Chapter 16

Analytical Writing Foundations and Content Review

Introduction to Analytical Writing Foundations and Content Review

The GRE tests your ability to construct a coherent, logical, and well-developed response to a writing prompt. This requires a mastery of grammatical, syntactical, and language concepts, as well as an awareness of audience and command of the writing process. These concepts include:

Streamlining Wordy Phrases Eliminating Redundancy Avoiding Excessive Qualification Removing Unnecessary Sentences Avoiding Needless Self-Reference Using Active Voice rather than Passive Voice Including Strong Openings Avoiding Needlessly Vague Language Rewording Clichés Avoiding Jargon Ensuring Subject-Verb Agreement

Avoiding Faulty Modification Avoiding Unclear Pronoun Reference Correctly Using Parallelism Using a Consistent Narrative Voice Avoiding Slang and Colloquialisms Avoiding Sentence Fragments and Run-Ons Correctly Using Commas Correctly Using Semicolons Correctly Using Colons Correctly Using Hyphens and Dashes Correctly Using Apostrophes

This chapter will cover all these grammatical and writing concepts and provide practice sets to help you conquer the writing task using the clearest, strongest language possible.