how many words in gre essay

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How Long Should Your GRE Essay Be? [A Data Driven Answer]

By Jitta Raghavender Rao • GRE Writing

Every so often when I’m writing the GRE essays, I’ll think: Should I really be writing so much?

I tend to get carried away. And when that happens, it would be great to know if all this extra writing is actually helping me score better or hurting my AWA score. Of course, I want to impress the essay graders, but I want to do it the right way.

Students often ask me, how long their GRE essays should be because there is no concrete information out there about the “perfect” length of a GRE essay, and even if there is, much of that data is conflicting.

Some say essays aren’t graded mostly on length but the higher grades for a longer essay is a mere correlation between essay length and grades.

When it comes to the Analytical Writing section, essay length is very important, so if you are planning to get a perfect score, you might as well do it right.

But before we come down to the ideal length for an essay, let’s first crush this shocking myth that has been around for sometime:

[tweet “Ever wondered what the ideal length of a GRE essay is? Here’s the answer and much more..”]

Myth #1: Longer essays are the only way!

On the GRE, essay length is not only one of the factors taken into consideration. You have to check a host of other factors, if you are looking to get a perfect score. All the following factors affect your overall AWA score:

Clarity in Ideas – This is the most basic of all considerations. What are you trying to say? What’s your main point? This should be very clear by the time the grader finishes off reading the essay. Substance and content of your essay matters more than any other factor. Also, every logically supporting reason or example that you make use of should ultimately connect to this main idea. If it isn’t explicit, you are losing points!

Structure – The way an article is formatted, has a massive impact upon its readability. It’s important to break up your essay into paragraphs so the essay graders can easily scan it.

The general structure is to start with an introductory paragraph followed by 3-4 body paragraphs and finish off with a conclusion paragraph. So, make sure there are at least 5-6 paragraphs in your essay.

Sentence Variety – Consecutive sentences with the same structure and length can sound monotonous and lifeless. Instead of sounding repetitive and boring, use sentence style skillfully.

You should vary the sentence flow and the rhythm by switching between short and long sentences. You should also make use of transitional and signal words to vary sentence openings.

Vocabulary – Another myth about GRE essays is that the usage of GRE words in the essay has a correlation with the essay score. Not really! As long as you use proper grammar and defend your point intelligently and use precise vocabulary to convey meaning effectively, you should be alright. It is not needed that you use heavy vocabulary or GRE words.

Language and Grammar –  Though ETS says you may have minor errors in the essay copy that do not interfere with overall meaning and coherence, the time you make your first error, the grader will notice it and this can have a negative impact on your AWA score. So, make sure your essay is as spotless as possible, and eliminate all errors before submitting.

Reasoning – You should include as many logically compelling reasons as you can to support your stance.

One of the most important aspects about a compelling essay is its ability to convince the reader by means of sound logical reasoning. So, you should be able to connect your ideas properly to the central theme or idea of the essay, and convince the reader to agree to your point of view. If the essay doesn’t sound logical or reasonable, you will pay the penalty, no matter how long the essay is.

By no means am I saying that essay length isn’t important. I am only saying that essay length on the GRE isn’t the only thing you should be concerned about. I am also saying that essay length is just one of the factors out of many others that influence your AWA score.

Myth #2: ETS uses e-Rater software which grades essays on their content length

This is the most egregious of the myths, and it’s been around for a long time.

Recently, I read a post on Quora which asks “Do humans readers grade my GRE essays?” The top answer said, “They don’t.” His/her point was that a computer software called ‘e-rater’ scans your essay based on preset rules (natural language processing algorithms) and prints out a score, using a 6-point holistic scale.

That’s just not true.

In fact, E.T.S. claims this grading software is used today, along with human raters, to grade GRE and TOEFL examinations, and without human raters in various practice tests.

I want you to understand that if ETS were to use an automated essay grader to evaluate your essay then don’t you think gaming a software would be too easy? You must keep in mind that there is a human reader who will also grade your essay along with the e-rater, and both their scores are averaged to obtain the final AWA score. So, even if you try and game the software, the human reader will give you the actual score you deserve, which will bring down the average. So, there is no point in trying to game the e-rater. Instead, you should try other tactics, such as using impressive AWA quotes , or writing coherent paragraphs, which will naturally raise your score.

So to sum things up, both of these myths should be shunned in favor of a more strategic approach to essay length. Longer is not necessarily better. Shorter is not necessarily better. And human readers do actually read your essays.

So what’s the ideal length?

I see students wondering about this all the time and I am sure you are here to find out the same.

ETS has written about the ideal length nowhere, and still remains tight lipped on this. Also, there is no word limit as such. But there seems to be a pattern that appears on GRE sample essays that come along with the ETS official guide to the GRE.

When closely observed, there is a significant increase in the number of words from a 5.0 graded essay and a 6.0 graded essay.

Longer is usually better

To analyze further on this topic, we have done a bit of research, and found out an interesting relation between essay length and the final score. If you look at the statistics below, you will have to concur with me. Longer essays usually score better on every essay topic.

If you are a long-essay fan and insist to pen a high scoring AWA essay on the GRE, you should write anywhere between 500-600 words. Don’t ask me why. The research shows that’s how it is, and if it true for a sample of 500 students, it must be true on a larger scale as well.

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

As you can see, the longer the essay, the higher the grades. Notice that a 5+ point essay has length exceeding 500 words. Another interesting fact is, it seems as if 600 is an upper limit for word count. If you go beyond 600 words, you can see how the scores go down. This isn’t surprising, though. Almost no student on this planet can write a perfect 800 word essay under pressure in 30 minutes. If someone is shooting for a high word count, they are surely sacrificing on quality. So, it’s safe to say that 500-600 is what you should be looking at.

Now It’s Your Turn

In the end, I warn you against getting stuck up on essay length. If you focus on word count only, then you would be scribbling gibberish and unnecessary sentences hoping to get a perfect 6.0 score. The essay substance and content matters more than the essay’s length.

There’s no magic number on word count that’s going to get you the perfect AWA score. At the same time, the statistics from the above analysis proves that longer essays tend to get higher scores.

If you’re still looking for word count, an essay that has around 500 – 600 words with around 5 paragraphs, and quality content, seems to be the ideal GRE essay length.

How long are your regular essays? What differences have you noticed between a long essay and short ones? Let us know your thoughts in the comments section.

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6 Comments to “How Long Should Your GRE Essay Be? [A Data Driven Answer]”

Thanks a lot!!! The article was very powerful, and interesting!!!

Hey Grisha, glad you found it helpful. 🙂

Thank you for the research you conducted and for the valuable as well as helpful information you provided.

I love this. Why isn’t this site more popular?

Truly speaking this research is well done, it covers all necessary points for passing the GRE test

This is awesome, thanks for sharing.

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The GRE ® General Test

One test for graduate, business and law school

Select a step to learn more about your GRE ® General Test journey.

Analyze an Issue Task

The "Analyze an Issue" task assesses your ability to think critically about a topic of general interest and to clearly express your thoughts about it in writing. Each Issue topic makes a claim that can be discussed from various perspectives and applied to many different situations or conditions. Your task is to present a compelling case for your own position on the issue.

• Before beginning your written response, read the issue and the instructions that follow the Issue statement.
• Think about the issue from several points of view, considering the complexity of ideas associated with those views.
• Make notes about the position you want to develop and list the main reasons and examples you could use to support that position.

Task instruction sets

It’s important that you address the central issue according to the specific instructions. Each task is accompanied by one of the following sets of instructions:

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

The GRE raters scoring your response are not looking for a "right" answer — in fact, as far as they are concerned, there is no correct position to take. Instead, the raters are evaluating the skill with which you address the specific instructions and articulate and develop an argument to support your evaluation of the issue.

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

The Issue task is an exercise in critical thinking and persuasive writing. The purpose of this task is to determine how well you can develop a compelling argument supporting your own evaluation of an issue and effectively communicate that argument in writing to an academic audience. Your audience consists of GRE raters who are carefully trained to apply the scoring criteria identified in the  scoring guide for the "Analyze an Issue" task .

Raters apply the Issue scoring criteria to actual responses, so you should review scored sample Issue essay responses and rater commentary. The sample responses, particularly those at the 5 and 6 score levels, will show you a variety of successful strategies for organizing, developing and communicating a persuasive argument. The rater commentary discusses specific aspects of evaluation and writing, such as the use of examples, development and support, organization, language fluency and word choice. For each response, the commentary points out aspects that are particularly persuasive as well as any that detract from the overall effectiveness of the essay.

Preparing for the Issue task

Since the Issue task is meant to assess the persuasive writing skills you’ve developed throughout your education, it has been designed neither to require any particular course of study nor to advantage students with a particular type of training.

Many college textbooks on composition offer advice on persuasive writing and argumentation that you might find useful, but even this advice might be more technical and specialized than you need for the Issue task. You will not be expected to know specific critical thinking or writing terms or strategies; instead, you should be able to respond to the specific instructions and use reasons, evidence and examples to support your position on an issue.

Published topic pool

An excellent way to prepare for the Issue task is to practice writing on some of the  published topics (PDF) . Even if you don't write a full response, it’s helpful to practice with a few of the Issue topics and sketch out your possible responses. Some people prefer to start practicing without regard to the 30-minute time limit. Others prefer to take a "timed test" first and practice within the time limit.

Plan your response

Regardless of which approach you take, review the task directions and then follow these steps:

• Carefully read the claim and the specific instructions and make sure you understand them. If they seem unclear, discuss them with a friend or teacher.
• Think about the claim and instructions in relation to your own ideas and experiences, to events you have read about or observed and to people you have known. This is the knowledge base from which you will develop compelling reasons and examples in your argument that reinforce, negate or qualify the claim in some way.
• Decide what position you want to take and defend.
• Decide what compelling evidence (reasons and examples) you can use to support your position.

Remember that this is a task in critical thinking and persuasive writing. The most successful responses explore the complexity of the claim and follow the specific task instructions. As you prepare, ask yourself the following questions:

• What, precisely, is the central issue?
• What precisely are the instructions asking me to do?
• Do I agree with all or any part of the claim? Why or why not?
• Does the claim make certain assumptions? If so, are they reasonable?
• Is the claim valid only under certain conditions? If so, what are they?
• Do I need to explain how I interpret certain terms or concepts used in the claim?
• If I take a certain position on the issue, what reasons support my position?
• What examples — either real or hypothetical — could I use to illustrate those reasons and advance my point of view? Which examples are most compelling?

Once you’ve decided on a position to defend, consider the perspectives of others who might not agree with your position. Ask yourself:

• What reasons might someone use to refute or undermine my position?
• How should I acknowledge or defend against those views in my essay?

As you plan your response, you may find it helpful to:

• summarize your position and make notes about how you’ll support it
• look over your notes and decide how you’ll organize your response

After you’ve practiced with some of the topics, try writing responses to some of them within the 30-minute time limit so that you have a good idea of how to use your time in the actual test.

Evaluate your response

When you’re finished writing your practice response, it would be helpful to get some feedback on your response.

• You might want to get feedback on your response from an instructor who teaches critical thinking or writing
• You could trade essays on the same topic with other students and discuss one another's responses in relation to the scoring guide.

Look at the  scoring guide for the Issue topic  and try to determine how your essay meets or misses the criteria for each score point in the guide. Comparing your own response to the scoring guide will help you see how and where to improve.

Tips for the Issue task

Keep the following tips in mind:

• You’re free to organize and develop your response in any way that will enable you to effectively communicate your position.
• You can incorporate writing strategies you learned in English composition or writing-intensive college courses.
• GRE raters will not be looking for a particular developmental strategy or mode of writing. In fact, when GRE raters are trained, they review hundreds of Issue responses that, although highly diverse in content and form, display similar levels of critical thinking and persuasive writing.
• Raters will see some Issue responses at the 6 score level that begin by briefly summarizing the writer's position on the issue and then explicitly announcing the main points to be argued. They’ll see others that lead into the writer's position by making a prediction, asking a series of questions, describing a scenario or defining critical terms in the quotation. Raters know that a writer can earn a high score by giving multiple examples or by presenting a single, extended example.
• Use as many or as few paragraphs as needed to support your argument. You’ll probably need to create a new paragraph whenever you shift to a new cluster of ideas.
• The clarity of your ideas and the skill with which you convey them are more important than the number of examples and paragraphs or the form of your argument.

Sample Issue task with strategies, responses and rater commentary

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

The sample responses, particularly those at the 5 and 6 score levels, will show you a variety of successful strategies for organizing, developing and communicating a persuasive argument. The rater commentary discusses:

• specific aspects of evaluation and writing, such as the use of examples, development and support, organization, language fluency and word choice
• aspects that are particularly persuasive
• aspects that detract from the overall effectiveness of the essay

Pool of Issue topics

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

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How to Write a Great GRE Argument Essay

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

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

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

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

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

Fact #6: Structure will save you

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

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

Fact #7: Clear writing is key

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

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How Long Should GRE Essays Be?

We take a head first dive into how long the gre essay should be.

Perhaps you’ve been studying for the GRE for weeks and are feeling pretty good about the verbal and quant sections. So finally, you turn your attention to the analytical writing section. You understand what’s being asked of you in terms of the analytical writing task, but the question naturally becomes how long do this essay need to be?  That question is answered in detail below.

About The GRE Essay

In considering the different sections on the GRE, it’s easy to wrap our heads around the Verbal and Quant sections . They’re well defined, objective and quantifiable. You’re presented a question, you analyze and solve it, enter your answer, and move on. These parameters give us comfort .

But the Analytical Writing (AW) section is open-ended and students are given limited information and guidelines in terms of essay length , structure and content. There is no maximum or minimum word count for the essay and no concrete direction on these points.

In addition, Educational Testing Service (ETS) , the administrators of the GRE , have been very reluctant to share any secrets in terms of their preferences on essay length and structure. We know the essays are co-graded by a human and a computer (e-rater), but we don’t know exactly what criteria they’re looking at.

How To Write A GRE Essay

Never fear! We’ve done the hard work for you by collecting and analyzing all the available data we could get our hands on to help you optimize your essay length. Here are the main takeaways:

• Longer is generally better
• 550 to 650 words is ideal
• Scores go up with length, then drop off

Longer is Better

One of the main conclusions from our analysis is that longer essays are generally better. And this makes sense — on the whole, longer essays are more likely to be better reasoned , contain examples and support the points being made. In addition, it gives the writer more opportunity to showcase their writing skills and ability to thoroughly think through a range of issues in less time.

Give Me 600 Words

For whatever reason, the magic number seems to be around 600 . To be more precise, it’s more of a magic “range,” and that window falls between 550 and 650 words . This seems to be the ideal length to most effectively draft an introduction, make and support your points with well-reasoned arguments and examples, and wrap it up with a tidy conclusion.

This also seems to be a result of the nature of GRE essay prompts . Any shorter and your essay lacks reasoning and support; any longer and you risk rambling. Which brings me to the next point.

What Goes Up, Must Come Down

While the data shows that longer is better, that only holds true to a certain point. After 650 words, the average AW score starts to drop off . It’s not a cliff drop-off, but there is a very real and significant decline in average score. Longer is better, but too long and you begin to ramble .

Your sentences turn into run-ons, your reasoned points become clouded and jumbled, and the grader loses interest. This makes sense. Students can’t be reasonably expected in 30 short minutes to read a prompt, analyze it, outline an answer, and draft a well-crafted 800+ word essay with reasoning and examples. There’s just no way .

Quality, Not Just Quantity

Now that you know more is better (up to a point), do not fall into the trap of just thinking that if you slap 600 words on a page you’ll get a decent score. That would be a serious mistake. Like many things in life, quality is equally as important (if not more) as quantity . The content of your essay must still be top notch.

To substantiate this point, check out this in-depth post from prep company Achievable on GRE essays. They took over 1,000 student essays and had them graded by multiple GRE tutors, then crunched the numbers using machine learning to determine what has the biggest impact on a GRE essay score . Their findings are packed with data and some awesome visuals. I highly suggest you check it out.

GRE Writing Tips

Clarity & Reasoning.  Perhaps the most important overarching goal of the AW section is to write a coherent, well-reasoned essay with supporting points and examples. Despite everything said above, this is more important than the length of the essay. After reading the prompt, develop your positions fully and organize the essay coherently. Explain your reasoning for the positions you take. Don’t just make statements and move on, provide clear, well-reasoned arguments to support it.

Structure.  There is nothing that makes an article or essay more unreadable that large blocks of text. People see a large text block and immediately fall half-asleep. Spoon-feed the reader in short, digestible, easy-to-read chunks. Start with a brief introductory paragraph, with four to six short body paragraphs making your points (i.e. the meat) and a short concluding paragraph to summarize everything. Follow this simple formula and you’ll be fine.

Diction & Sentence Variety.  Toss out the thesaurus. You don’t need to use large, fancy words or scientific terminology on the GRE to get a better score . Use intelligent, to-the-point vocabulary. This will help make your writing clear and won’t give your grader pause. Additionally, break up your sentences. Don’t use the same compound sentence time and time again. Mix in short punchy sentences and different sentence structures. This will keep your writing interesting.

Spelling & Grammar.  Although ETS says that small typographical and grammatical errors that do not interfere with the substance of the essay do not affect your score, I’d still recommend steering clear of relying on that assurance. Human graders are just that — human. If you have a couple errors in the first paragraph or two, they will notice this and could likely jade their impression of your writing. Take the time to make sure your spelling and grammar is on point before submitting.

Time Management.  Finally, make the most of your test time by managing it properly. Read the question and specific instructions carefully to ensure your understanding of what is expected in your response. Take a few minutes to plan your response before composing it. Allow for a few minutes at the end to review, proofread and correct any spelling or grammar errors that might be a distraction to the reader.

To sum it up, keep your essay in the 550- to 650-word range , follow the tips above, and you’ll be just fine.

GRE Writing Prompts & Examples

For reference, here is one example of an issue essay question :

“We learn our most valuable lessons in life from struggling with our limitations rather than from enjoying our successes.”

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.

Writing plan. Before writing, carefully read the issue and the specific instructions that follow it. Think about the issue. If it is broad in scope, narrow it down to something specific. Think about your own feelings and experiences and draw from them. Make notes and develop your position . When writing your response, be sure not to deviate from the question. The key is stay focused and present a cogent argument, yet still infused with reason and experience.

How long should a GRE essay be?

After considering average grades and self-reported data, it appears the ideal length of a GRE essay is 550 to 650 words. Any shorter and you risk the essay being underdeveloped. Any longer and it is likely rambling.

What is the right GRE essay length?

When it comes to the AW section of the GRE, longer is better, until a point. The perfect length of GRE essays is somewhere between 550 and 650 words. But any longer and you may be hurting your score.

20+ PROVEN ways to boost your GRE essay score (backed by data!)

Looking for ways to improve your GRE Analytical Writing scores? In this post, we’ll teach you some simple GRE essay tips to give you an edge over the competition – backed by real graded essay data.

There are a lot of opinions out there on what makes a good GRE essay, but we wanted to know for sure. Studying for the GRE is stressful enough, and you deserve to know exactly how to ace every section. So, we paid several GRE instructors to hand score 1,000+ GRE essay examples and determined empirically, without a doubt, the keys to writing the perfect GRE essay.

Using these GRE analytical writing examples, we trained a machine learning model capable of accurately predicting your score and letting you know exactly how you can improve. 

Here are the top 5 keys our model said have the biggest impact on getting a top analytical writing GRE score:

• Total word count
• Total noun count
• Prompt keyword usage
• Total adjectives count

Sentence variety

In this article, we’ll outline the process we took to build the machine learning-backed essay grader and answer the question of how to write a great GRE essay once and for all.

The GRE analytical writing section

The gre essay grader, analyzing the ets gre resources, nlp and key entity extraction, machine learning, gre essay score analysis results, beeswarm plot, waterfall plot, top findings, prompt keywords, adjectives count, spelling error rate, average sentence count, thesis word count, thesis sentence average word count, thesis people count, body paragraph word count, body paragraph quotation count, body paragraph exclamatory sentence count, conclusion word count, conclusion sentence word count, case study: a high-scoring gre issue essay example, case study: a medium-scoring gre argument essay, summary of results: gre essay tips for a great gre analytical writing score.

Essay writing can be a difficult skill to master , and to ace the GRE you’ll need to write two: the argument essay and the issue essay. These essays test your critical thinking and analytical writing skills, your ability to communicate complex ideas, develop logical arguments, and maintain a focused discussion. Although the GRE issue essay and the GRE argument essay follow different GRE essay prompts, the criteria they’re graded on and the way to write these essays are basically the same.

With only 30 minutes to complete each essay, you need to be efficient. But what if you had analytical writing GRE tips that could basically guarantee a high essay score, because they were reverse-engineered using machine learning? It would make getting that perfect 6.0 GRE analytical writing score Achievable 😉

Each GRE analytical writing section consists of a topic of discussion and specific instructions on how to respond. In the allotted 30 minutes, GRE takers must be able to analyze the prompt, plan a relevant response, and write an organized and coherent issue essay or argument essay supported by evidence.

Needless to say, every second counts. To help set up Achievable’s GRE course customers for success, we’ve built a machine learning-based essay grading system trained on thousands of professionally graded GRE essays, using real GRE essay prompts. Let’s dig into how it works and how we learned the most important factors for getting that perfect 6.0 GRE essay score.

The Educational Testing Service (ETS), the creators of the GRE, provide some information on how to score a perfect 6.0 on the essay sections. They mention that writers should “articulate a clear and insightful position”, “develop the position fully”, give “compelling reasons and/or persuasive examples”, and “convey ideas fluently and precisely”. It’s great that ETS is trying to give students some direction on how to get a good GRE essay score, but none of these tips are quantifiable. How do you know if an argument position is “clear and insightful,” or if an example of an issue is persuasive?

We don’t like leaving things to chance or rule-of-thumbs, and in building our GRE essay grader we dug into the details to figure out what issue essay and argument essay characteristics are empirically, data-backed, and without a doubt, the keys to getting the best score on the GRE essay sections.

We hired professional GRE instructors from different firms to hand score our essays, and analyzed the results to determine the key features leading to a high GRE essay score. Using a variety of different technologies, we built a best-in-class GRE essay grading tool that can help take your GRE essay writing skills from a 0 to a 6. We want to share the details of our process so that you can feel confident in using the Achievable platform to pass your exam without breaking a sweat.  

Let’s take a look under the hood.

The first step in building our GRE essay grader was to comb through every resource the ETS had on GRE analytical writing. Since our GRE essay grader is tailor made to help you score high on the GRE writing sections, the information provided by the creator of the test is by far the most valuable. 

We poured through ETS GRE resources, looking for the characteristics that make up a great GRE essay. We did the boring work so you don’t have to, reading through every single line of their GRE issue essay examples, their GRE argument essay examples, and the result was a document almost twenty pages long detailing our findings.  

We looked at everything from the obvious characteristics (also called traits or features ) like word count, to details like the number of adjectives used. Of course, at this point we were making intelligent guesses about what was important. The real judge of what to focus on when writing a GRE essay response would be our machine learning model.

Having twenty pages of notes was a great start but the next step would be the major challenge. We needed a reliable way of extracting these traits from a piece of English writing. Unfortunately for us, computers don’t understand English, which meant we needed to dive into the field of Natural Language Processing (NLP). 

NLP is a subfield of linguistics, computer science, and artificial intelligence that is helping to bridge the gap between the language used by humans, and the way computers process information. 

Luckily, we love to learn here at Achievable, and after a whole lot more research we were ready to build software that could take an essay and dissect it into a list of features. This process, called key entity extraction , was fundamental to building our GRE essay grader. Now that we could reliably process GRE essays and get our feature data out the other end, we were almost ready to train our model.

The last step before training was to prepare the extracted data. Machine learning is very good at one thing, and that’s discovering relationships between sets of data – otherwise it’s not as smart as you’d think. Outliers in the dataset can skew the results, especially when the outliers are very large or very small compared to the average. This meant that the data provided to the ML algorithm had to be pre-processed, or normalized .  

Data normalization usually involves rescaling the data such that all values are between 0 and 1. Using the results of our previous analysis, we determined lists of trait values that could be used to normalize the data.  

For example, most GRE issue essay templates and GRE argument essay templates follow  the conventional essay writing advice of using a 5 paragraph essay structure. This GRE essay template format includes a thesis, 3 body paragraphs, and a conclusion. Normalizing the paragraph count by 5 would create a trait that the ML algorithm could use to work its magic. If we provided more traits to the model, such as the paragraph count normalized by 3, and also by 10, the model could give us more information, and a high degree of confidence, whether 5 paragraphs is the way to go to get a high score. Following this approach, we normalized our dataset of GRE essays and provided hundreds of traits for the machine learning model to analyze.  

With our key entity extraction software ready to go, and our sample GRE essay data normalized, we were ready to train a machine learning model using the thousands of hand scored, real-world GRE issue essay examples and GRE argument essay examples. 

We built our machine learning model using TensorFlow, and in the training stage, passed huge amounts of data through neural networks resulting in a model that could reliably predict the score of a GRE essay. Using a variety of data science tools we generated charts to help describe the results.  These charts help illustrate how each trait affects the predicted score of an GRE essay. We can see which traits have the most significant effect, and by how much, making it very clear how to write a GRE essay.

The chart shown below is called a beeswarm plot and it represents the combined results of the thousands of GRE essays graded by the machine learning model.  Here’s how to read it:

• Each row in the plot corresponds to a specific feature
• The rows are ordered from top to bottom starting with the feature that had the biggest impact
• Each colored dot in the row represents a single instance of the feature, i.e. the value of the feature for a specific GRE essay
• The dots are colored according to the size of their value, where the lowest values are blue and the highest values are red
• The gray line down the middle is the zero-impact-line, with values falling to the right having a positive impact on the predicted result and the values falling to the left having a negative impact

Now with that explained, here is the beeswarm plot results from our GRE essay research:

For example, we can see from the plot that the total number of words used in the essay had the biggest impact on the score. Because the impact of a feature increases as the distance of the dots from the zero-impact-line increases, the blue dots extending far to the left indicate that low essay word counts have a large negative impact on score. On the other hand, the red dots tend to cluster slightly to the right of the zero-impact-line, indicating that writing a longer essay can help, but the impact is much smaller. The takeaway here is that you should avoid writing too short an essay, rather than trying to write a very long one. 

The chart below is called a force plot and it gives a general idea of how each feature affects the machine learning model’s predicted result for a specific GRE essay.

• The base value (4.339) is the average predicted score across all graded GRE essay examples
• The actual prediction for this essay is shown at f(x) (5.00)
• Each feature has a positive contribution (red) or negative contribution (blue) to the final score

Examining the force plot quickly tells us about the rough impact of each feature and if any stand out. We can see that the weight distribution is fairly gradual, with no single feature having an extraordinary impact. The force plot gives us a good summary of a specific GRE essay scored feature results, but isn’t very actionable. Our next chart, the waterfall plot, gives us a much more detailed explanation.

The chart below is called a waterfall plot and it gives us a more detailed view of how each feature affects the predicted score for a specific GRE essay.

• The starting value E[f(x)] (4.339) is the average predicted score across all graded GRE essay samples
• The features are ordered from top to bottom by the magnitude of their impact, which can be either positive (red) or negative (blue)
• The final value f(x) (4.999) is the predicted score

For this GRE essay, we can see that a low spelling error rate, i.e. having a low number of spelling mistakes, had a significant positive impact on the score (+0.11). On the other hand, a low word count (-0.11) essentially neutralized the positive contribution of the low spelling error rate. Similarly, a good usage of nouns throughout the essay positively contributed (+0.07) to the score, while a low word count for the body paragraphs (-0.07) basically negated this impact.

Our top findings for what you can to do impact your GRE essay score, listed in priority order:

• Higher values for word count have a positive effect on the predicted score while low values have a significant negative effect. 
• Low word counts were more significant in their negative effect on score, so rather than trying to write a long essay, focus on not writing one that is too short. In fact, we can see that high values also had a negative effect for some essays, likely when the essay was long but low in quality. In other words, a short essay will tend to bring down your score .
• A higher value for noun count contributes positively while low values contribute negatively.  
• Since nouns identify a person, place or thing, an essay lacking in nouns would be unfocused and imprecise. It’s hard to score a 6.0 on a GRE essay if no one knows what you’re talking about! So, a low number of nouns contributes significantly to a lower score .  
• Measuring the presence of keywords found in the GRE essay prompt throughout the essay it was clear that an absence of prompt keywords contributed to a lower score .  
• This was especially true for the thesis paragraph, where the goal is to clearly specify your main position on the issue or argument topic. Using keywords from the GRE essay prompt guarantees that your response is focused on the given topic.  
• For the adjectives count we saw only a minor and somewhat ambiguous negative contribution by low values while higher values strongly contributed to a higher score.
• A higher number of adjectives indicates a more descriptive essay. Since being descriptive helps to develop and clarify your response, be sure to use lots of adjectives alongside your nouns.
• Looking at the number of short, long, and very long sentences, and the ratios between these values, we found that long sentences (16 to 49 words) were the optimal choice for sentence length. We also saw that a higher proportion of short sentences to long sentences contributed to a lower score .  
• This suggests that you should prefer more long sentences than short sentences in your writing . However, using solely long sentences can also lower your score, so be sure to include the odd short sentence to establish variety.
• A high spelling error rate contributed to a lower score.
• No surprises here, making spelling mistakes will bring your score down!
• Paragraphs with too few or too many sentences had a slight negative impact on the score.
• A GRE essay paragraph should strike a balance between accurately introducing and supporting a point, without rambling or going off topic. We found the sweet spot to be around 8 sentences per body paragraph and about 5 for the thesis and conclusion paragraphs.
• Thesis paragraphs under 100 words contributed to a lower score.
• The thesis paragraph should be long enough to describe the focus of your response and your main reasons for supporting it.
• Short sentences in the thesis paragraph showed a slight negative contribution.
• It is especially important that the thesis paragraph provides enough context to effectively introduce and focus the essay response.
• The GRE essay grader found a relationship between mentioning a person’s name in the thesis paragraph and a higher score.
• Whether you are repeating a name found in the GRE essay prompt, or trying to provide context, try to reference a person’s name in your thesis paragraph.
• Body paragraphs under 150 words contributed to a lower score.
• The body paragraph is the meat of your GRE essay and should be long enough to introduce a point, provide and analyze evidence, connect to the thesis statement, and transition to the next paragraph.
• Surprisingly, using quotations in body paragraphs contributed to a lower score.
• While quotations may help provide evidence in general essay writing, when writing a GRE essay, focus on concisely responding to the prompt.  
• The use of exclamatory sentences (those ending with an exclamation mark) contributed to a lower score.
• Exclamation marks are generally not used in academic writing. WHY??!?! They just don’t feel that professional!!!
• If you need to emphasize a point make sure you do so with your language.
• A concise conclusion (about 100 words) contributed to a higher GRE essay score.
• A conclusion should wrap up your GRE essay, and not introduce more information. Make sure to focus the conclusion on summarizing the GRE essay topic, the essay’s main points, and making the connection to your thesis clear.
• Conclusions composed of fewer but longer sentences contributed to a higher score.
• Sentence variety doesn’t play a big role when it comes to the conclusion paragraph. Focus on using long sentences to summarize your main points and tie everything together.

The following is an example of a high scoring GRE essay submitted by an Achievable user. Our human GRE instructors, as well as our machine-learning GRE essay grading system, score this as a perfect 6.0.

Here is the GRE issue essay prompt:

And the corresponding GRE essay example:

The names of the greatest rulers, artists, and scientists is what is taught in most history classes. Little attention is given to the common people. Despite the fact that the most prolific and talented members of a society have a profound effect on their nations, it is the common people that truly embody the nation and it is them who keep it running. From the plumber, to the lawyer, to the homeless person; they all contribute their grain of salt to the identity and strength of the nation. The purpose of a nation is to create a just society in which every individual can enjoy the wealth and resources of the nation. A nation without a solid base will never be able to allow artists and scientists to create their most innovative and creative master pieces. Without the combined effort of all its people, there will be no Albert Einstein or Mozart, because there will be no resources to encourage these geniuses to develop their talents to their highest potential. The only way a nation can have a solid base is by guaranteeing the well-being of all its citizens. With happy citizens, nations have the solid foundation needed to produce the greatest achievements humanity can accomplish. Thus, the greatest of all nations are those in which the general well-being of its population is at its highest because happy citizens are more productive, more generous to each other, and more knowledgeable. 

First, citizens living in a society that ensures their well being become much more productive than in a nation in which their well-being is not guaranteed. Dr. Friedman, in Berlin in the year 1975, conducted a controlled random experiment in which he tested the effects that well-being had in the production level of the subjects of the experiment. He created a control group and an experimental group, and assigned members to each group randomly. The experimental group was in a room that was very hot, whereas the control group was in a well ventilated room. Next, both groups were given simple tasks such as cutting squares out of circles and coloring an image. After 30 minutes had passes, Dr. Friedman evaluated who was able to complete most tasks in the 30 minute time window. He noticed that the experimental group completed only 80% of the tasks compared to the control group, which completed 100% of the tasks. As per Dr. Friedman: “the results of this experiment show how well-being has a negative effect on the productivity of individuals”. Less productive individuals are going to achieve less at work, meaning companies in general will be less productive and less competitive in the global market. In an increasingly competitive world, less productive companies will bring less resources to the nation, making it less likely to invest in the talent of its people. 

Second, well-being is directly related to generosity. The more generous citizens of a nation are to each other, the more likely they are to help those in need around them. This, in turn, leads to a collective effort to lift each other up, making the nation more productive and wealthy. Thomas Frank and Imelda Seo developed a randomized experiment in which they tested the relationship between well-being and generosity. The study was conducted in Seoul in 1994 in a public university. The subjects of the test were randomly selected from different levels of the class in an effort to eliminate as many confounding variables as possible. The experimental group was told the very bad news that they had just failed their most recent test. After receiving this news, they were given a limited amount of chocolate and they were told to pick as much as they needed but to think that someone else will come after them and pick what is left from the chocolate. The person that will come later will not know how much chocolate was in the box originally. In contrast, the control group was told the same regarding taking as much chocolate as needed and to be mindful of the person coming behind them, but they were not given the initial bad news that they had failed their test. The results of the experiment show that the experimental group was 70% more likely to take all of the chocolate in the box than the control group. As per Imelda Ser: “this is indicative that when a person’s well-being is jeopardized, they are less likely to be generous.” This study shows how well-being can have a positive impact on the citizens of a nation, and this generosity can lead to citizens helping each other out more and creating a more cohesive and productive society and nation. 

Third, citizens living in a nation in which their well-being is adequate are more knowledgeable. More knowledge can lead to greater discoveries. Great artists, scientists, and rulers all require proper education during their early years to achieve the success. If society as a whole is more educated, it is much more likely for a nation to be able to cultivate the talents of their next genius. For example, Amadeus Mozart was the son of a talented musical father that lived in Vienna, the classical music capital of the world at the time of this life. If Mozart would have been born in an empoverished family with no resources and no knowledge of music, who is to tell Austria would have produced such a notable musical expert. The father of Mozart lived a comfortable life that allowed him to develop his own talents, and later pass his new found knowledge to his son, who later took this knowledge to never before seen levels of musical prowess. To guarantee that the knowledge is passed on to the greatest individuals of a nation, it is necessary to ensure the general well-being of its citizens. Only then will a great nation be able to produce a Mozart, an Albert Einstein, or a Napoleon.

In conclusion, a nation can only be great if it can guarantee the well-being of all its citizenry. This is the only way a nation can ensure that the individual talents of certain prolific people can flourish. These individuals require a strong enough safety net that will allow them to pursue their dreams without having to worry about heating the house or finding the next meal. Also, citizens that are happy and living comfortable can produce more for the nation as a whole, and lift each other out of poverty, thus creating a great nation .

This GRE essay received a perfect score ( f(x) = 5.999 ) and the waterfall plot below describes what features had the biggest impact:

In this case, the feature with the biggest impact was the number of adjectives used . If you read the essay, you probably noticed how descriptive it was. The author provided plenty of detailed examples to support his thesis.  

At 1,083 words, the GRE issue essay was a good length, and this helped boost the score.

The author added excellent context to the thesis paragraph by including the names of two prominent creatives: Albert Einstein and Mozart . These names were relevant to the response and supported the idea that when a nation guards the well-being of its citizens it fosters creativity and innovation.

Using plenty of nouns relevant to the prompt, the author was able to keep the essay focused and coherent. We can also see a good use of long sentences, giving the author the space needed to elaborate on and support the thesis. An overall low spelling error rate contributed positively to the score. Interestingly, we can see that the use of places in the body paragraphs (e.g. Berlin ) helped to boost the score.

The author received a minor penalty for the overuse of verbs in the thesis paragraph as well as a few spelling mistakes throughout the GRE essay. These negative contributions were ultimately insignificant compared to everything else that the author did right, clearly illustrating how focusing on the right characteristics can guarantee you a high scoring GRE essay.

The following is an example of a medium-scoring GRE essay submitted by an Achievable user. Our human GRE instructors, as well as our machine-learning GRE essay grading system, score this as a 3.5 with room for improvement.

Here is the GRE argument essay prompt:

And the corresponding essay:

More information is needed to accurately determine if the recommendation from the regional manager of Hamburger House should be followed. Information detailing the reason for changing to canola oil, the cost of canola oil, the effect canola oil has on the taste of french fries and other foods, if the public was made aware of the switch to canola oil, public’s perception of canola oil, if the customer reviews over the past two months were about the taste of the fries, any operating changes made at the company that could have affected sales, other factors that could have increased sales, Hamburger house expanding their locations and customer base, the effects on net profits are needed. Additional evidence is necessary to evaluate Hamburger House’s internal memo to franchises.

The reason for why Hamburger House switched to canola oil is the first piece of missing information needed. If canola oil was chosen because it is cheaper than vegetable oil, it would be a sensical choice to reduce costs and choose the cheaper oil. If canola oil were the more expensive option, there must be non-cost-related reasons that justify the switch. In either of the aforementioned scenarios, one must examine if the canola oil makes the fries and other foods taste the same, better, or worse. If canola oil makes all foods taste better and has a net positive effect on profits, franchises should follow the recommendation. If canola oil makes some but not all foods taste better, franchises should only use canola oil in foods that taste better and if there will be a net positive effect on profits.

The second piece of information needed to evaluate Hamburger House’s recommendation is the public’s perception of canola oil and vegetable oil and whether the public was made aware of Hamburger House’s switch to canola oil. If canola oil is perceived to be a healthier option or vegetable oil is perceived as an unhealthier option, it can be expected that the public would react positively to Hamburger House’s use of canola oil and increase foot traffic to its locations. However, if the public was not made aware of the switch in oils, information regarding the content of the positive reviews that Hamburger House has received in the past two months and if those positive reviews were all for locations that switched to canola oil are needed. If the reviews mentioned that the foods that contained canola oil tasted better, it would be reasonable for franchises to switch to canola oil to make their food taste better and, thereby, increase sales.

The third piece of information needed is whether Hamburger House expanded its locations and customer base in the past two months. An increase in french fry sales and average unique customers would naturally increase french fry sales.

The most important aspect as a business is the impact that canola oil has on earnings. It is necessary for a business to be financially profitable to survive. Therefore, if the switch to canola oil allows franchises of Hamburger House to be financially viable, franchises should make the switch if doing so if there is a positive effect compared to keeping vegetable oil.

This essay received a low score ( f(x) = 3.503 ) and the waterfall plot below describes what features had the biggest impact:

The feature with the biggest impact for this GRE essay was the total word count (-0.29). At 526 words, this example illustrates how dramatically a short GRE essay can affect the predicted score. In fact, we can see that the argument essay is penalized for low word count in various ways by other features, such as the body paragraph average word counts, total sentence counts, etc. Writing a longer argument essay is a straightforward way to guarantee a higher score and gives you more space to elaborate on and support the position from your GRE essay topic.  

The second feature in the list measures the negative impact (-0.14) of the ratio of short to long sentences in the conclusion. In this case, the author used too many short sentences resulting in a lower score. The conclusion is meant to summarize the essay’s main points and tie them together with the thesis statement, a task that typically requires longer sentences. The conclusion of this argument essay could have been improved by using longer sentences to explain specifically how the thesis and supporting points are connected in addressing the issue laid out in the prompt.

The plot shows a high thesis noun count contributing to a lower score (-0.11). If we examine the thesis we can see the author uses an extremely long sentence that repeats many of the same nouns over and over again (e.g. canola oil). While using nouns is important to keep an essay focused on the topic, the nouns should be both relevant to the GRE essay topic and varied. Simply stuffing nouns into a paragraph will not have the desired effect. This thesis could have been improved by introducing fewer points while elaborating on how each point supports the thesis statement.

While the author did a few things right, it is clear that this GRE argument essay’s low score was majorly due to a low word count, weak use of nouns, poor sentence variety, and an overall lack of focus and specificity. Catching issues like these before the exam can help you improve your writing skills and boost your score by multiple points.

So if you want to improve your GRE analytical writing essay skills, what do you need to do?  

• Make sure your essay is long enough to avoid being penalized for a short essay
• Ensure your essay is focused by using plenty of nouns that relate to the topic
• Write a descriptive essay by using lots of adjectives to describe your position, evidence, and ideas
• Read the prompt carefully, highlight keywords, and use these keywords throughout your essay, most importantly in your thesis paragraph
• Vary your sentence length, but in general favor the use of longer sentences
• Avoid making spelling mistakes
• Aim for 8 sentences per body paragraph and 5 sentences for thesis and conclusion paragraphs
• Keep your thesis and conclusion paragraphs concise but use at least 100 words
• Reference a person’s name in your thesis paragraph if it’s relevant
• Keep your body paragraphs above 150 words
• Avoid the use of exclamation marks and quotations 

Our Achievable GRE course offers hundreds of GRE essay prompts and GRE essay topics for the GRE issue and argument essays, giving you the opportunity to practice your analytical writing skills until you are 100% confident in getting a top GRE essay score. Your work is automatically saved as you write and includes a timer to keep you on track. 

Achievable’s proprietary GRE essay grading system uses artificial intelligence and machine learning to analyze your GRE essay writing and provides instant feedback on exactly what you can do to boost your score. Backed by our vast amount of data from real-world GRE issue essay examples and GRE argument essay examples, we’ve created the smartest GRE essay grader that exists, included with your purchase of Achievable GRE .

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GRE Issue Essay: Strategies + 8 Real Student Essays with Scores

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

When you sit down at the computer on test day, the very first thing you’ll encounter is the GRE AWA Issue essay. For a lot of test-takers, this will feel daunting. But not you! In this article, Magoosh’s experts will guide you through the most important steps in attacking the analyze an issue task. In addition, we’ll take a look at student examples of the GRE “Analyze an Issue” task so that you can understand what gets a high score—and what doesn’t—on the official exam.

Table of Contents

An overview of the gre issue essay.

• Top 5 AWA Issue Strategies

Student GRE Issue Essay Analysis: Prompts, Essays, and Grading Samples

So, what do you need to do for the GRE AWA Issue essay? Well, your goal is to read the prompt, then agree or disagree with the premise—and explain the extent to which you agree or disagree. Think you can’t prepare in advance? You’d be wrong! There are two main things you can do to get ready for the AWA portion of the GRE.

Review the Topic Pool

First, because the prompts are drawn from GRE’s published pool of Issue Essay topics , a bit of research will give you an idea of what to expect in terms of subject matter and presentation. Don’t try memorize all of them! There’s far too many. But! Do spend time browsing the topics and thinking about how to approach them.

Plan of Attack

Second, come up with a plan to navigate the GRE “analyze an issue” task. Not sure where to start? We can help! Here’s an example of a tried and true process for high-scoring essays that you can use to address any Issue task:

• Read the directions carefully
• Brainstorm and outline pros and cons
• Choose a side
• Select a concession point
• Be sure to leave around two minutes for proofreading and editing

Top 5 GRE Analyze an Issue Task Strategies

Now that you have the basics down, let’s take a look at some more detailed strategies you can use to maximize your score on the GRE AWA Issue essay.

1. Be Organized

Even an impassioned, cogent response falls apart if it is not bundled into a proper essay format: An introduction, a few body paragraphs, and a conclusion.

2. Focus Your Paragraphs

The Introduction The Intro paragraph has a very limited purpose: The Intro should only introduce the topic and present a clearly defined thesis statement. The thesis will indicate your position on the issue. Your stance should be just ONE of the many points of view about the topic, not more than one. Often it is easiest for the writer—and the reader—if the last sentence in the Intro is the thesis.

The Body Paragraphs The 2-3 body paragraphs make up the bulk of analyzing the issue and should focus on using examples (ideally one per body paragraph) to develop and support your thesis. Make sure you use appropriate transitions and that your sentences link together cohesively so that by the end of each body paragraph you have persuasively—and clearly—shown how your examples supports your thesis.

The Conclusion The conclusion should be very short. In fact, it should only be a few sentences that recap your thesis and supporting points.

3. Keep It Engaging

Repetitive sentence structure makes for repetitive reading. Vary up the way you write—don’t be afraid to use a colon (or a dash), drop in a semi-colon, and vary up the syntax. A constant stream of noun followed by verb followed by adjective implies that you are a hesitant writer. You don’t want the overall impression your essay leaves on the graders to be a resounding meh .

4. Be Specific

Hypotheticals are fine, if you can use them to convincingly back up your point. However, that’s the tough part; “some people,” “mankind,” or “you” are dull and vague. Let’s say you are addressing this prompt: “Knowledge can sometimes be used for destructive ends.” Stating that “Oppenheimer’s knowledge of nuclear fusion allowed him to create the most destructive weapon the world had ever known” is far more impactful than, “scientists can sometimes use technology to hurt us.”

5. Stay On Topic

Perhaps the most important point (lest you wonder why you received a ‘1’ on your essay) is to keep your essay on topic. Imagine you had to respond to the mock prompt on knowledge I used above. If you begin talking about how technology is destructive because smartphones cause us to become insular… you have totally forgotten to answer the question, “Knowledge can sometimes be used for destructive ends.” Address the most compelling examples, yes—but the most compelling examples that relate directly to your topic!  

Now, it’s time to take a look at how sample essays meet (or fail to meet) the above criteria—and how this affected their scores. All of the following essays were written in response to the GRE Issue prompts , so check them out if you haven’t already, and then come back to analyze some examples!

Note: We’ve formatted the essays so that you can see the prompt and instructions first, then try writing your own response (this is great practice!). Once you’ve done that, click on the “essay and analysis” arrows to view examples of graded student essays and see how yours compare.

GRE Issue Essay Prompt 1: University Requirements

Prompt Universities should require students to take courses only within those fields they are interested in studying. Instructions Write a response in which you discuss your views on the policy and explain your reasoning for the position you take. In developing and supporting your position, you should consider the possible consequences of implementing the policy and explain how these consequences shape your position.

Student Essay

Some people believe that universities should put stringent policies in place that require students to take courses only within a chosen field of study, thus harshly limiting the breadth of knowledge that they are able to study. Concentrating on only one field is important in terms of developing expert knowledge and specialization, but it is also crucial that the student hone a well rounded knowledge of the nature of the world so that their field of specialization is accented with courses from outside disciplines as well. It is for this reason that I believe that students should focus their study on a specific field yet also be allowed and encouraged to accent and expand their specialized knowledge by sampling courses from other areas of specialty as well.

Our current globalizing world contains diversity of knowledge, culture and creed that is increasing at a rapid pace and in order to succeed in a world such as this, it is necessary to hone a diverse skill set of knowledge and expertise. Therefore, university policies should encourage students to accent their study of a specific discipline with outside courses that will enhance the breadth of their knowledge about the nature of the world. A student studying medicine, for example, clearly needs to focus the majority of their time on understanding the inner workings of the human body on a scientific level. However, it is also crucial for them to have a more general knowledge of the way in which humans function on an individual or cultural scale (i.e. psychology and anthropology), because effective doctors are not simply capable of diagnosing diseases, but can also interact effectively, with individual and cultural sensitivies, with their patients in order to provide the most well-rounded care. A mathematician who knows only about math and knows nothing about the ancient civilizations whose cultures discovered geography will be ill-suited to make math interesting to his future students or to understand the real world implications of the equations he slaves over daily. A one-dimensional course of study will only serve to foster bias and an uncritical approach to life in such students. Thus, because we live in a world that is multi-faceted, it is important for every specialist to learn a bit about specialities outside of their main discipline in order to augment their understanding of the world at large.

When universities provide a structure of encouragement for their students to augment their specified studies by selecting some courses from outside their discipline, there are some possible consequences, such as the potential for students to change their mind about what they want to focus on. Some may say this is an inefficient use of time and that it will confuse students. However, I would argue that it will foster a wider breadth of knowledge that is ultimately beneficial for any student; a student that started studying biology but then switched to psychology, for example, will always appreciate and pay heed to the importance of our life sciences and will not neglect to consider how the functions of the body may affect someone’s mental health. The existence of knowledge in a wider range of disciplines will only provide the student with more information with which to take charge in a world that is highly complex and rapidly changing all the time, and so allowing them to experiment a little and change their mind once or twice is to their benefit rather than to their detriment.

In conclusion, I disagree that universities should require students to take courses only within their specific, chosen field of study. When students are able to focus their study on one specific topic but then augment it by sampling courses from other disciplines, their knowledge becomes more wide ranging and interdisciplinary, thus providing a better foundation for them to succeed in a rapidly globalizing world. While they may change their minds as to their preferred topic of study one or two times, they will ultimately succeed by having a wide breadth of knowledge that will teach them to approach the world without a subject specific bias. Overall, it is best that universities allow their students to take courses outside of their chosen course of study in order to diversify their pallate of knowledge.

Issue Essay Analysis

This GRE Issue essay starts off with a strong intro that clearly articulates the author’s position. The essay is also very long, and the body paragraphs well developed. In terms of ideas this is a strong—though if slightly limited—essay. It makes a compelling case for interdisciplinary learning. A physician studying anthropology will be more culturally sensitive; a psychologist who studied biology will have a great appreciation for the biological underpinnings of the psyche. The writer justifies this well-roundedness in terms of relevancy: a one-dimensional person will struggle in our complex, globalized world. As well thought out and supported as these points, they are far too similar, and this essay would have benefited from picking another example that argues in favor of allowing students to take courses outside of their majors. Another flaw is the essay doesn’t directly addresses the directions: “should consider the possible consequences of implementing the policy.” Is a world of well-rounded, complex individuals the consequence of allowing students to choose subjects outside of their majors?

Stylistically this essay is not perfect, and I have some minor grumblings.

The ongoing debate about whether a university should require students to take courses only within their fields of study or take extra classes to fulfill graduation requirements is an interesting one. There any many valid arguments to each side and it is not a simple black or white choice when deciding who is right. However, by requiring students to only take courses within their major, it allows for students focus on taking classes that are only applicable to their future careers and allows them to save money in a time where saving money is equally important to a college degree.

In many situations, students will finish high school and go on to college with an idea of what they want to do with their life. For students who are in majors such as engineering or the a science field such as chemistry or biology, it is important to for them to stay on top of all of their course work because of the higher number of courses that they must take in order to fulfill the university requirements for a degree. Many of these students knew before they entered college that this would be the case and gladly accepted that challenge, however by requiring students to take extra general education classes to fulfill their diploma requirements seems counter intuitive to a level of education where students are beginning to focus and narrow in on their future career goals. By forcing say a engineering student to take music theory or British literature just simply to fulfill a general education requirement and having that class conflict with a engineering major course seems to prevent these students from coming to college and fully obtaining their goal as quickly as possible.

The other aspect to consider is the financial aspect. In many of these situations, the students are under pressure to finish their degree as soon as possible because of many state budget cuts to education which limit the number of classes offered with in their major. Not only does this mean extra classes that students must take and thus more money they have to spend because tuition is usually based on a per unit fee, forcing these extra classes upon can have a longer impact if they are forced to stay longer in college than they originally assumed they would. College already charges an extremely large amount to attend and that already does not take into account the other expenses that students have to pay (such as room and board, food, and books), but adding on extra semester, quarters, or even years because a student had to take general education classes instead of strictly major classes is an unfair system to put a student through.

As with any situation though, there are always exceptions to the rule. For one not every student enters college with the same career focus and direction as their peers. Many students will come into college unsure of the direction they want to take and many students who think they know what direction they want to go, end up changing their minds (sometimes multiple times). By requiring students to take classes from a broad range of spectrums, Universities can help students narrow down what career path they may want to follow. Many times students may have a preconceived notion of what a subject may be about and not want to try it, yet by requiring it, they may be able to find themselves in a new class with something they may choose to pursue in the future, something they perhaps never would have considered. There is also something to be said about being able to take higher education classes simply for the benefit of wanting to learn about something that interests you. College allows you to do that and by making it a requirement, it allows students a bigger chance to do that.

Overall though, universities that force students to take upwards of 10-12 general education classes just to fulfill a requirement for their diploma seems unfair. When a student comes into college with a specific end game in site, the universities should not hinder their goals by overloading them with extra requirements and instead focus on helping hem obtain their goals as quickly as possible. The time and financial benefits that could be reaped by not requiring students to take these classes could have a direct impact on the success of all students as well as the future communities they intend to help.

Score: 5.0 This essay covers most of the bases: it offers analysis on both sides of the issue, it throws in a few sentences that address the specific instructions, and it, for the most part, clearly articulates a position. The essay does not wow with thorough analysis, great sentence variety (or indeed any stylistic flourishes). In other words, it gets the job done without making too many missteps.

While I award this essay a ‘5’, there are moments when that score seems shaky. This is not mainly due to the ideas (though the generalizations don’t help: “As with any situation though, there are always exceptions to the rule”); at times the sentences become overloaded and tend to digress.

Word choice could have also been a little more dynamic. “Large”, “bigger”, etc. could be spiced up a little more: “astronomical”, “excessive”, etc.

In addition to making the sentence more readable, and varying up the syntax a little, the essay could have been improved with a little more analysis. I would have like to say more than taking more courses is expensive. Sure, that is a totally valid point, but to spend an entire paragraph on it the overly long first paragraph about students who are not engineers as well.

Additionally, the last body paragraph is confusing: “There is also something to be said about being able to take higher education classes simply for the benefit of wanting to learn about something that interests you. College allows you to do that and by making it a requirement,it allows students a bigger chance to do that.” Is the author implying that colleges shouldn’t require students to take only course in their field (which would go against the main point of the essay)? And by saying that colleges make “it a requirement” that college require students to take courses outside their field?

Had this paragraph been a little clearer and had the writer expanded the scope of the financial issue, this essay—along with a little more dynamic writing and sentence variety—could get at least a definitive ‘5’, if not a ‘5.5’.

Liberal arts colleges and professional schools often debate whether they are required to develop well-rounded individuals. The primary purpose of universities is to establish the ground work for future field experts and specialists, meaning the developing into other fields would detract from the development of specialization. A basic understanding of how to delve into other fields is all that’s necessary.

A college degree in a field suggests that a graduate has the basic understanding of a specialized field, and they may continue to develop into a true expert. At every level of the collegiate process, students have further expansion into their speciality. For instance, science majors start with basic fundamentals that are required for latter learning. They soon go off into their own fields, isolated from the humanities and, often, other science majors. Because students usually have only four years to achieve a set requirement of tested standards in a particular field, universities must push students into their fields quickly. There simply isn’t enough time to truly explore all the possible fields of study at the university level. Exploratory learning shouldn’t be required as it doesn’t serve any purpose when the student won’t continue to explore in those extracurricular fields.

If a student were to only hole themselves away into the fields of physics, they may never truly understand how their physical knowledge relates to society and the social world. Universities tend to have to weigh this “roundedness” against the need to produce future field experts. The outcome is introductory classes that relate to your field, but intertwine with other fields of study, and push students to explore on their own time. These initial exploratory classes would be necessary for any field of study anyway, as creativity and individual pursuit is essential for any expert to further their field’s knowledge.

These exploratory classes are necessary for students to apply their growing expertise, but leaving their fields of study should be done on their own because they can only expand into the elementary levels of other fields within their time restraints at the university level. In this way, students aren’t led by the hand through fields they aren’t interested in, but they would still have the capability to explore their fields if they truly were intrigued. Allowing students to create their own directions, intertwining their interests, creates dynamic individuals who are happier with their degrees and more productive to the world through their specialization.

Universities are meant to develop future experts and specialists in particular fields of study. They should lay the groundwork for students to be able to explore of fields, but not in a way that detracts from their field’s work. At a moment when their time is so precious, students can’t afford to be left behind in their fields as they are forced by curriculum to explore unwanted alternatives.

There are some things about the essay that I like: it brings up interesting ideas relating to the prompt. Do specialists with “roundedness”contribute more to their fields than those specialists who focus only on their fields? The sentence variety makes things flow along nicely, until the middle of the essay, where the author becomes vague. Indeed, at times I’m not sure which side of the prompt the author is arguing.

For example, at the end of the second paragraph he states: “Exploratory learning shouldn’t be required as it doesn’t serve any purpose when the student won’t continue to explore in those extracurricular fields.”

The very next sentence—the first sentence of the third paragraph—says the exact opposite: “If a student were to only hole themselves away into the fields of physics, they may never truly understand how their physical knowledge relates to society and the social world.” Suddenly,the paragraph is arguing against what the previous paragraph stated.

The second to last paragraph is weighed down in abstractions, without a useful specific example to clear things up. Consider the topic sentence: “These exploratory classes are necessary for students to apply their growing expertise, but leaving their fields of study should be done on their own because they can only expand into the elementary levels of other fields within their time restraints at the university level.” There is a lot going on here, and I really had to reread the sentence several times to get what the author was saying. The ETS graders won’t take this much time. And given that the essay has already pulled an about-face in the previous paragraphs, makes this sentence even more obfuscatory.

The conclusion is much clearer than the rest of the essays, and allows me to understand what the essay was trying to say alone.Compare the clarity of this sentence to the one I mentioned in the previous paragraph: “They should lay the ground work for students to be able to explore of fields, but not in a way that detracts from their field’s work.”

So how to grade an essay like this? Strong analytical skills, sophisticated writing, and solid organization….yet, a contradictory—and at times muddled (the clause in the intro, “….meaning the developing into other fields) leads to a confusing essay.

The author states that students should only take classes within their realm of study. Although, students may gain more of a grasp on what they are studying, this requirement fails to take in what students can learn outside of their required classes. To say that students can only take classes within their concentration is occluding them to knowledge that they may learn in other fields of study.

For example, universities typically require students to pick their major, as well as a minor. Some programs may also require students to select a few elective classes as well, so students can establish themselves as more rounded individuals.

Also, taking classes outside of a student’s field of study may help boost the student’s overall GPA. For example, if a student has an in major GPA of 2.5 and an out of major GPA of 3.2, then the overall GPA will increase. However, it could be vice versa as well. If someone isn’t doing that great in their elective classes, it could bring their overall GPA down.

If this policy is implemented, the consequences may be severe. One consequence could be that a student may not be able to graduate on time because they may not have enough credits. Or they may not meet the GPA requirements to graduate because they failed a few classes within their major.

If the university decides that students can only take courses within his or her chosen field of study, then the university may not produce well rounded individuals.

This essay is an example of a 4.0—just barely—that is undeveloped and thus on the short side. It is not an example of a longer, totally one-sided ‘4’ that ignores the directions (notice how the final body paragraph addresses the “consequences” mentioned in the instructions).

What the author has written is an intelligent response to the prompt. She doesn’t simply agree with the prompt, but takes the opposing side, providing support (“To say that students can only take classes within their concentration is occluding them to knowledge that they may learning other fields of study.”). In passing, I should mention that “occlude” is used incorrectly. This is not a major problem, but remember that, if you use GRE words, make sure you know how to use them correctly.

I do not agree with the stated policy to allow students to only take course within their chosen fields of study. Instead I feel that students should should have the opportunity to take course outside of their major for the following reasons.

First, I feel that taken course outside ones major gives students variety, and exposure to experiences or interactions they may not have considered previously. Take for example Lisa, an engineering student who spends countless hours studying. Realizing that she needed a change of place an outlet of some sorts decides to take a modern dance course just for fun. What ultimatly was that Lisa learned to relax which interned helped her study more effectively and perform better in her engineering course.

Then take Monique, a political science major who doesn’t know how to swim. decided to take a swimming course and not only learned to over come her fear, but gained confidence in other other aspects of o her live.

Thirdly, lets consider Jason, a physics major who only took courses in his major. He became such an expert in his field us study, but became increasing socially award because of his inability to converse or relate to his peers.

In the even both Lisa and Monique were not able to take course outside of their major, I fear that they would have succumb to the pressure that sometimes too often over takes students adjusting to university lift. By deviating from their mandatory set of course they found a renew focus and inner strength that they may have never know before. Jason however, didn’t fair as well due to his strict focus in University

University is about diversity and gaining new experience for growth and development. Not being allowed to explore this diversity limits the over experience and potential stunts the education growth and perspective of students

Grammatical errors and spelling mistakes mar the effectiveness of this essay. Specifically, commas are misused (or not used at all), incorrect words are used (“interned”, “award” vs. “awkward”). I think many of these mistakes can be remedied if the student spends some time editing.The point in editing isn’t to catch the nitpicky errors but the glaring ones (of which this essay has many).

Next, the essay has very predictable development: take one-side of the prompt, and then come up with three hypothetical examples to support the point. There is zero analysis. This essay could have been improved and gotten within striking range of a ‘4’, or at least a ‘3.5’, had it simply addressed the instructions: “consider the possible consequences of implementing….” Of course, addressing the grammatical and spelling errors would have helped the essay.

Prompt 2: Lasting Legacy

Prompt Those who see their ideas through, regardless of doubts or criticism others may express, are the ones who tend to leave a lasting legacy. Instructions 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.

A famous author once remarked that “Winners never quit and quitters never win”. People who see their ideas through, however unpragmatic it may be considered by others are the ones who have truly made a difference.

History is replete with examples of people who were perceived as crazy, illogical and even insane by laymen, yet when their ideas were sedulously worked upon, by the creator , day after day, combined with long hours of toil, the result was nothing, short of marvelous.

Lets’s take the example of the Indian freedom struggle fought by Gandhiji on the basis of Satyagraha. It was very difficult for the Britishers to assume that India would be freed one day under the leadership of a loin cloth covered ordinary looking man without the use of weapons or bloodshed. The reason that Indian freedom could be achieved was the unflagging determination of Gandhiji and the uncommon methodology used of winning freedom by peace and not bloodshed.

Looking not far, I can recall the example of Galileo who was reviled and persecuted by the Church authorities for challenging the existing norms that pervaded the society that time. Galileo’s fierce determination , not to give up on his ideas even during harsh criticism paved the way for modern space research.

Another convincing example is of the Wright Brothers. Who would have ever imagined that it is indeed possible to fly like a bird and traverse different parts of the globe. I am sure that the Wright brothers were reviled when they first came up with this idea of developing an aeroplane. But, again today their invention has become a legacy.

Though there are several examples of people winning through odds because of their determination and unflagging spirit and creating noteworthy inventions, there could be times when this may be the cause of much trouble. Consider the doggedness of Hitler.though he was criticised for his heinous atrocitities on the Jews, he still did not stop the atrocities. These are few examples when people with strong determination can create an ill legacy instead of a legacy.

The writing in this essay has a lot of punch and makes reading it easy. However, there is little to no analysis. Like many essays on this prompt, the essay takes an extreme position, and beyond a vague, jumbled mention of Hitler, does not address the instructions: “…you should consider ways in which the statement might or might not hold true.”

As an SAT essay goes—basically you can take a relatively strong position—this is a good essay. Even then, some of the examples lack persuasiveness: “I am sure the Wright brothers were reviled.” Maybe they weren’t (they actually were, somewhat), but to say “you think” vs. “many notable scientists mocked the Wright Brothers notion of human flight” makes the essay far more tentative than it should be.

Also, the examples are very sparse, especially Galileo. Some more development would have perhaps bumped this essay to a ‘4.5’. But without any analysis, and by failing to take into account the other side, this essay gets only a ‘4.’

Although, doubts and criticism expressed regarding a particular by others seem valid at the particular time of inception of time, if the person follows through his idea or well cherished dream, then he may become success in his endeavor and leave a lasting legacy. So, people who see their ideas through, regardless of doubts or criticism others may express, are the ones who tend to leave a lasting legacy.

New ideas takes time to be accepted by general public, and during the time from the inception till the acceptance, the person who invented or discovered that idea, may be criticized or oppressed. Galileo was put into house arrest for his entire life for his heliocentric model of the solar system, because it came in direct conflict with the church’s geocentric model which regarded Galileo’s theory as heresy. Later, Galileo’s model was readily accepted. So, it’s really important that the people should see their ideas through criticism and doubts of others and shouldn’t be daunted, since other people are not connected to the idea or dream or feel the strength of idea in the same way as the person who invented that idea.

If a person doesn’t

This essay struggles from a lack of clarity. The first two sentences are overloaded with words, and so it is difficult for a reader to figure out what the writer is trying to say. Since the essay graders do not have time to figure out what you are trying to say, you will be penalized. Luckily, the thesis is clear—though it is an almost exact rewording of the prompt.

The Galileo example—while expressed in language that is clearer than that found in the intro—isn’t that developed. We learn that he was arrested and confined for heresy. The essay automatically assumes that this is the same as criticism. I would say the church’s actions against Galileo are a little stronger than mere criticism.

What saves this essay from a sub-3.0 is the final sentence, which discriminates between the person with the idea and those who only have an inkling of that idea. However, this idea is not explored in more depth (and doesn’t really connect to the Galileo example). Indeed the essay ends there.

Prompt 3: Risky Action

Prompt People should undertake risky action only after they have carefully considered its consequences. Instructions 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.

People should undertake risky action only after they have carefully considered its consequences.

People should not let their fears prevent them from taking important risks in life. Taking risks is what allows us humans to achieve success, joy and ultimate fulfillment. However, prior to taking any risky action, it is essential that people should carefully consider the consequences.

For example, there are some risky actions that are life-threatening such as skydiving. Of course, before you can begin to skydive, you must learn the basics of this sport. Additionally, by also studying what can go wrong during a skydive, and learning how to react to that scenario, that person will have the knowledge and ability to stay calm and hopefully make better decisions that will allow them to get out of a bad situation rather than falling into a panic.

This also pertains to decisions about money and business. Everyday people are making decisions that are ‘make or break’. For those who really understand the consequences of their actions, they are able to make a wiser decision that may have less of an impact on them if the business or investment deal goes awry. However, but not educating oneself, the consequences of one’s action are likely to be more severe.

Sometimes, knowing the consequences of an action causes fear that will stops us from taking any risky actions. As a result we miss out on potential successes and most of all “joy”. Therefore, by understanding the consequences, one can eliminate feat, learn how to react in a smarter fashion and lead a much more enriching life than if they had never taken those risks at all.

This is a decent skeleton of an essay. But that’s the problem—it is only a skeleton and the ideas need a lot more fleshing out if this essay is to get at least a ‘5’. For instance, in the skydiving example, the writer barely scratches the surface. What are some things that a skydiver could possibly learn to help them make this risky endeavor less risky? How much less risky would they make sky diving? Is there a point where something is so risky that even if we take measures to prevent disaster from happening that something bad could still happen (skydiving in bad weather, or bungee jumping in a country that offers low prices—and also low quality equipment). In calculating risk, shouldn’t we also weigh the payoff. For the skydiving example, is the thrill worth the danger, even if one has taken the necessary precautions and learned proper technique.

A Final Word

Now that you’ve reviewed student samples from across the spectrum of GRE Issue task grades, you’ll have a better sense of what you need to do to get those high scores! More than anything, practice will help you get the score you want on test day. So take a look at the Issue pool and a few more essay examples, pull up a blank document, and get practicing! Best of luck on test day as you master the GRE Issue essay.

Chris Lele is the Principal Curriculum Manager (and vocabulary wizard ) at Magoosh. Chris graduated from UCLA with a BA in Psychology and has 20 years of experience in the test prep industry. He’s been quoted as a subject expert in many publications, including US News , GMAC , and Business Because . In his time at Magoosh, Chris has taught countless students how to tackle the GRE , GMAT, SAT, ACT, MCAT (CARS), and LSAT exams with confidence. Some of his students have even gone on to get near-perfect scores. You can find Chris on YouTube , LinkedIn , Twitter and Facebook !

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49 responses to “GRE Issue Essay: Strategies + 8 Real Student Essays with Scores”

Hello Magoosh team

First of all, thank you for your amazing tips about the issue essay.

But I still have a question about this task “if I write only two paragraphs, and mainly focus on only one side” Can I still get at least 4 points by doing this

Thank you very much for your kindness and time

Hi Supatat,

By “two paragraphs”, do you mean two body paragraphs? You should aim for an introduction, 2 body paragraphs, and a conclusion. In other words, you should have 4 paragraphs. 🙂 As long as you use strong examples and make your point very clear, you should be able to get 4 points on the exam even without a third body paragraph.

When giving examples whilst supporting our point, can we mention an borrowed idea or opinion and elaborate on it in our own words? Let’s say I mention an idea from Yuval Noah Harari and credit him? Will this be considered plagiarism in any way

Hi Akshata,

You can definitely mention an opinion as long as you state the original source. For example, you can say: “According to Yuval Noah Harari, […]” and that would be acceptable. 🙂

Hello Firstly, thank you for this wonderful article. I have a question which is: How can I say a concession point without making any contradictions to previous paragraphs? I hope that my question is clear. Thanks

Hi there! Thank you, we’re glad you found it helpful. 🙂 I’d recommend reading over the example essays in this blog post to see how they handle the concession point. In addition, be sure to check out our blog article 12 Tips to Ace GRE Writing as well.

I have a question regarding where to include the concession point in my essay. Does it receive its own paragraph within the body of the essay, or does each supporting idea have a concession point paired with it? And do you include the concession point in the intro and conclusion as well?

Thanks, Joe

Hi Joe! You can add a third body paragraph that discusses your concession if you have time, but you can also just make a quick concession point, say at the end of your second body paragraph. Just remember that the goal is to use the concession to prove your point. The most common mistake is to spend too much time on the concession, so it can be safer to do less than more. I would not recommend bringing up a concession in the introduction or conclusion. It’s possible, but it’s just too risky. Use your concession to say, “While it may seem that people are distracted by their cell phones, they are actually socializing while looking at their screens. Therefore, technology brings people together.” Something like that is a strong, quick concession, whereas if you spend a paragraph going on and on about how people never talk anymore, you run the risk of arguing for the other side! Hope that helps 🙂

Hi, It is OK to write issue essay from first person perspective?

There is no specific prohibition of the first person and some people do well on the essay and use the first person. But I tend to recommend avoiding first person language, especially “I think” and “in my opinion.” Both of these phrases tend to be redundant because you usually can take these phrases out of the sentence and your sentence will still maintain its meaning and grammar. You can completely avoid the first person and your writing will likely end up with a more sophisticated tone.

If you do use the first person, I’d recommend that you use it once in the introduction paragraph for your thesis, and that is it.

I recommend taking a look at some of the sample essays written on some topics. These are released by ETS, the testmakers, and will give you an excellent idea of what a great, good, and poor essay will look like. You’ll notice that the essays rated 5 and 6 do not have first person language but the other, lower scored essays do.

http://www.ets.org/gre/revised_general/prepare/analytical_writing/issue/sample_responses

I guess I am a lot of thoughts to put on, but facing trouble to make my writing more persuasive. Can you please suggest how i can make my writing more persuasive as to better reflect my thoughts.

In the AWA issue Essay, being persuasive is all about using evidence. Anytime you make a claim, think of the reasons people might doubt that claim. Address all of those most obvious doubts. Also think about any questions people might ask you to get a better idea about what you’re saying in your essay, and why you’re saying it. Always put forth a very complete set of supporting details and argumentative evidence.If you think you won’t have the time or space to complete your argument within the time and pace limits of AWA, then choose a different argument, or find a way to simplify your argument.

One set of directions states to “discuss the extent to which you agree or disagree with the statement…” I’m confused by “extent.” Does this mean that ETS simply wants us to take a side either in agreement or disagreement and explain why? Or by “extent” do they mean that it is okay to strongly disagree, or to somewhat agree, etc.

Hi Meredith,

The second option is more accurate–another way to think about “extent” is “degree.” So not only do your agree or disagree, but what are the limitations of that opinion? I hope that helps! 🙂

Can you write in first person on either GRE essays?

There is no specific prohibition of first person and some people do well on the essay and use the first person. But I tend to recommend avoiding first person, especially “I think” and “in my opinion.” Both of these phrases tend to be redundant. You usually can take these phrases out of the sentence and your sentence will still maintain its meaning and grammar. So, you can completely avoid first person and writing in a more sophisticated tone.

If you do use first person, I’d recommend that you use it once in the introduction paragraph for your thesis. And that is it.

I recommend taking a look at some of the sample essays written on some topics . These are released by ETS, the testmakers, and will give you an excellent idea of what a great, good, and poor essay will look like. You’ll notice that a 5 and 6 do not have first person but the other lower scored essays do.

I hope that helps! 🙂

Hi Chris! I have a questions about the intro paragraph/thesis statement. Do you have to include the points you plan on discussing in your body paragraphs in your intro/thesis?

It’s not necessary to state your points verbatim in your intro — in fact, it will probably save you time not to do so 🙂

My exam is on 13th February and I have about 1 month from now on. I tried to focus on verbal and math section more until now and did not spend enough time on AW section of the GRE. Would you recommend writing one essay per day to gain acceleration on practicing ?

Any suggestion would be appreciated. Thanks.

I am so sorry this didn’t get answered quickly, but hopefully our advice can help! I’d suggest that you first take a look at these ETS topic pools:

List of AWA Issue Prompts List of AWA Argument Prompts

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 knowing what will be expected of you on that day, you won’t have any trouble getting a good score. 🙂

Oppenheimer used nuclear fission, not fusion. 🙂 The GRE grader do not care if your facts are correct, though.

Dear Chris,

Firstly, thanks for keeping up with the blog. It’s been a great help.

Secondly, I was wondering if there is any way to insert special characters on the Gre essay software during the exam – such as those required in ‘vis-a-vis’ or ‘blase’ or ‘cliche’. If not, should these phrases/words be avoided? I’m from India and keyboards here don’t have these characters on them by default.

That is a good question. I have no idea of the keyboards here allow you to do so. Regardless, I don’t think ETS will hold that against you. Of course, there is a computer grader, but maybe it has been programmed not to dock. Still, I can’t image ETS being so picayune as to do you for not having the proper diacritic.

Hope that helps!

One thing that concerns me when writing my essays in the issue part is that a lot of the examples that come to my mind are not that well-known in the Anglosphere. I’m German, and I often think of something German scientists or politicians did or said, events that happened in Germany or things taught in German high school. The example essays that I compare my essays to usually score high by drawing on a wide range of examples that are well-known in the US. Stating my examples, that the examiner has possibly never heart of, either requires a longer explanation, for which I don’t have time, or googling on part of the examiner.

What would you suggest? In theory, the GRE should not be culturally biased. But I am afraid if I simply drop unknown German examples, the examiners might be confused.

Thank you for your advice,

PS: To know what I mean, I thought of some examples for you. Let’s say the issue is about privacy and I refer to the surge in users of the Posteo.de email client, a Berlin-based start-up whose unique selling point is that they protect their clients’ privacy as much as possible. Or in an essay about rebellion I could refer to the way the German authorities dealt with house occupiers in Dresden in contrast to those in Berlin after the fall of the Berlin wall – the occupiers in Dresden were given proper rent contracts while those in Berlin were forcefully evicted, causing violent clashes with the police. Or when writing about technology, I might want to cite the website dawanda.de where people sell self-crafted goods. I know that there exists a similar format in the US – etsy – but I am not that familiar with it and would not feel comfortable writing about it and would prefer the German example. This issue comes up for me with almost every essay I write at least once!

I am on the same boat and would love to see this question answered!

Hi Holing and Cornelia!

I know this is a late reply, but hopefully it can help others in your positions. 🙂

It is perfectly fine to use non-US examples for the GRE essays, but you want to make sure you give relevant context and information on the events so that the reader doesn’t have to guess whether or not your example really applies to the point you are trying to make. If you can do that, then any examples from your own country should be fine. 🙂

Hi, I have read in most sites that practicing essays is the best way to go for AW. But writing a full length AW issue essay or argument essay takes 30 mins each for a time limited atmosphere. So my question is while practicing from the ets pool of topics, do we need to write full length essays for every topic or just structuring and brainstorming on the topic and writing mock essays 3-4 times will be enough?

Hi, Karishma

30 minutes for each essay can definitely be tough to fit into your schedule! Doing quick structuring/brainstorming is a good alternative when you don’t have a lot of time. However, especially as you near your exam date, make sure to sit down and do a few full-length essays (not all in a row, but maybe one every few days) just so you can feel comfortable with the experience. I hope that helps! 🙂

Best, Margarette

Thanks Margarette!!

Hello people of Magoosh,

I have a question about writing a thesis for an issue task. I noticed that in the video lesson, the thesis contained a statement indicating choosing a side. However, there’s no mention of the main points covered in the body paragraphs. Is that a good practice? Don’t you think that a reader ought to know what to expect in the body paragraphs just from reading the thesis statement?

Referred thesis: “a college curriculum should be designed around the career a student will pursue upon graduation”

Excellent question! In a typical, untimed essay you definitely would want to let the reader know what is coming. The intro and thesis should give the reader some idea of where the discussion is headed and what will be discussed. This is a common practice in American essay writing.

But with the GRE, our strategies are a little different. Since we have such a limited amount of time to write an essay, we recommend spending as little time as possible writing the introduction and conclusion. The bulk of your time should be spent crafting the body paragraphs. As such, we only recommend stating your opinion or stance on the topic and not worry about prefacing your examples and reasons.

This isn’t to say that you can’t do this. If you are a quick writer and have the time, then you can definitely indicate what the main points of your body paragraph will be. 🙂

Happy Studying!

I just started practicing the AWA and am following the 90-day study plan for beginners. I’m trying my best to follow the outlined time structure you suggested in the videos, but in my first two essays I’ve always run out of time and always seem to produce mediocre work. Would you recommend that I practice writing without a time limit for now? Or should I just keep working with the time limit and would I gradually improve with more practice?

Hi Lara, Happy to help!

First, I recommend to keep practicing. Writing the essays on the GRE is a particular type of skill that needs lots of practice. So keep your head down and keep at it.

Second, if you feel like you need extra practice, try writing an essay more often. Instead an essay a week, write two. This will give you more opportunities for improvement.

Third, I recommend that you keep timing yourself. It doesn’t help to be good at writing an essay in an hour. We need to be good at writing an essay in half an hour.

One thing that I have done with my students in the past is have them write only an introduction or only an introduction and body paragraph in a set amount of time. So give yourself a time limit of 8 minutes and see if you can complete an introduction and body paragraph. This allows you to practice writing under time constraints and you can take baby steps towards completing an essay in 30 minutes.

I hope that this helps! Best of luck in your studies! 🙂

I just started reading the book you recommended: On Writing Well, by William Zinsser. Although I would love read all of it, I don’t have much time to spare. Could you suggest what chapters would most benefit us for the GRE AWA ?

Good question! I think the grammar-related passages are important. As are the chapters that relate to crafting sentences and creating paragraphs.

Hi Chris, Do you know if there are any sites where I can find high scoring sample essays? I’ve been practicing but feel as though I’m in a void as I have no point of comparison. Getting feedback from family and friends is helpful, but I’d just feel so much better if I could compare my essays to actual GRE essays. I could only find one sample set on the ets website…

It seems that only gre.org offers example essays. Just google “example GRE essays” and it should be the second hit.

Besides that there aren’t too many others I can think of that are online. Writing higher scoring essays, ‘5.5-6’ for blog posts is something I plan to do soon though :).

Hello! I would enormously appreciate if you can clarify me this. Which link are you referring to in the following sentence?:

” For practical advice on practicing: the link below provides access to hundreds of essay prompts by ETS”.

I cannot find it anywhere and it would be of invaluable help for me to have these essay prompts in order to practice.

Thank you very much!

No problem :).

Here is the link: http://www.ets.org/gre/revised_general/prepare/analytical_writing/issue/pool

Thanks for your quick response!

So I just found out ETS has started employing their e-rater technology. Thoughts?

Thanks for reporting that! Well, I hope it is better than the GMATs, which apparently counts number of words, a couple of transition sentences, etc. I guess time will tell.

whats e-rater technology, mentioned by J, Chris??

Sometime it seems that we cannot write enough in the issue task.

If we practice one essay per day, who will rectify this and will tell us how to improve our score in analytic. So that we can BUT ALL feel confident to write essay with positive tone.

Yes, that is true, and indeed I need to write another post on generating ideas.

As for somebody to give you feedback, find a trusted family member or friend. Of course, that person would not want to read everyone of your essays, but as long as you get feedback every once in awhile that will help :).

This sentence is dead-on, “If you think you did poorly on the essays, that knowledge could very well affect your performance on the rest of the test.”

I recently talked with a student who was consistently scoring in the 80th percentile on math and verbal in practice. But he wasn’t prepared for the writing section on test day and it affected his concentration throughout the rest of the exam. He scored in the 60th percentile. Doing well on writing can definitely set a positive tone for the rest of the exam.

Yes, I am happy to hear that student’s experience echo my thoughts. Really, “Doing well on writing can definitely set a positive tone for the rest of the exam” is perhaps the greatest GRE tip that nobody has ever heard of.

Did u mean non-native below?? “Two of the preeminent prose stylists of the English-language novel were both native-English speakers.”

Ha! Yes, I definitely did. Thanks for catching that :).

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Shorter GRE AWA Guide - How many words do I need for the essays?

• Michael Flor - Educational Testing Service | ETS · Division of Research and Development Ph.D. Cognitive Psychology
• Melissa Beth Lopez - Montclair State University · Department of Communication Sciences and Disorders
• Yoko Futagi - Educational Testing Service | ETS · Division of Research and Development

• Analysis of the average percentage of misspellings per essay showed that the rate of misspellings decreases as proficiency (essay score) increases;
• The severity of misspellings depends on writing proficiency. Writers of lesser proficiency produce more of severe errors, and the average error severity decreases with better proficiency;
• With increased proficiency, essays become longer (more words). Writers of increased proficiency introduce more long words, but they also introduce more short words, and the relative proportions of words of different lengths remain roughly similar for all proficiency levels .
• So, while writers of greater proficiency introduce more long words (in absolute measures, such as average word length per essay), they are also less prone to misspell such words (as compared to writers of lesser proficiency).
• words' variation and their length;
• the misspelling of them;
• the structure of the sentences as a result of the first two elements;
• the cogency as a whole
• Patrick Fore via Unsplash
• Patterns of misspellings in L2 and L1 English: a view from the ETS Spelling Corpus

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Does the GRE essay have a spell check, word count, and grammar check?

by Wadan Khan

In gre faqs.

Unlike Microsoft Word, there is no spell check, word count, and auto-grammar correction on the GRE, which provides a basic Notepad to students for typing their Essays.

GRE Analytical Writing is a test of your critical thinking skills and how you develop and support your argument. Generally speaking, a few spelling mistakes will not have much bearing on your score if the errors don’t affect the clarity of what you are saying. Moreover, typos will have an even less effect on your score because they happen due to haste and not personal incompetence. 

However, if you make habitual spelling errors throughout your essay, then yes, your score will suffer. 

Grammar, on the other hand, is more important because the correct use of grammar is essential to the structure of your essay. Lousy grammar will cost you points, especially if there are multiple mistakes.

Moreover, GRE doesn’t require a word count on their essays. The most important thing is the content of your essay and not its length. It would help if you had an essay long enough to cogently make your case for the topic at hand and refrain from adding any useless information or opinions that don’t relate to the topic. 

Generally, a 500 to 600-word essay is considered the right length. Remember, you only have limited time, so going on needlessly long tirades will not do you any good.

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Why does the GRE have an unscored section?

The GRE test includes an unscored section called the “experimental section.” This section can appear randomly in any order after the very first section, i.e., Analytical Writing.  The experimental section can either be Verbal or Quantitative. You will never know which...

Is there negative marking on the GRE?

No, there is no negative marking on the GRE. You get points for the questions that you answer correctly. When you answer incorrectly, you get a zero for that question, and that’s it. Since there is no negative marking on GRE, I advise that you pick a random answer if...

Does the GRE have Calculus or trigonometry?

No. GRE does not test you on your calculus or trigonometry knowledge. The quantitative section of the GRE includes questions from 4 major content areas, which can be found here.

Does the GRE give partial credit?

No. For the questions where there are multiple blanks or parts to the answer, you will have to correctly answer all the options. If you answer one option correctly but not the rest, then no points will be awarded to you for that question. It’s either all or nothing....

Does the GRE give you scratch paper and pencil?

Yes. Test administrators will provide you with 2 pieces of scratch paper, 2 pencils, a sharpener, and an eraser right before you walk into the test room. The scratch paper provided should be enough for most people, but if you need more, you can raise your hand, and...

Does the GRE give you a calculator?

Yes, GRE does provide a digital on-screen calculator (8-digit) for use in the test's quantitative reasoning section. You cannot bring a physical calculator to the exam. The on-screen calculator has five essential arithmetic functions, i.e., addition, subtraction,...

Does GRE give you formulas?

No. GRE does not give you any sort of formulas or cheat sheets. You will have to memorize any such formulas beforehand. You cannot bring any sort of paper or “help material” with you. In case you have any such material, ETS will cancel your test. You cannot even bring...

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

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

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

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

GRE Essay Topics Pool: How It Works

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

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

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

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GRE Issue Pool

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

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

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

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

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

Issue Task 1: Agree/Disagree With a Statement

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

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

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

Examples of the statements to be analyzed

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

Issue Task 2: Agree/Disagree With a Recommendation

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

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

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

Examples of the recommendations to be analyzed

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

Issue Task 3: Agree/Disagree With a Claim

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

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

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

Examples of the claims to be analyzed

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

Issue Task 4: Which view aligns with your own?

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

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

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

Examples of the views to be analyzed

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

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

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

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

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

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

Issue Task 6: Explain Your Views on a Policy

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

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

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

Example of a policy to be analyzed

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

GRE Argument Pool

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

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

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

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

Argument Task 1: Evaluate an Argument and Evidence

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

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

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

Examples of the arguments to be analyzed

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

Argument Task 2: Examine Assumptions and Implications

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

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

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

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

Argument Task 3: Evaluate a Recommendation and Its Basis

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

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

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

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

Argument Task 4: Evaluate Advice and Questions

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

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

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

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

Examples of the advice to be analyzed

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

Argument Task 5: Evaluate a Recommendation’s Likely Results

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

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

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

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

Argument Task 6: Evaluate a Prediction and Its Basis

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

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

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

Examples of the predictions to be analyzed

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

Argument Task 7: Discuss Alternative Explanations

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

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

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

Examples of the explanation and argument to be analyzed

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

Argument Task 8: Evaluate a Conclusion and Its Basis

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

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

Examples of conclusions to be analyzed

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

GRE Essay Prompts: 3 Terrific Tips

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

#1: Keep Strict Timing

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

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

#2: Type Your Essays

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

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

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

#3: Grade Your Essays

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

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

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

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

What’s Next?

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

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

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

Ready to improve your GRE score by 7 points?

Author: Laura Staffaroni

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