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GRE Analytical Writing Section Part 1: A lowdown on the GRE Writing section

What is this GRE Analytical Writing Section about?

The GRE  Analytical Writing Section or AWA, informally known as the “Essay section”. It assesses your ability to understand complex ideas, analyze arguments, and construct meaningful, coherent responses. In essence, this section tests the different aspects of writing – spelling, grammar, punctuation, and content!

AWA section structure

The AWA section is the first section on the GRE. It comprises two essays: the Issue and the Argument (More on this a little later). You are provided 30 minutes for each essay.

Each essay is graded on a 0.0 – 6.0 scale, with 0.5 increments. Further, your AWA score is the arithmetic mean of your Issue and Argument essay scores, rounded up to the nearest 0.5.

Topics that show up in this section

Some popular essay topics are from the domains of Technology, Society, Economy, and Education.

The Official Guide to the GRE Revised General Test provides an insight into the GRE’s Advanced Writing section. Another ETS resource, the Official GRE VERBAL REASONING Practice Questions Volume 1 contains a few practice topics. Both these resources also contain sample responses for different scores –giving you an idea of what a high-scoring essay looks like.

The ETS website contains the entire pool of topics from which both essay tasks are asked. With over 200 topics for each essay type, it is highly recommended that you practice your responses for at least some of these topics.

Types of essays

The AWA section has two essay types:

Issue

The issue task tests your ability to understand a complex idea and pen your thoughts on the same. You are expected to make a compelling case, complete with examples, on your position regarding the issue.

Argument

The argument task tests your ability to analyze a complex argument. The given argument usually contains a brief passage explaining the problem statement and need for a particular action. Your task is to frame a response with regard to the coherence of the given argument. You DO NOT  need to offer your own opinion or agree/disagree on the topic provided.

So that brings us to the big question:

How to ace this section

When it comes to writing, there is no “one strategy fits all” approach – different people have different writing styles. In general, a good vocabulary, coupled with clarity of thought and excellent grammar helps.

One of the things that helped me do well as the “KISS” principle – Keep It Simple, Silly!

In the next article, I elaborate on some of the tips, tricks, and hacks which helped me ace the Advanced Writing Assessment section. Stay tuned for more!

About the Author:

Aditya Natarajan is the Ivy Aspire  GRE expert and will share a series of articles to help you crack the GRE!

 

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