McGraw-Hill Education GRE 2019

The Analytical Writing

Measure

Study this chapter to learn about:

■ How analytical writing is scored

■ How to approach the Analyze an Issue task

■ How to approach the Analyze an Argument task

T

he first two sections of the GRE consist of two separately timed

30-minute writing tasks: Analyze an Issue and Analyze an Argument.

The Analyze an Issue task will present you with an opinion and

ask you to articulate your perspective on the opinion expressed. To do

so, you are expected to draw on personal experiences and knowledge to support

your point. There is no correct answer to these questions, and you should not

feel compelled to take a stance that you agree with. Instead, you should focus on

crafting an argument for which you have the most evidence to reinforce your point.

The Analyze an Argument is complementary to the Analyze an Issue task.

Whereas, the Analyze an Issue task expects you to bring in outside information to

support your point, the Analyze an Argument task provides you with an argument

and asks you to address its cogency. To do so, your focus should be on identifying

assumptions within the argument and evidence that would be necessary to

strengthen or weaken the argument. The argument provided will always have

logical flaws in it, and your task is to critically analyze the argument, identify these

flaws, and identify ways to eliminate these flaws.

CHAPTER 3

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