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The Analytical Writing Assessment (AWA) is how business schools evaluate
your writing skills. The AWA section has two 30-minute essay questions,
each requiring a completely different strategy.
- Present Your Perspective on an Issue (30 minutes)
Present and support your opinion on a controversial issue.
- Analysis of Argument (30 minutes)
Analyze the reasoning in an argument and find its logical
flaws.
Your essay will be evaluated by a GMAT essay-grader (often a graduate student) and an "E-rater" (a computer program that scans essays). This means that you are in the unusual position of writing for a computer; how do you do that?
Students tend to under-prepare for the AWA section. This is ironic, because
it is the one GMAT section where a small amount of preparation can make
a large difference on test day. You don't want an embarrassing AWA grade
coming up in a business school interview.
To beat the AWA, you must learn how to write in a highly disciplined
and concise manner.
- Be particularly concerned with structure.
Clearly divide your essay into the introductory paragraph,
two to three content paragraphs and a conclusion.
Our Essay Guide includes sample essay templates to help you with this.
- Save it for your blog. The Issue essays are often fraught with political implications, but don't go on a political rant or a long diatribe about your own opinions. Also, try not to delve too deeply into your own personal life with examples. Be restrained when writing your essay and keep it professional and balanced. When we interviewed former GMAT essay graders about their biggest complaint, they asked us to tell you: please save it for your blog.
- Use transitional phrases such
as "first", "therefore" and "because" to help the computer identify concepts between and within the paragraphs.
Make sure you spell these transition words correctly so that the
E-rater can identify them.
- Be a conformist. The E-rater
is not programmed to appreciate individuality, humor, or poetic
inspiration; computers aren't known for their sense of humor. It will be comparing the style and structure of your
essay to that of other high-scoring essays. Our Essay
Guide has 20 sample high-score essays to give you a sense of the
proper writing style and structure for the AWA.
- Clearly state your critique in the
Analysis of Argument essay. The Analysis of Argument question
will show you an essay loaded with logical fallacies, such as the
unwarranted assumption or fallacy of equivocation.
These are buzzwords that the E-rater detects to see if you have
correctly identified the argument's logical flaws.
- Know the essays and how to answer
them. The Essay Section Guide shows you all of the 275 actual
GMAT essay questions and 20 selected sample answers to those essay
questions. This will give you a feel for the essay questions and
how they should be answered.
- Practice, Practice, Practice.
Try to do the essays in the 30-minute time frame. That is half of
the challenge. Always practice under timed conditions on a computer
or take our practice timed essays
for grading.
800score.com has graded thousands of practice essays
since 1999 through our Essay Grading
Service. The Essay Section Guide is based on information from our own experience grading essays, interviews with former GMAT essay-graders and research into
computerized-essay grading technology.
Order the 800score Complete GMAT Prep Course to access the 60-page Essay Section Guide.
Ch.
1: Analytical Writing Basics
- Analysis of Issue: how to tackle it.
- Analysis of Argument: how to identify logical fallacies commonly used in essay questions,
such as the unwarranted assumption or the fallacy of equivocation.
- How international students should prepare for the essay section.
- 10 Most Common Errors: In the thousands of essays we have graded, 10 errors consistently
recur.
Ch. 2: How the E-Rater Works
- How the E-Rater Program Works.
- What not to do: Seven common errors writers make with the E-rater.
Ch. 3: How to Structure Your Essays
- Pace schedules for both essay types so that you get everything done on time.
- Templates for both essay types to help structure your essays.
Ch. 4: How to Write Effectively
- Basic rules of grammar that you must know.
- How to write effective and concise arguments.
- Writing drills and exercises to test your writing skills.
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Ch. 5.
Answers to the Real Essay Questions
- See all of the 275 real AWA questions beforehand.
- Read up to 20 sample answers to actual GMAT essay questions. Use these
to get an idea of how to write your essays.
Ch. 6. Application Essay Writing Guide
- 50-page guide about writing application essays to MBA programs. Learn how to write
an appealing application essay, explain your past failures and highlight your career successes.
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Get the Complete GMAT Prep Course:
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Take sample timed essays and send them in for grading.
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