GRE AWA is an exam that aims to test your analytical writing and critical thinking skills. It is a challenging assessment as it is one of the six important factors determining admissions to B-schools in the USA, UK, Canada, Australia, New Zealand and Singapore, among others. Preparing for an exam that will determine your future abroad and the university you will get admission to is overwhelming, isn’t it? It is best to have complete knowledge about the GRE AWA pattern, scores, syllabus and preparation tips beforehand so that you are acquainted with what you will be appearing for and don’t feel anxious on the day of your exam.
Here we have prepared a comprehensive guide to GRE AWA with all you need to know about GRE writing assessment, pattern, GRE AWA scores, syllabus and answers to some of your most common questions regarding the exam.
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GRE AWA Reasoning
GRE exam has a quantitative reasoning and verbal reasoning section. Let us take a look at these 2 sections in brief:
1. Verbal Reasoning
The GRE verbal reasoning section includes reading comprehension, text completion and sentence equivalence. Most of the questions expect you to read passages and answer questions based on the passage.
2. Quantitative Reasoning
The other section i.e. GRE quantitative reasoning assesses the basic mathematical skills, concepts of elementary mathematics and reasoning and problem-solving skills of quantitative methods related to algebra, arithmetic, geometry and data analysis. The quantitative reasoning question types include quantitative comparison, multiple-choice questions with one or more correct choices and numeric entry questions.
Suggested: GRE AWA Preparation
GRE AWA Syllabus
There is no specific GRE AWA pattern for this computer-based test. The “analyze an issue” task will be one among those available online and are related to topics from:
- Education
- Technology
- Philosophy
- Arts and Humanities
- Government
- Physical Sciences
- Social Sciences
It must be noted that the list above is not exhaustive but only includes the main focus areas. Therefore, you must keep exploring other trending topics as well.
The other task related to AWA, “analyze an argument”, is where you will be given a vaguely judged argument with assumptions and have to provide your own logic, reasoning and relevant instances to the given arguments.
GRE AWA Preparation and Preparation Books
ETS provides various preparation tools and sample essays that can be used to get an idea of how to prepare for GRE AWA. You can buy these books online and get a complete GRE analytical writing guide within 250-1500 INR. Take a look at the list of best books that will help you prepare for GRE writing assessment with essays and AWA GRE examples:
- ETS Official Guide for GRE
- GRE Analytical Writing - Solutions to Real Essay Topics (Book 1 and 2)
- GRE Analytical Writing Supreme
- Manhattan Review GRE Analytical Writing Guide - Answers to Real AWA Topics
- GRE Analytical Writing - Issue Topics that Matter
- GRE Analytical Writing Bible - Solutions to Real Essay Topics
Suggested: Complete list of GRE AWA Preparation books
GRE AWA Exam Pattern
Here is all you need to know about the GRE AWA pattern:
- As you must have understood, the GRE AWA comprises 2 essays wherein one task is to analyze an issue and the other one is to analyze an argument.
- You will be given 30 minutes to complete each section, i.e., 1 hour.
- Here it must be noted that the exam does not allow you to skip any section and come back to answer it.
- The GRE AWA is scored on a scale of 0-6 points.
- The scoring is done holistically considering various aspects of the essay, such as grammar and vocabulary, strength of the argument, the relevance of the instances mentioned, clarity of ideas, etc.
- If you are thinking about who gives the GRE AWA score, it is worth noting that your overall score is an average of the scores given by a trained human reader and an automated grader.
Students feel confused and often misinterpret the statement and end up writing an essay that is not exactly related to the topic. The best way to overcome this problem is to go through various AWA GRE examples and build the ability to understand the theme. Apart from how well you analyze the task, you will have to present 2 to 3 relevant examples to support your stand on the topic and get better scores.
Scoring well in this GRE section can bring you closer to achieving the perfect 340 scores for this exam. While relying on GRE resources is one aspect to enhance your learning, having a convenient tool that can support this learning is even better. Most students are turning towards incorporating Yocket GRE Prep in their GRE preparation. This free tool enables students to conduct mock tests and retrieve scores to understand their performance. Since they know which areas require work, their focus on their study helps them improve their score.
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