McGraw-Hill Education GRE 2019

Scoring Analytical Writing

Two graders will score each essay, with each grader assigning a score from 0 to 6.

The average of these two scores will determine your score for each writing task. The

score for each writing task will then be averaged to yield your overall Analytical

Writing score.

For example, if one grader gives you a score of 5 on your first essay and the

second grader gives you a score of 6, your score for the first essay is 5.5. If one

grader gives you a score of 4 for your second essay and the second grader gives you

a 5, then your score for the second essay is 4.5. Your overall score will then be the

average of 5.5 and 4.5, which is 5.

What Are the Graders Looking For?

Essays that receive high scores tend to have several consistent features: fluid

writing, complex sentence structure, organization, and sound reasoning.

Fluid Writing

To achieve fluid writing, you must create smooth and logical transitions among the

different components of your essay. Doing so requires the use of rhetorical devices

that link components of the essay together. Words such as indeed, furthermore,

however, despite, nonetheless, since, and due to create internal logic among the

different parts of the essay. They facilitate the reader’s ability to understand the

information that you present and the point you are trying to make with this

information. When you are writing, you should be concerned with making sure

that you use the appropriate words or phrases to create a logical and smooth flow

among the different parts of your essay.

Complex Sentence Structure

If you tend to write in short, choppy sentences, you will need to revise your writing

to incorporate sentences that convey multiple thoughts at once. Though it’s not

necessarily true, most readers tend to interpret short sentences as representative

of shallow thinking and will grade your essays accordingly. One way to create

more complex sentences is to introduce subordinate clauses into your writing. For

example, a choppy writer might write the following:

The above argument is wrong. It makes a lot of assumptions. We need to

know a few things to make the argument stronger.

Writing with more complex sentence structures would rephrase the preceding into

the following sentence:

Due to its several unfounded assumptions, the above argument is flawed. To

strengthen the argument, several facts need to be addressed, otherwise the

argument of the logic is porous.

78 PART 2 ■ GRE ANALYTICAL WRITING AND VERBAL REASONING

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