in order to effectively develop and support your ideas in a well-organized essay, you’ll need an intro and a conclusion paragraph, plus 2 or 3 paragraphs in between to present and elaborate on your main points. So, we’re looking at a 4-5 paragraph essay.

Now, each paragraph does not have to be overly long; good GRE essays should certainly prioritize quality over quantity. But, in many cases, you may find that 400 words is not quite enough to properly respond to a GRE essay prompt.

Think about it: a 4-paragraph essay (the minimum you’ll need) that is 500 words is only 125 words per paragraph. Those aren’t very long paragraphs!

So, shoot for quality over quantity, but realize that in general, you may need more like 500-600 words to write a cohesive and complete GRE essay.

For the vast majority of GRE test-takers, the answer to this question will be NO. Most graduate schools want applicants submitting GRE scores to have taken the entire GRE, not just parts of it.

So, unless you’ve confirmed that your desired programs don’t consider Writing scores, you should absolutely complete the Analytical Writing section.

For more on this topic, check out our article on the importance of the Analytical Writing score .

A 4.0 is currently a 56th percentile score in GRE Analytical Writing. Note that the mean GRE writing score is currently just under 3.6. So, a 4.0 is slightly better than average. And, generally speaking, schools consider 4.0 a “good” score, though of course each program will have its own standards.

In any case, considering that nearly half of all people who take the GRE are able to score 4.0 or higher on Analytical Writing, I’d say that it isn’t particularly hard to earn that score.

Of course, if you don’t do any Analytical Writing preparation, or you go into your exam without writing strategies in place, scoring 4.0 could be quite hard. So, the answer to whether any particular score on the GRE is “hard” to earn will always be somewhat relative.

A 5.0 is currently a 91st percentile score in GRE Analytical Writing and is generally considered an excellent score. After all, that score would put you in the top 10% of all GRE test-takers.

To read more about how graduate schools view different Writing scores (and other GRE section scores), check out our article on what a good GRE score is .

Looking for GRE essay templates and expert AWA preparation tips and rhetorical strategies? The Target Test Prep GRE Course fully prepares you to dominate any GRE essay question you see on test day. Check out the course for 5 days for just $1 !

You also may be interested in these strategies for combating boredom in Reading Comprehension and these myths about the GRE Verbal section .

About The Author

Scott Woodbury-Stewart is the founder & CEO of Target Test Prep. A passionate teacher who is deeply invested in the success of his students, Scott began his career teaching physics, chemistry, math, and biology. Since then, he has spent more than a decade helping students gain entry into the world’s top business schools, logging 10,000+ hours of GMAT, EA, GRE and SAT instruction. Scott also served as lead content developer and curriculum architect for the revolutionary courses Target Test Prep GMAT, Target Test Prep EA, Target Test Prep GRE and Target Test Prep SAT Quant.

Overview of the Analytical Writing Measure

Analytical writing measure (beginning september 22, 2023).

The Analytical Writing measure of the GRE General Test administered beginning September 22, 2023, assesses your critical thinking and analytical writing skills by assessing your ability to:

articulate and support complex ideas
construct arguments
sustain a focused and coherent discussion

It doesn’t assess specific content knowledge.

Analytical Writing Measure before September 22, 2023

The Analytical Writing measure of the GRE General Test administered before September 22, 2023, assesses your critical thinking and analytical writing skills by assessing your ability to:

construct and evaluate arguments

The Analytical Writing measure consists of two separately timed analytical writing tasks:

The "Analyze an Issue" task presents an opinion on an issue and instructions on how to respond. You’re required to evaluate the issue, consider its complexities and develop an argument with reasons and examples to support your views.
The "Analyze an Argument" task requires you to evaluate an argument according to specific instructions. You’ll need to consider the logical soundness of the argument rather than agree or disagree with the position it presents.

The two 30-minute tasks are complementary. The Issue task requires you to construct your own argument, while the Argument task requires you to evaluate someone else's argument.

Preparing for the Analytical Writing measure

GRE test takers, regardless of their field of study or special interests, understood the task and could easily respond to it.
The task elicited the kinds of complex thinking and persuasive writing that university faculty consider important for success in graduate school.
The responses were varied in content and in the way the writers developed their ideas.

Published topic pools for the Analytical Writing measure

Issue Topic Pool (PDF)
Argument Topic Pool (PDF) (the Argument task was removed from the General Test beginning September 22, 2023)

Test-taking strategies for the Analytical Writing measure (in the General Test beginning September 22, 2023)

Before taking the GRE General Test, review the strategies, sample topics, sample essay responses with rater commentary, and scoring guide for the task. This will give you a deeper understanding of how raters evaluate essays and the elements they're looking for in an essay.
It is important to budget your time. Within the 30-minute time limit, allow sufficient time to consider the issue and the specific instructions, plan a response, and compose your essay. You want your essay response to be the best possible example of your writing that you can produce under the testing conditions.
Save a few minutes at the end of the timed task to check for obvious errors. An occasional spelling or grammatical error won’t affect your score, but serious and persistent errors detract from the overall effectiveness of your writing and lower your score accordingly.

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GRE Essay Prompts

The GRE Analytical Writing section requires you to write two essays—one will be an analysis of an issue and the other will be an analysis of an argument. You will have 30 minutes for each essay. Try your hand at these GRE essay prompts, and read our explanations for what makes a great GRE essay. We pulled these sample questions from our book GRE Premium Prep and from our GRE prep course materials.

The GRE Issue Essay

The Issue Essay of the GRE requires you to present your opinion on the provided topic.

Issue Topic

You will be given a brief quotation that states or implies an issue of general interest and specific instructions on how to respond to that issue. You will have 30 minutes to plan and compose a response in which you develop a position on the issue according the specific instructions. A response to any other issue will receive a score of zero.

A high-scoring Issue essay accomplishes four key tasks: (1) considers the complexities of the issue; (2) supports the position with relevant examples; (3) is clear and well organized; (4) demonstrates superior facility with the conventions of standard written English. Make sure that you respond to the specific instructions and support your position on the issue with reasons and examples drawn from such areas as your reading, experience, observations, and/or academic studies.

[+] See the Answer

The GRE Argument Essay

The Argument Essay of the GRE asks you to examine and critique the logic of an argument.

Argument Topic

You will be given a short passage that presents an argument, or an argument to be completed, and specific instructions on how to respond to that passage. You will have 30 minutes to plan and compose a response in which you analyze the passage according to specific instructions. A response to any other issue will receive a score of zero.

A high-scoring Argument essay accomplishes these tasks: (1) clearly identifies and insightfully analyzes important features of the argument; (2) develops ideas clearly and logically with smooth transitions; (3) effectively supports the main points of the critique; (4) demonstrates superior facility with the conventions of standard written English. Note that you are NOT being asked to present your own views on the subject. Make sure you that you respond to the specific instructions and support your analysis with relevant reasons and/or examples.

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How to Use the GRE Essay Pool for Effective Practice

A student preparing for essay writing on the GRE

The GRE includes a unique component called the Analytical Writing Assessment (AWA), where test-takers are currently required to write two essays: the Issue Essay and the Argument Essay. With the upcoming changes to the GRE in September 2023, students will no longer be required to write the Argument Essay.

To prepare effectively for this section, it’s essential to practice with various essay topics. ETS, the organization that administers the GRE, provides an extensive pool of essay topics for both the Issue Essay and the Argument Essay . In this article, we will explore how to use the GRE essay pool for effective practice and enhance your essay-writing skills.

How to Train with the GRE Essay Pool:

Track Your Journey : Keep records of your practice essays and the improvements you make over time. Seeing your progress can be a great motivator!

The GRE essay pool is like your personal training ground. Use it to hone your writing skills, get comfortable with different essay prompts, and build confidence. Remember to pay attention to structure, organization, and effective use of evidence, and develop your own unique writing style. With enough practice using the GRE essay pool, you’ll be ready to ace the AWA section of the GRE.

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Gre prep online guides and tips, 4 top-scoring gre sample essays, analyzed (issue + argument).

The best way to figure out how to get a high Analytical Writing score is to look at a GRE essay sample, but doing so without any guidance can be overwhelming. How do you show insight? Do typos affect your score? What’s a good way to keep your essay organized?

We’ll answer all these questions for you (and more!) in this article by analyzing four real GRE essay examples and highlighting the key features you’ll want to include in your own essays.

How to Use This Guide

Before we get to the GRE sample essays and their analyses, I’ll highlight two best ways to use this guide to improve your essay and get a great scoring essay yourself.

First, use the perfect-scoring sample GRE essays in this guide as models of possible ways to accomplish the essay tasks . By this, I don’t mean you should plagiarize entire sentences, paragraphs, or essays – that’s both wrong and against GRE code of conduct (it will disqualify your entire test if discovered). Plus, there are so many prompts (152 Issue prompts and 176 Argument ones) that it’s unlikely you’d be able to use any of these exact essays anyway.

What you can and should do is incorporate the features highlighted in the analyses below in your own essays. For instance, if you’ve been struggling with how to logically connect ideas within paragraphs in your own essays, take a look of some of the examples of logical connection I point out in this article and see how they fit within the context of the full essay. You can then practice replicating successful connections between ideas in your own practice essays.

The other main way to use this guide is in conjunction with the essay grading rubrics to help ferret out your writing weaknesses and work on them. Start with the rubrics for the Issue and Argument tasks and identify which criteria are most difficult for you to meet. Even if you can’t articulate precisely what your weakest spot is (e.g. failing to logically connect your ideas within paragraphs), you can at least narrow down the general rubric area you most struggle with (e.g. organization in general).

Once you’ve identified the general area you have the most trouble with, read the GRE essay examples and our analyses in this article to find concrete instances (rather than the abstract descriptions) of the rubric criteria. For more information about the different rubrics for the different essay tasks, read our articles on how to write perfect-scoring GRE Issue and Argument essays .

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Because this article is on the longer side, we’ve created a table of contents to enable you to jump to a specific essay example or task type:

Table of Contents: GRE Essay Examples

Issue essay 1: technology and human ingenuity, issue essay 2: cooperation vs. competition, argument essay 1: mason city riverside recreation, argument essay 2: super screen movie advertising.

The first of the GRE sample essays we’ll be looking at is written in response to the following “Analyze an Issue” 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.

The essay written on this Issue prompt takes the position that rather than hindering our abilities to think for themselves, technology will spur humanity on to achieve ever-greater things. The full text of this GRE essay sample can be found on the ETS website .

In this analysis, I’ll go over the different ways in which this essay meets the GRE essay rubric criteria for a perfect scoring Issue essay . The first of these rubric criteria I’ll be discussing is the way the author takes a clear and insightful stance on the issue in the essay.

The author’s position that instead of fearing new technology, we should embrace its possibilities is methodically articulated over the course of the entire essay, culminating in the essay’s conclusion with a full thesis statement (“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.”). Below is an outline of how the author expresses her thesis throughout the essay:

Paragraph 1 : The author acknowledges “technology has revolutionized the world.”
Paragraph 2 : The author explains the reasoning behind the statement in the prompt (“The assumption is that an increased reliance on technology negates the need for people to think creatively to solve previous quandaries”).
Paragraph 3 : The author counters the reasoning she discussed in paragraph 2, writing that “reliance on technology does not necessarily preclude the creativity that marks the human species.”
Paragraph 4 : The author advances her counterclaim one step further, stating that “technology frees the human imagination.”
Paragraph 5 : The author further develops the idea from Paragraph 4, stating “By increasing our reliance on technology, impossible goals can now be achieved.”
Paragraph 6 : This final paragraph concludes the essay with a fully articulated thesis that also sums up what went before: “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.”

The author’s straightforward explanations of her thinking and logic enhance the clarity of her position, while the nuanced content of the position itself demonstrates insight into the issue.

The next area a perfect-scoring Issue essay must demonstrate mastery of is the development of its position through compelling and persuasive examples and reasoning . The author of this essay accomplishes this task by providing examples to support each idea she discusses and, furthermore, explaining not only the content of the examples but also why the examples support her position.

Here’s an example from paragraph 5:

By increasing our reliance on technology, impossible goals can now be achieved. Consider how the late 20th century witnessed the complete elimination of smallpox. 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.

In this example, the author begins by laying out the main idea to be discussed (impossible things can be achieved by relying more on technology). She then supports this idea with the example of the impossible problem of smallpox and the steps taken that led to its eradication.

The great thing about the way the author explains her reasoning and examples is the concision and precision with which she gets her information across. Rather than going off into a discussion about the damage caused by smallpox, or staying too vague by mentioning how “diseases” had been solved by the use of vaccines, the author chooses a specific example (smallpox) and mentions only the details relevant to proving her point . This kind of precise writing takes practice, but being able to effectively sum up an example and why it supports your position in just a couple of sentences is essential if you want to get a high score on the GRE Issue essay.

Focus, organization, and logical connections are the third criterion that a perfect-scoring essay needs to fulfill. In the case of this GRE essay sample, the author achieves this organization and focus by linking ideas both within paragraphs (as seen in the previous example) as well as between paragraphs . Let’s look at the way the author transitions between the end of paragraph four and the beginning of paragraph five:

The unlikely marriage of economics and medicine has healed tense, hyperinflation environments from South America to Eastern Europe.

This last example provides the most hope in how technology actually provides hope to the future of humanity. By increasing our reliance on technology, impossible goals can now be achieved.

The author connects the two paragraphs by continuing paragraph four’s discussion of ways human imagination has been pushed by technology (technology combining economics and medicine has solved a problem) with paragraph five’s exploration of how this example has led to achieving things previously considered impossible. The smoothness of the transition between the two paragraphs is effected both by presenting the content of the next paragraph as a logical progression from what was just discussed as well as by using language (“this last example”) that connects the two on a more superficial level.

By keeping paragraphs tightly linked on both the surface level of sentence structures as well as on the deeper level of content being discussed , the author of this essay also keeps her writing focused and cohesive.

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The last quality a perfect-scoring essay must demonstrate is precision of language and flow in writing . The author of this GRE Analytical Writing sample fulfills this requirement by using language to precisely and economically convey meaning throughout her essay. Here’s one example of precise and effective use of language in the essay:

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.

In this excerpt, the author uses the evocative word “ravaged” to show the dire extent of the problem solved by technology, reinforcing that the issue was previously considered impossible to cope with. She also uses the phrase “humans dared to imagine” in this sentence, which ties the example being discussed back to the previous paragraph’s discussion of human imagination.

While there are a couple of minor errors in this excerpt (“prehistorical” should be “prehistoric,” “free thinking” should be “free-thinking”), they do not significantly change the meaning of the author’s words and so do not detract from the overall effectiveness of the author’s language.

Nope nope nope we've gone too prehistoric, walk it back, folks

Return to Table of Contents

The second of the GRE Issue essay samples I’ll be analyzing is written in response to the following prompt about the values of cooperation vs. competition:

“The best way for a society to prepare its young people for leadership in government, industry, or other fields is by instilling in them a sense of cooperation, not competition.”

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 or examples that could be used to challenge your position.

The sample Issue essay written in response to this topic takes the stance that cooperation, not competition, is a preferable value to instill in young people in preparation for government. You can read the full essay on page 108 of this PDF . Read on for a discussion of the different ways in which this essay meets the requirements for a perfect score.

As with the previous GRE essay sample, we’ll start by looking at how this essay meets the perfect-scoring essay criteria of stating a clear and insightful position (as required by the essay task). The author fulfills the first part of the criteria with his clear statement of his thesis in the last line of the very first paragraph:

I would have to agree that the best way to prepare young people for leadership roles is to instill in them a sense of cooperation.

He reiterates this clear position with the last two sentences of his conclusion:

Getting to be President of the United States or the managing director of a corporation might require you to win some battles, but once you are there you will need diplomacy and people-skills. Those can be difficult to learn, but if you do not have them, you are likely to be a short-lived leader.

To achieve a perfect Issue essay score, however, it’s not just enough to be clear in your position; your position must also demonstrate insight into the issue . The author of this essay accomplishes this second part by choosing a two-pronged approach to answering the essay question. Rather than merely explaining how cooperativeness leads to positive outcomes in government, industry, and other fields, the author also explains how competitiveness leads to negative outcomes.

Thus, the author makes his position clear by stating it in the opening and closing paragraphs of the essay and shows insight by taking the more complex position that not only is cooperation good, but competition is bad.

The next of the rubric criteria we’ll discuss has to do with how well the author develops his position with examples and reasoning . A great example of this development can be found in the second paragraph of this essay, which discusses the drawbacks of competition.

The author begins his discussion of competitiveness by arguing that it’s a quality that doesn’t need to be “instilled” because it’s already present. Beginning with general reasoning about human behaviors at school and the office to introduce his point, the author then neatly segues into specific examples of competitiveness gone amok (Hitler in Germany and the recent economic meltdown in America).

With each example presented in the essay, the author pushes his position along a little further. He moves from discussing the most extreme historical cases (genocide) to more recent events (economic recession), concluding by focusing in on one person’s life and career (Tiger Woods). This final example allows the author to reach his final destination in his discussion of competitiveness: yes, competition can serve people well up to a certain point, but the price is that it is also “detrimental and ultimately quite destructive.”

Competition is particularly destructive if you're playing chess with glass pieces!

The third way this essay meets the requirements of a perfect-scoring essay is through the logical connection of ideas within and between paragraphs . The transition between the end of paragraph two and the beginning of paragraph three provides a stellar example of this skillful connecting of ideas:

It [competitiveness] served him well in some respects, but it also proved to be detrimental and ultimately quite destructive.

Leaders who value cooperation, on the other ahnd, have historically been less prone to these overreaching, destructive tendencies.

On the face of it, the author only connects the two paragraphs by using a transition phrase (“on the other hand”) that sets up the next paragraph as contrasting with what came before. While this kind of transition would be good enough for a lower-scoring essay, though, the author does not just leave the connection between the two paragraphs at that. Instead, he also connects the two paragraphs by keeping the focus on the same issue from the end of one paragraph to the beginning of the next.

The content-level transition between paragraphs occurs when the author transitions from discussing the “detrimental and ultimately quite destructive” competitiveness of Tiger Woods directly into claiming that cooperation-valuing leaders are “less prone to these overreaching, destructive tendencies.” This twofold linkage of content (deeper level) and transition phrase (more surface level) makes it clear to the reader that the discussion of leaders valuing cooperation follows logically the discussion of negative outcomes for competition-valuing leaders.

The final 6-level quality demonstrated by this GRE Writing sample is its use of skillful and precise language to convey specific meaning . Overall, the language in this essay is formal and academic , despite the profligate use of first person point of view by the author (which can make writing seem less formal). The following sentence exemplifies the author’s command of language:

The recent economic meltdown was caused in no large part by the leaders of American banks and financial institutions who were obsessed with competing for the almighty dollar.

Despite the minor error in this sentence (it should read “in no small part,” rather than “in no large part,”), the author’s meaning is absolutely clear: competition led to the meltdown. Strong vocabulary choices like “economic meltdown,” “obsessed,” “almighty dollar” are what make this an effective statement of the author’s position. Compare the above excerpt to a more milquetoast version of the same statement:

The recent economic downturn was mostly caused by financial leaders who wanted to earn lots of money.

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This second sentence has the same basic meaning as the real excerpt from the essay. Because it doesn’t use particularly precise or compelling language, however, this watered-down version ends up minimizing the magnitude of problems caused by competitiveness (which undercuts the author’s point). This vaguer version of the essay excerpt also lacks the word “competing,” which makes it useless as an instance of competition among leaders leading to negative consequences.

The original excerpt from the essay, and indeed the entire GRE essay example, is so strong precisely because it manages to pack in specific relevant language that adds to, rather than detracts from, the author’s meaning.

The next essay I’ll be analyzing is written in response to the following “Analyze an Argument” prompt:

In surveys Mason City residents rank water sports (swimming, boating and fishing) among their favorite recreational activities. The Mason River flowing through the city is rarely used for these pursuits, however, and the city park department devotes little of its budget to maintaining riverside recreational facilities. For years there have been complaints from residents about the quality of the river’s water and the river’s smell. In response, the state has recently announced plans to clean up Mason River. Use of the river for water sports is therefore sure to increase. The city government should for that reason devote more money in this year’s budget to riverside recreational facilities.

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.

The GRE Argument essay sample I’ll be analyzing critiques the numerous assumptions made and ultimately concludes that the argument for spending more money on Mason City’s riverside recreational facilities rests on faulty assumptions.

The full text of this essay can be found on the ETS website . Be sure to read through the essay first before coming back to read my analysis of it. We’ll start by looking at the ways in which this GRE essay sample identifies and examines the argument given in the prompt in an insightful way:

There are three key assumptions made by the argument that are identified in the essay:

#1 : The survey results are valid and representative

#2 : The reason Mason River isn’t used is because of odor and pollution

#3 : Cleaning the pollution in the river will get rid of the odor and then lead to more usage by residents

The Argument essay example we’re looking at examines each of the assumptions by considering the implications if the assumptions made by the article turn out not to be true . Here’s part of the essay’s investigation of the second assumption listed above:

Though there have been complaints, we do not know if there have been numerous complaints from a wide range of people, or perhaps from one or two individuals who made numerous complaints.

The author identifies the assumption that complaints indicate many people want to use the river and examines it by reasoning through possible scenarios other than the one presented in the prompt. The insight comes from the fact that the specific possibilities discussed by the author are highly plausible alternative explanations for the facts that would change the validity of the prompt’s assumption. It’s very possible that the complaints were not made by every single resident, or even a majority of residents, as the prompt seems to assume, but were in fact only made by a few people.

As a result of her analysis, the author ultimately concludes that there is insufficient information to support the assumption that Mason River isn’t used due to its odor and pollution.

The next way the author of this sample GRE essay fulfills the requirements of a perfect-scoring Argument essay is by providing comprehensive support for each of her main points . Throughout the essay, the author is able to explain exactly why each assumption made is problematic by using examples that precisely illustrate her argument.

Consider how this is approached in the second paragraph of the essay. The author starts the paragraph by presenting the assumption made in the essay argument that the survey results can be relied upon. She then proceeds to decimate that assumption with multiple examples of ways in which the survey could be flawed and not be an accurate representation of the residents’ opinions, as can be seen in the following excerpt:

For example, the survey could have asked residents if they prefer using the river for water sports or would like to see a hydroelectric dam built, which may have swayed residents toward river sports. The sample may not have been representative of city residents, asking only those residents who live upon the river. The survey may have been 10 pages long, with 2 questions dedicated to river sports. We just do not know.

The thoroughness of the author’s support for her point is magnified by the specificity of the scenarios she proposes . Stating “the survey might not have been representative of the city residents” would have been far less compelling a point than stating “[t]he sample may not have been representative of city residents, asking only those residents who live upon the river.”

Probably not quite so on the river as this, though.

Another important ideal a perfect-scoring Argument essay must live up to is being organized logically, with clear transitions between ideas . The author of this GRE essay sample is able to meet the first part of this requirement with a simple five-paragraph organizational structure : an introduction, one paragraph for each assumption discussed, and a conclusion.

Accomplishing the logical connection and development of ideas throughout the essay requires a little bit more finesse, but the author still manages it. Here’s an example from the beginning of the third paragraph of a skillful transition:

Additionally, the author implies that residents do not use the river for swimming, boating, and fishing, despite their professed interest, because the water is polluted and smelly.

In the above example, the author uses the transition word “additionally” to connect the ideas that will follow with what went before. The example also references the previous paragraph’s discussion of the unreliability of the survey of residents (“their professed interest”) and links it to the current discussion of pollution and smell being the cause of low participation in riverside recreational activities. The combination of these two methods of connecting the two paragraphs results in a smooth logical flow from one idea to the next.

Let your ideas flow. Like the Mason River.

Lastly, a perfect-scoring Argument essay must be precise and effective in its discussion of ideas, with few if any errors . The author of this essay successfully meets this standard by using purposeful language to efficiently and clearly get her point across, as can be seen in this example from paragraph three:

While a polluted, smelly river would likely cut down on river sports, a concrete connection between the resident’s lack of river use and the river’s current state is not effectively made.

The author contrasts the prompt’s assumption (“a polluted, smelly river would likely cut down on river sports”) with the “concrete connection” that is not present. The essay as a whole is not completely devoid of errors (for example, the author writes “afffected” instead of “affected”), but the errors are few and do not have a negative impact on the clarity of the writing.

The last of the GRE essay examples I’ll be analyzing at is written in response to this “Analyze an Argument” prompt:

The following is taken from a memo from the advertising director of the Super Screen Movie Production Company.

“According to a recent report from our marketing department, during the past year, fewer people attended Super Screen-produced movies than in any other year. And yet the percentage of positive reviews by movie reviewers about specific Super Screen movies actually increased during the past year. Clearly, the contents of these reviews are not reaching enough of our prospective viewers. Thus, the problem lies not with the quality of our movies but with the public’s lack of awareness that movies of good quality are available. Super Screen should therefore allocate a greater share of its budget next year to reaching the public through advertising.”

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 essay written in response to this “Analyze an Argument” prompt raises and evaluates questions about how many viewers and reviews of Super Screen productions there actually were, if there is a strong relationship between how movie reviewers and general audiences react to movies, and whether or not the percentage of positive reviews about a movie reflects how much of an impact reviews have on audiences.

The full text of this GRE essay sample can be found on p. 112 of this PDF . Read through the essay first, then check below for an analysis of its positive (and negative) qualities.

The first aspect of the essay we’ll analyze is how it succeeds in identifying and examining the parts of the argument that are relevant to the task . In the essay’s introduction, the author mentions that there are questions that need to be asked (“Before this plan is implemented, however, Super Screen needs to address some questions about its possible flaws”), but he really hammers it home in the conclusion by specifying which questions need to be answered:

In conclusion, there are many questions Super Screen needs to answer before using this advertising director’s plan. They need to look carefully at actual numbers, both of viewership and of positive reviews. The also need to identify the relationship that their target audience has with movie reviewers and determine how their target audience feels about their movies. Fianlly they need to take a nuanced look at the movie reviews that they use in their advertising.

With this conclusion, the author hits the three main points that need to be considered before agreeing to the advertising director’s plan : viewer and review numbers, audience reactions to reviews, and whether or not reviews are a useful metric by which to measure movie success.

An instance of the author identifying a particular argument can be found in the third paragraph of this GRE essay sample. The paragraph starts by clearly stating the question that needs to be answered (what the number of positive reviews was and how it compared to past reviews). After this initial identification of the question, the author also explains how answering this question would have an impact on the usefulness of the recommendation: if the increase in positive reviews was from 1% to 2%, allocating more money to advertising to emphasize this fact is likely to have less impact than if the money were instead budgeted towards improving film quality.

Lights! Camera! And a 200% increase in script quality!

Another quality all perfect-scoring Argument essays must contain is strong and thorough support for each point discussed . The author of the GRE essay sample we’re analyzing fulfills this requirement, supporting every question she raises about the argument in the prompt by showing how its answer would affect the recommendation.

A good example of this all coming together happens in paragraph five of the essay:

Finally the studio must ask whether the percentage of positive reviews is really a relevant way to measure the potential impact of movie reviews. There are dozens of movie reviewers but when deciding whether to not to go to a movie, the general public will usually pick from among the 10 most popular movie reviews. These are the reviews that will impress the public if they are included in advertising. If the most popular movie reviewers disliked Super Screen movies that a larger number of small time film bloggers reviewed positively, Super Screen needs to think of a new advertising strategy.

In this paragraph, the author opens by identifying the element of argument to be discussed (are positive reviews a useful way to measure the impact of movie reviews in general?). She then develops this point through reasoning about why the answer to this question might contradict the assumption made in the argument (people mostly use popular reviews to decide on what movies to see, rather than the ratio of popular to negative reviews).

The author ends this paragraph by conclusively showing that the answer to the question raised in this paragraph is crucial for determining whether or not Super Screen should follow the advertising director’s plan: if the percent of positive reviews isn’t a good way to measure movie impact and the real issue is that relatively few popular movie reviewers liked Super Screen movies, then the recommendation of the advertising department is unreasonable.

No amount of advertising's going to wake up that movie reviewer.

The third requirement for a perfect-scoring Argument essay is that it must develop and connect ideas in a clear and logical fashion. The organization of this GRE argument essay sample helps accomplish this by routing the author’s thoughts into an introduction, four body paragraphs, and a conclusion . Each body paragraph of the essay is centered around one or two related questions. A good example of this can be found in paragraph four, which contains two related questions about the relationship between audiences and movie reviewers:

Finally, Super Screen needs to ask what the relationship is between its viewers and the movie reviewers cited in the memo. Using a survey distributed to its target audience, Super Screen could determine if movie reviews have an effect on their audience’s decision to go see a movie, whether movie reviewers tended to have the same taste as the target audience and exactly whether or not movie reviews are reaching the audience. Super Screen also needs to consider how its movie choices have affected the separate movie reviewer and audience populations. If the studio has switched from making mega- blockbuster action movies to more nuanced dramas, the general public may be less willing to go see their movies even though movie critics prefer the dramas to the action movies.

The above paragraph starts out by discussing if Super Screen’s target audiences are affected by reviews and whether their audiences and movie reviewers have the same taste, then segues into discussing if the studio’s film-making choices have affected audiences and movie reviews. The transition between the two different questions being discussed is effected by the simple use of the word “also” in the third sentence of the paragraph:

Super Screen also needs to consider how its movie choices have affected the separate movie reviewer and audience populations. [bolded for emphasis]

The last sentence of the paragraph again links back to the discussion of audience taste vs. reviewer taste, reinforcing the close and logical connection between the two questions discussed in the paragraph.

Finally, a perfect-scoring Argument essay must employ varied and precise language, with few errors . Earlier, we discussed paragraph four as a particularly strong example of the author’s effective development of ideas. The last sentence of this paragraph contributes to this efficacy through the use of specific language :

“If the studio has switched from making mega-blockbuster action movies to more nuanced dramas, the general public may be less willing to go see their movies even though movie critics prefer the dramas to the action movies.”

The use of the descriptor “mega-blockbuster” to describe the action movies preferred by the masses effectively conjures up something that is the diametric opposite of a “nuanced drama.” In addition, the author’s contrasting of the “mega-blockbuster action movies” with “more nuanced dramas” parallels the second half of the sentence’s contrasting of the preferences of the general public vs. those of the (possibly) more refined movie reviewer.

There are a few minor spelling errors (e.g. in “attendence” instead of “attendance”), and the last two body paragraphs both start with “finally” (which is a little repetitive), but in general, this is a skillfully written essay. It’s not perfectly polished like an essay you’d turn in for school, but that’s absolutely OK. In the grand scheme of the GRE essay scoring rubric, writing flourishes matter much less than clarity of thought and precision of language.

Some Super Screen movie reviewers. MCAD Library/Flickr.

6 Tips for a Perfect-Scoring GRE Essay

To wrap up this article, I’ll go over some of the key points you should take from the four GRE sample essays I analyzed in this article.

#1: Include an Introduction and a Conclusion

One thing that all these perfect-scoring GRE sample essays had in common was an introduction and a conclusion . It doesn’t have to be a full paragraph, but you need to at the very least introduce your ideas at the beginning of your essay and wrap up your conclusions at the end of it.

#2: State Your Position Clearly

In my notes to myself on one of the GRE Issue essay examples I analyzed above, I observed that the author “states her thesis early and often” because of the way her position was made clear throughout the essay. While obviously you don’t want to just repeat the same sentence over and over again, it is imperative that you include at least one clear statement of your position in your essay , preferably in your introduction paragraph.

The importance of clearly stating your position varies between the two GRE essay tasks somewhat. For the Argument essay, you might be able to get away with a vague summary of the points you’ll cover and still get a 4.0 or above on the essay; by contrast, it’s nearly impossible to get above a 3.0 on the Issue essay if you do not clearly state your position on the issue, as that is integral to the essay task itself.

Whatever the prompt or essay type, if you want to get a perfect score on your essay, you’ll need to include a clear statement of your position on the issue or what points you’ll be analyzing in regards to the argument in the prompt.

#3: Be Specific in Your Support

All of the perfect-scoring GRE essay examples analyzed in this article contained specific and relevant support for the claims made by the authors. In the Issue essay examples, the authors drew upon well-defined examples and concise examples that directly supported the author’s position on the issue. In the Argument essay samples, the authors focused in on several specific parts of the arguments and debated their validity using specific hypothetical scenarios and questions.

The takeaway of this for your own writing is that the specific is always more persuasive than the general when it comes to supporting a point. And if you can’t find specific support for your position or for the flaw you’ve found in an argument, then that’s a good sign that you need to consider changing your position or finding another part of the argument to critique.

If you can't support your thesis with specific examples, you might need to find a new thesis.

#4: Explain Your Support Clearly

As I discussed in my analyses of the four GRE Writing samples, whether or not your writing is polished and perfectly worded and spelled is not nearly as important as your successful communication of your ideas and how they are supported . In the GRE essay, all is precision, and analyses of issues that use clearly-explained compelling examples or analyses of arguments that cut to the very heart of why an argument is flawed with supporting explanations will ultimately score higher than beautifully crafted but logically imprecise essays.

#5: Use Transitions

All of the authors of the GRE essay examples analyzed in this article are able to maintain focus and organization in their essays by employing multi-level transitions that link ideas between and within paragraphs on both content and linguistic levels. In your own writing, be conscious of when you are changing from discussing one idea to another and make sure the transition is smooth. Even just adding transition words like “additionally” or “in contrast” to the beginning of new ideas can help your writing flow better.

#6: Stay Organized

While all of the GRE essay examples used in this article were written in response to different prompts, they all adhered to basically the standard five-paragraph , introduction-body paragraphs-conclusion format.

There’s no reason to take extra time away from your analysis of the questions to figure out a unique organizational structure for each essay when the five paragraph essay will get it done just as well (if not better). This is not because other forms are not possible; as the ETS website says, “You are free to organize and develop your response in any way you think will enable you to effectively communicate your ideas about the issue.”

But the utility of the five paragraph form is that it’s a tried-and-true way to keep your essay organized . Using it will save you the time of having to figure out a new organizational strategy for every essay you write. And the more consistently you stick to a simple (but clear) organizational structure, the faster you’ll get at it, until organizing your thoughts logically comes as second-nature (especially important in a timed essay environment when every second counts).

What’s Next?

Now you know what it takes to get a perfect essay score. But do you actually need to get a perfect 6.0 on GRE Writing? Find out with our discussion of what a good GRE Writing score is .

Curious about how the criteria mentioned in this article translate into numerical scores? Read our article on how the GRE essay is scored to learn more!

Need to boost your essay score quickly? We have 15 great tips and strategies that help you improve your Analytical Writing score .

Ready to dive into practice essays with some practice topics? Use our guide to the 328 official GRE essay topics to get started.

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

GRE study guide: Analytical Writing section

Posted by | December 4 2019

The GRE’s Analytical Writing section requires you to write two essays in one hour — one Issue essay and one Argument essay. You’ll be scored based on your ability to formulate a thesis statement and how well you argue your statement in the following paragraphs. While writing two essays in one hour sounds intimidating, it’s doable with the right planning and practice. Here are some tips for getting started.

Become familiar with sample topics. Educational Testing Services (ETS) — the creators of the GRE — publishes the entire pool of Issues and Argument topics on their website. The topics that you’ll see on your test will be taken from those pools, so becoming familiar and practicing with the topics listed will be an extremely helpful resource. ETS also has sample scored Issue and Argument essay responses available so you can see the difference between writing quality and scores.

Practice with GRE essay prompts. Like most subject matter, the best way to get better at writing and formulating an argument is to keep practicing. Here are some helpful tips for practicing writing an essay:

ETS has 328 published GRE essay topics , any of which can appear on the Analytical Writing section.
Grade yourself with the official standards set by GRE rubrics. If you don’t think you can be objective enough, find a friend to score it for you.
Keep within the 30-minute time limit.
If you are taking the computer-based GRE, practice writing your essay using POWERPREP Online or another word processor.
Leave time to edit your essay.

Outline your essay before writing. Outlining your arguments before putting them into words will help you organize your thoughts and construct a cohesive argument. Begin by determining your thesis, then briefly outline your two to four examples or points of analysis that you will go into your body paragraphs. Complete your outline with a few bullet points under each of your points of analysis that explain how each supports your thesis.

How to organize your essay

Issue essays. The Issue essay section will provide you with an issue statement followed by a specific task that will tell you how to respond to the issue. Consider using this sample template for your essay:

Introduction. Start your introduction with a sentence that restates the issue followed by your thesis statement, or your main argument. In the following sentences, introduce your specific reasons and evidence you will provide in the following body paragraphs. A good rule of thumb is to have one sentence for each of the following body paragraphs.
Body paragraphs (2–4). Your body paragraphs should introduce a main piece of evidence, provide an explanation on how the evidence relates to the topic, and demonstrate how your evidence supports your thesis
Conclusion. Briefly summarize the points you’ve made in a way that slightly mirrors your introduction.

Argument essays. The Argument essay section will provide you with an argument and asks you to analyze it based on logic. Consider using this sample template for your essay:

Introduction. Your introduction should restate the author’s opinion, summarize the facts provided to you that led to the author’s opinion or conclusion, and state your thesis in the final sentence on your view of the opinion based on evidence.
Body paragraphs (2–4). Your body paragraphs should introduce a flaw in the argument or an example of insufficient evidence, explain why that example is flawed, and offer alternative evidence such as alternate possibilities that the author did not include.
Conclusion . Briefly summarize your thesis again and possibly provide some suggestions for changes that would strengthen the argument.

Table of Content

8 Best Books for the GRE Analytical Writing

The GRE Analytical Writing section is one of the most challenging sections. You need to analyse complex arguments, articulate your ideas clearly, and write persuasively—all under tight time constraints. However, with the right study materials, you can refine your analytical skills and approach test day with confidence.

This blog shares the 8 best books for the GRE Analytical Writing, offering a variety of resources to suit your learning style and budget. Whether you want official practice questions, in-depth analysis strategies, or a comprehensive guide to solving specific issue topics, we’ve got you covered.

Overview of the GRE Analytical Writing Section

The GRE General Test’s Analytical Writing measure assesses your critical thinking and analytical writing abilities. The Analytical Writing measure consists of a single 30-minute task called “Analyse an Issue.” This task provides an opinion on a specific issue along with instructions for your response. Your job is to analyse the issue, consider its various aspects, and develop a reasoned argument with examples and evidence to support your perspective. It focuses on your skills based on the following criteria:

Articulating and supporting complex ideas

Constructing well-reasoned arguments

Maintaining a focused and coherent discussion

This evaluation goes beyond specific content knowledge. Instead, it emphasises your ability to think critically about a presented issue.

Note: You will be using a basic word processor developed by ETS to write your essay. This word processor offers functionalities like inserting, deleting, cutting, pasting, and undoing the previous action. However, features like spellcheck and grammar check are not available.

Why Should You Use GRE Analytical Writing Books?

The GRE Analytical Writing books offer a structured approach to studying for the Analytical Writing section of the GRE. These books can help you develop strong analytical skills. They typically provide a range of practice prompts that cover the different types of essay tasks you might come across on the GRE. Working through these prompts will help you hone your critical thinking abilities as you learn to analyse arguments, identify assumptions, and construct persuasive essays.

The books can also improve your writing mechanics. By exposing you to a variety of well-written essays, these books can help you improve your grammar, GRE vocabulary , and sentence structure. As you read these examples, you’ll begin to absorb the elements of strong writing, which you can then incorporate into your essays.

Additionally, many GRE Analytical Writing books contain test-taking strategies that can give you an edge on the GRE. These strategies can help you manage your time effectively during the exam and approach the essay prompts in a way that will maximise your score. By learning these strategies and practicing them alongside the GRE AWA sample essays , you’ll be well-prepared to write clear, concise, and high-scoring essays on test day.

Also read: Important Topics for the GRE AWA Section

Top 8 Books for the GRE Analytical Writing

1. gre analytical writing supreme: solutions to the real essay topics.

GRE Analytical Writing Supreme: Solutions to the Real Essay Topics by Vibrant Publishers is a comprehensive guide designed to help you ace the Analytical Writing section of the GRE. Divided into three books, it provides an in-depth analysis of over 145 real essay prompts.

By offering expert strategies, sample essays, and categorised topics (Arts, Education, etc.), the book provides you with the tools to not only understand effective essay structure but also develop strong critical thinking and analytical writing skills.

Price: INR 599

Buy it on Amazon .

2. Manhattan Review’s GRE Analytical Writing Guide

Manhattan Review’s GRE Analytical Writing Guide offers a two-pronged approach to mastering the Analytical Writing section of the GRE. It delves into the nitty-gritty of scoring, analysing the format, and how essays are graded. Additionally, it provides a rich practice ground with solutions to 20 real essay prompts, breaking down with a three-tier structure to predict the strongest responses and showing graded essays with critiques to illuminate the path to high scores.

Price: INR 532

Read also: 10 Best GRE Prep Books for 2024

3. Testwise GRE Prep’s GRE Analytical Writing: Answers to the Official Pool of Issue Topics

Testwise GRE Prep’s GRE Analytical Writing: Answers to the Official Pool of Issue Topics provides pre-written essays for all the actual issue prompts you might come across on test day. Designed to address the time constraints of the GRE, the book goes beyond simply giving you answers. It includes explanations of what graders look for in a strong essay. This allows you to analyse the sample responses and improve your analytical writing skills in the process.

Price: INR 1,720

4. McGraw Hill Education’s Conquering GRE Verbal Reasoning and Analytical Writing

McGraw-Hill Education’s Conquering GRE Verbal Reasoning and Analytical Writing targets the GRE’s verbal and writing sections. It offers in-depth explanations of the latest test format, along with drills and GRE practice questions to hone test-taking skills. By providing strategies for various question types and including four full practice verbal sections, the book promises to boost your confidence and prepare you to ace the GRE.

Price: INR 644

5. ETS’s Official GRE Verbal Reasoning Practice Questions

Published by the ETS, the Official GRE Verbal Reasoning Practice Questions offer over 150 real GRE practice questions across various difficulty levels. This allows you to develop your test-taking skills and gain a clear understanding of the question types, content areas, and overall structure of the verbal reasoning portion of the GRE.

Price: INR 899

Suggested: GRE Preparation Books

6. GRE Analytical Writing Solutions for All Real Essay Topics

GRE Analytical Writing Solutions for All Real Essay Topics offers a two-pronged approach: firstly, by providing detailed strategies for writing the Analyse an Issue essay. Secondly, it includes practice with real, past essay topics. This gives you a chance to hone your critical thinking and writing skills in a realistic test environment. The book also includes breakdowns of scoring guides and sample essays to provide a clear understanding of what graders are looking for in a high-scoring response.

Price: INR 449

7. 30 Days to a More Powerful Vocabulary

30 Days to a More Powerful Vocabulary by Wilfred Funk and Norman Lewis promises to strengthen your vocabulary for the GRE in just 15 minutes a day. The book uses a combination of quizzes and exercises to help you learn new words, understand their pronunciations, and master their roots. The book aims to not only improve your GRE score but also enhance your overall communication skills.

Price: INR 160

8. GRE Words in Context

GRE Words in Context introduces challenging GRE vocabulary words within meaningful contexts. The book goes beyond memorization and fosters a deeper understanding of the nuances of the language. This approach, along with GRE practice tests and activities, provides you with the proficiency to not only decipher complex passages but also express yourself with greater clarity and precision in your GRE writing tasks.

Read also: 10 Best Books for the GRE Quant Preparation

From the Desk of Yocket

For all GRE test-takers, the official guide serves as a foundational resource. It gets into the core principles of essay writing and ensures you have a strong grasp of structure, argumentation, and clarity. More importantly, it familiarises you with the specific format of the GRE essay task, which often deviates from traditional essay writing. The guide offers real-world examples of essays that have received different scores, along with detailed scoring rubrics. This allows you to analyse successful responses and understand the specific qualities graders seek in high-scoring essays.

However, if you’re aiming to maximise your score and land in the top percentiles, exploring beyond the official guide might be beneficial. Established test prep companies offer comprehensive resources specifically tailored for the GRE Analytical Writing section. These resources often dig deeper into specific question types and provide insightful strategies and techniques to write issue exploration prompts effectively. Additionally, they offer a wider pool of practice prompts that closely resemble the actual essay prompts you might come across on test day. For even more rigorous preparation, consider GRE prep premium options that offer advanced tools and personalized feedback. This allows you to practice applying your learned skills and strategies under timed conditions, mimicking the real exam experience.

Frequently Asked Questions about GRE AWA Preparation Books

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GRE General Test Analytical Writing Overview
The Analytical Writing measure of the GRE General Test administered before September 22, 2023, assesses your critical thinking and analytical writing skills by assessing your ability to: articulate and support complex ideas. construct and evaluate arguments. sustain a focused and coherent discussion. It doesn't assess specific content knowledge.
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.
PDF Analytical Writing Sample Essays and Commentaries Large Print (18 point
The Analytical Writing portion of the GRE®General Test consists of two writing topics, an Issue topic and an Argument topic. This document contains the writing topics for Practice Test #3, the scoring guides for each section, and sample responses with commentaries for each topic. Note: Sample responses are reproduced exactly as written ...
GRE Essay Sample Prompts
GRE Argument Essay Sample Prompt 1: Unstated Assumptions. The following appeared in a memo from a vice president of Quiot Manufacturing. ... The full list of GRE essay sample prompts is available online. The ETS also offers a product called ScoreItNow!. For $20, you can practice writing a total of eight GRE essays online. ...
GRE Issue Essay: Strategies + 8 Real Student Essays with Scores
GRE Issue Essay Prompt 1: University Requirements Prompt. ... Familiarize yourself with these topics, and then write several practice essays of your own using these ETS topics as a way to familiarize yourself with the questions and expectations. If you are careful to answer the actual question posed by the AWA tasks and you prepare yourself by ...
Writing Center: Sample GRE Essay Prompts
Sample GRE Essay Prompts. Each of these prompts was published on the official GRE ETS accounts. Governments should offer college and university education free of charge to all students. 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 ...
GRE Writing Prompts
A 4.0 is currently a 56th percentile score in GRE Analytical Writing. Note that the mean GRE writing score is currently just under 3.6. So, a 4.0 is slightly better than average. And, generally speaking, schools consider 4.0 a "good" score, though of course each program will have its own standards.
GRE Issue Essay: Practice Sample Prompts
Although the Analytical Writing section comprises two separate essays, ETS reports a single score that represents the average of your scores for the two essays, rounded up to the nearest half-point. ... Try the sample GRE Issue Essay prompts below for practice: GRE Issue Essay Sample Prompt #1. 1. The emergence of the online "blogosphere ...
GRE General Test Analytical Writing Overview
The Analytical Writing measure of the GRE General Test administered before September 22, 2023, assesses your critical thinking and analytical writing skills by assessing your ability to: articulate and support complex ideas. construct and evaluate arguments. sustain a focused and coherent discussion. It doesn't assess specific content knowledge.
GRE Essay Prompts
The GRE Analytical Writing section requires you to write two essays—one will be an analysis of an issue and the other will be an analysis of an argument. You will have 30 minutes for each essay. Try your hand at these GRE essay prompts, and read our explanations for what makes a great GRE essay. We pulled these sample questions from our book ...
How to Use the GRE Essay Pool for Effective Practice
Get Acquainted with the Prompts: The first step is to get to know the prompts in the GRE essay pool. Go through them, understand what each type of essay demands, and take note of the specific instructions. Plan Your Attack: Create a plan that includes regular practice with these essay topics. Set aside specific times to write practice essays ...
4 Top-Scoring GRE Sample Essays, Analyzed (Issue + Argument)
Issue Essay 1: Technology and Human Ingenuity. The first of the GRE sample essays we'll be looking at is written in response to the following "Analyze an Issue" prompt: As people rely more and more on technology to solve problems, the ability of humans to think for themselves will surely deteriorate.
GRE study guide: Analytical Writing section
Practice with GRE essay prompts. Like most subject matter, the best way to get better at writing and formulating an argument is to keep practicing. Here are some helpful tips for practicing writing an essay: ETS has 328 published GRE essay topics, any of which can appear on the Analytical Writing section.
Top 7 GRE Essay Tips
All of the GRE essay prompts are published online! That's right: the essay prompt you'll see on test day will come from a publicly-available online pool. ... check out the official sample essays as well. The ETS has provided a full set of example responses for the issue essay and for the argument essay, one for each possible score from 1 to ...
GRE Analytical Writing Topics: Important GRE AWA Topics
The GRE AWA topics comprises two analytical writing tasks that are separately timed: Argument Essay. Issue Essay. You will be given 30 minutes separately to complete both the essays. The GRE AWA topics for both essays need to be approached differently. For that you must be clear about the differences between the two.
Official ETS GRE Essay Prompts Discussion Thread : r/GRE
1-2 minutes to read and understand the topic and the prompt. 2-4 mins to read it again and jot down the points and examples that come to your mind. 15 mins to type your 1st draft using the above points. meanwhile you can jot down new points also. 5-6 mins to develop the new points and also reorganise the essay.
8 Best Books for the GRE Analytical Writing
Top 8 Books for the GRE Analytical Writing. 1. GRE Analytical Writing Supreme: Solutions to the Real Essay Topics. GRE Analytical Writing Supreme: Solutions to the Real Essay Topics by Vibrant Publishers is a comprehensive guide designed to help you ace the Analytical Writing section of the GRE. Divided into three books, it provides an in-depth ...

Overview of the Analytical Writing Measure

Analytical Writing Measure before September 22, 2023

Preparing for the Analytical Writing measure

Published topic pools for the Analytical Writing measure

Test-taking strategies for the Analytical Writing measure (in the General Test beginning September 22, 2023)

Writing Center: Sample GRE Essay Prompts

Sample GRE Essay Prompts

GRE Writing Prompts: Your Guide

Here is what we’ll cover:

The GRE Issue Essay

The GRE Published Pool of Topics

Example GRE Essay Questions

Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ)

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Overview of the Analytical Writing Measure

Analytical Writing Measure before September 22, 2023

Preparing for the Analytical Writing measure

Published topic pools for the Analytical Writing measure

Test-taking strategies for the Analytical Writing measure (in the General Test beginning September 22, 2023)

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Table of Contents: GRE Essay Examples

6 Tips for a Perfect-Scoring GRE Essay

#1: Include an Introduction and a Conclusion

#2: State Your Position Clearly

#3: Be Specific in Your Support

#4: Explain Your Support Clearly

#5: Use Transitions

#6: Stay Organized

What’s Next?

Ready to improve your GRE score by 7 points?

Author: Laura Staffaroni

GRE study guide: Analytical Writing section

How to organize your essay

8 Best Books for the GRE Analytical Writing

Overview of the GRE Analytical Writing Section

Why Should You Use GRE Analytical Writing Books?

Top 8 Books for the GRE Analytical Writing

2. Manhattan Review’s GRE Analytical Writing Guide

3. Testwise GRE Prep’s GRE Analytical Writing: Answers to the Official Pool of Issue Topics

4. McGraw Hill Education’s Conquering GRE Verbal Reasoning and Analytical Writing

5. ETS’s Official GRE Verbal Reasoning Practice Questions

6. GRE Analytical Writing Solutions for All Real Essay Topics

7. 30 Days to a More Powerful Vocabulary

8. GRE Words in Context

From the Desk of Yocket

Frequently Asked Questions about GRE AWA Preparation Books

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