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GRE : Overview of Analytical Writing Assessment


The GRE Analytical Writing Assessment (GRE AWA) is a measure of your critical thinking and analytical writing skills. It assesses your ability to:
• articulate and support complex ideas
• construct and evaluate arguments
• maintain a focused and coherent discussion
The AWA section consists of two sections (30 min each):
1. Analyze an Issue
2. Analyze an Argument

Analyze an Issue
The Issue task asks you to analyse a general opinion/statement followed by specific instructions on how to respond to that issue. Essentially, you are required to analyse the issue and take a position regarding it.
Sample Question:
Although innovations such as video, computers, and the Internet seem to offer schools improved methods for instructing students, these technologies all too often distract from real learning.
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.

Analyze an Argument
Here, you have to evaluate a given argument according to specific instructions. You will need to consider the logical soundness of the argument rather than taking a position of agreement/disagreement.
Sample Question:
Twenty years ago, Dr. Field, a noted anthropologist, visited the island of Tertia. Using an observation-centered approach to studying Tertian culture, he concluded from his observations that children in Tertia were reared by an entire village rather than by their own biological parents. Recently another anthropologist, Dr. Karp, visited the group of islands that includes Tertia and used the interview-centered method to study child-rearing practices. In the interviews that Dr. Karp conducted with children living in this group of islands, the children spent much more time talking about their biological parents than about other adults in the village. Dr. Karp decided that Dr. Field's conclusion about Tertian village culture must be invalid. Some anthropologists recommend that to obtain accurate information on Tertian child-rearing practices, future research on the subject should be conducted via the interview-centered method.
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 two tasks are complementary in that one requires you to construct your own argument by taking a position and providing evidence supporting your views, and the other requires you to evaluate an argument by assessing its claims and evaluating the evidence it provides.

Individuals taking the computer-delivered test will use a basic word processor developed by ETS containing the following functionalities: insert text, delete text, cut-and-paste and undo the previous action. Tools such as a spell checker and grammar checker are not available in the ETS software.

Sample topics for AWA
A good news for all GRE aspirants is that ETS releases a pool of Issue Topics and Argument Topics. Any question that you will encounter in the exam would be from these pools. So, do remember to refer to these topics.

Scoring on the AWA section
In our review post, we talked about the AWA section being graded between scores of 0-6 with half-point increments. But what does this actually mean?
Imagine a situation that you are feel sleepy during the exam and write something completely indecipherable. This would mean a score of 0.0 for you. (And I’m not joking here!). A score of 6.0 would be an insightful, in-depth analysis presentation of your ideas. 
An essay getting a score of 0.0 would be essentially ungradable. Hence, very few students get 0.0. Many students actually fall between a 3.0 to 5.0.
To understand more about the scoring in this section, visit Score Level Descriptions published by ETS.

Sample Essay
To understand how you can construct your essay in the exam you can refer 

The most important thing for you is to PRACTICE. Try your hands on some topics provided by ETS and check them against the sample essays to understand where you fall in the score range of 0.0-6.0.

So get ready to show off your writing skills!


For more information and related queries, you can contact us in the comments section below.


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