Ace the GRE AWA (Analytical writing assessment)

The Analytical Writing Assessment (AWA) is a GRE component that assesses your logical and analytical writing skills. The AWA is frequently overlooked by students who take the test, but if disregarded, students may fail to meet the requisite cut-off. In this essay, we’d want to emphasize the significance of the AWA and discuss a few strategies for efficiently tackling this component of the test. This part requires you to write arguments that are concise, methodical, and complete.

We have organized this section into three logical parts:

• PART 1: Analyzing the AWA discusses “how to deliberately tear down the AWA”
• PART 2: How do I argue? We explain how to ‘detect FLAWS’ in this section.
• PART 3: Creating and ‘organizing’ graphs

BREAKDOWN OF THE AWA

The AWA, like the other portions of the test, has a time limit. As a result, planning and being thorough with a strategy can assist you in exercising brevity while creating a rich and flawless flow. Let us look at the stages that may be taken throughout the 30-minute exercise:

Examine the argument

The AWA requires that you properly read the argument. Only by closely examining the material will you be able to identify the many terms that can be employed to create and extend your idea. Skimming will cause you to overlook important terms.

Find three flaws.

Why do we say three? Isn’t that a natural question? Why not two, four, or five? A student’s immediate response is to wonder why we don’t choose a higher number of defects; wouldn’t that improve the argument? We favor quality over quantity. Finding three weaknesses and offering clear, short explanations with examples make your argument more complete. A full argument is usually preferable to one that is open-ended and simply states’ a few ideas without rationale. As we shall see in the last part, examples coupled with defects will help to clarify things.

A rough sketch

We’ve noticed over the years how quickly students can produce a final essay when they have a preliminary framework. Isn’t it true that a summary makes everything easier? Write down your thoughts and afterwards connect them—this is a crucial principle that will make your life simpler. Outlining is just a rapid brainstorming session. Do not extend your brainstorming session; many students overthink, which reduces the amount of time you have to create the essay. Allow yourself no more than 4-5 minutes for this task. Be sure to finalize your flaws.

Write

This will be the most of your 30 minutes; we recommend you spend at least 15 minutes writing. Write carefully and precisely. Take care when writing so that the final process takes less time. Because writing is the obvious crucial stage in this process, it receives 50% of the time allotted to it. When you write, the outline will assist you in producing the final product.

Revise

You must modify your essay when you have completed it. Examine the text for grammatical and spelling mistakes. Don’t be too sure of yourself; errors happen no matter how brilliant you are at writing. Allow yourself at least five minutes.

Refine

The last and final stage is to refine your essay once you have revised it. Revising the essay will assist you in correcting the key problems, whilst refining the essay will assist you in polishing it. Yes, there is a significant distinction here: do not begin polishing your piece before revising it. Revision will assist you in ironing out the significant problems.

How should I debate? How can I build an argument effectively?

You must first grasp what keywords/phrases you are looking for in order to analyze a paragraph. When you identify ‘flaws,’ your life becomes a lot easier; you feel at ease and completely sure in what you write. The AWA becomes easier to complete if you have completed the Critical Reasoning problems. To connect the dots, you need a keen eye and a logical mind. Allow us to assist you in getting to that point FAST! – We’ll start with the most popular keyword types:

Reported/Filed/Complaint

Is Reported’ synonymous with ‘full evidence’? Isn’t that correct? When a section contains phrases like reported or filed, the initial thought should be: Was the entire sample reported? How comprehensive was the report? When a section mentions reported, the defect is half-baked information. Let’s look at a little example to see whether this makes sense:

Incorrect Comparison

Remember the golden rule: only objects that are comparable can be compared. Isn’t this also logical? I can’t compare the color of one automobile to the color of another! You must be very quick at detecting this sort of problem, which may also be readily developed. When you make a bad comparison, you can be sure that the section will contain weaknesses that you can readily point out. Let us use another example to demonstrate this concept.

Incorrect conclusion

How often have you encountered discussions where the thread does not lead to a logical conclusion? You must ensure that the different sentences flow together seamlessly. Look for a logical conclusion that follows from the reasoning supplied.

Answered a survey/completed a questionnaire/voted in a poll

When the word ‘respondent’ appears in a text, the first thought that springs to mind is- HOW MANY, and OUT OF HOW MANY? To lend significance to any inference, a representative sample from a particular population must have replied. A significant gap in the argument is one in which there is no data on the number of answers from a total.

Organization of passages

Organizing your ideas is an important aspect of your AWA. Many students have fantastic ideas that are simply not arranged properly. A chaotic paragraph is a collection of contradictory ideas that do not flow effectively throughout the essay. To make a passage read’ well, make sure your thoughts are expressed precisely. Although there is no particular word restriction for the AWA, we recommend a passage of roughly 400 words. You can write between 300 and 500 words.

AWA is a critical area of the GRE; many colleges have cutoffs that you must meet. This area should not be overlooked, as you may be shocked. The AWA is not intended to be an AWARD-winning piece of writing; instead, create a clear, clean, and succinct section with well-constructed and thought-out logic, and you will be well on your way to scoring above 80% on your AWA.