Chapter 11

Analyze This: What to Expect from the Analytical Writing Assessment

IN THIS CHAPTER

check Getting to know the AWA

check Figuring out the capability of the essay software

check Considering how your essay is scored

The analytical writing assessment (or AWA, as it’s affectionately known) can be intimidating. You’re required to write an analytical essay on a topic that the computer reveals to you just as your time begins to tick away. To earn the top score, you’re expected to provide an excellent analysis and insightful examples and demonstrate a mastery of standard written English. Did we mention that you’re supposed to do this in only 30 minutes? If it seems a little overwhelming, relax. You can do it; we show you how in this chapter.

First, you need to know what you’re up against, so we walk you through the AWA and let you know what to expect. Then, we give you a sneak peak at the writing task required of you. Finally, we get to the part that interests you most — how the AWA is scored.

Fitting in the AWA with the Rest of the GMAT

The AWA is a stand-alone section of the GMAT. The GMAT reports your analytical writing score separately from your integrated reasoning score and your quantitative and verbal reasoning scores. In other words, your combined total GMAT score (with a maximum of 800 points) reflects how well you do on only the multiple-choice verbal and quantitative reasoning sections of the test. So you can write gibberish on the essay portion of the test and still earn an 800 for your GMAT score (but we certainly don’t recommend that strategy!).

Each business program determines the importance of the analytical writing section differently. Some schools may give it the same weight as your combined quantitative and verbal score. Other schools may assign it less weight. Check with the specific schools you’re interested in attending to see how they use the AWA score. The bottom line is that regardless of how a business program uses your essay score, it will be reported to them. So it’s to your advantage to do as well on the AWA as you can.

Calling 411: Your AWA Writing Tools

The analytical writing assessment consists of one essay prompt, which the GMAT refers to as a task. The task requires you to write an analytical essay within 30 minutes. You type your response, using the computer program provided at the testing center. At the end of the 30 minutes, your task is complete and only what you’ve actually typed into the computer contributes to your score, meaning any handwritten notes or great ideas in your head don’t count!

You’ll be able to use typical word-processing functions like cut, paste, undo, and redo. You can access these word-processing functions with the mouse or by using special keystrokes that the GMAT specifies for you before you begin the test. You can also use your noteboard to take notes as you plan your response.

Some of the following word-processing features you may be accustomed to won’t be available:

Automatic corrections: If you regularly use a program like Word, you probably don’t even notice the automatic corrections anymore. You type in comittment and your computer displays commitment without you even realizing it. The GMAT won’t automatically correct your mistakes.
Spelling and grammar check: You know that spelling-and-grammar-check function that has saved you from turning in some truly hideous college papers? The function tells you, for example, that you have just written a passive sentence with subject-verb agreement problems and three misspelled words. You can’t count on that because spelling and grammar check won’t be available, either!
Synonym finder: You won’t have access to that groovy built-in thesaurus that helped you find synonyms for six of your seven uses of the word cool (one of which is groovy).

Analyzing an Argument

The analytical writing assessment task requires you to analyze an argument. The GMAT doesn’t want your opinion on a topic. Instead, you’re supposed to critique the way someone else reaches an opinion. To score well on this task, you need to analyze the reasoning behind the argument and write a critique of the argument. First, you need to briefly explain what kind of reasoning the author uses (for all about different kinds of reasoning, consult Chapter 9). Next, you point out the strengths and weaknesses of the argument. Finally, you consider the validity of the assumptions that the author makes and what effect alternative explanations would have on the author’s conclusion.

Here’s a paraphrase of the directions for the analysis of an argument task on the GMAT:

Write a critique of the argument presented but don’t provide your own opinion.
Think for a few minutes about the argument and organize your response before you start writing. Leave time for revisions when you’re finished.

You’ll be scored based on your ability to accomplish these tasks:

Organize, develop, and express your thoughts about the given argument.
Provide pertinent supporting ideas with examples.
Apply the rules of standard written English.

Now that you have the directions down, check out this example essay prompt:

The following is an excerpt written by the head of a governmental department:
Stronger environmental regulations are not necessary in order to provide clean air and water. We already have lots of regulations on the books and these are not being adequately enforced. For example, the Clean Air Act amendments, adopted in 1990, have never been fully enforced and, as a result, hundreds of coal-burning power plants are systematically violating that law on a daily basis. The Clean Water Act is also not being enforced. In the state of Ohio alone there were more than 2,500 violations in just one year. Instead of passing new regulations that will also be ignored, this department should begin by vigorously enforcing the existing laws.
Examine this argument and present your judgment on how well reasoned it is. In your discussion, analyze the author’s position and how well the author uses evidence to support the argument. For example, you may need to question the author’s underlying assumptions or consider alternative explanations that may weaken the conclusion. You can also provide additional support for or arguments against the author’s position, describe how stating the argument differently may make it more reasonable, and discuss what provisions may better equip you to evaluate its thesis.

Racking Up the Points: How the GMAT Scores Your Essay

According to the folks who make the GMAT, the AWA is designed to measure your ability to think and your ability to communicate your ideas. To assess how well you do in each of these areas, the GMAT employs the services of two separate readers (one of which may be a computer program called an automated essay-scoring engine). Based on their analyses of your written masterpiece, these readers individually assign you a score between 0 and 6, with 6 being the highest.

In the following sections, we give you the lowdown on who evaluates your AWA, what the different scores mean, and how to get a new score if the first one you receive is way off.

Getting to know your readers

A machine algorithm judges your analytical writing task and assigns your essay a score from 0 to 6 in half-point increments. Some electronically graded essays may be randomly selected for an audit to make sure the machine did its job. This audit is performed by human readers who have been specially trained to make sure the algorithm matches the goals of the GMAT AWA exercise. The scores are then averaged to create one AWA section score. If human reader’s score differs greatly from the initial score, the essay will be further reviewed to determine the ultimate score. If you think your AWA has been scored incorrectly, you can request a rescore for a fee.

The automated scoring program grades your essay is designed to analyze the quality of your organization, word choice and grammar, and logical argument. Therefore, your job is to present effective analysis and sound reasoning with a minimum of grammatical errors. In Chapter12, we tell you how to avoid common writing errors.

Machine and human readers look for two things when they take on your essays: clear analysis and good writing. For an essay to earn a score of 5 or 6, it must clearly evaluate the argument, demonstrate good organization, and provide specific, relevant examples and insightful reasoning. The essay must demonstrate clear control of language and apply a variety of sentence structures. It can have some minor flaws in the way you use standard written English but not too many.

Keeping all these things in mind as you write your essay is a tough order for 30 short minutes. To help you through the process, consult Chapter 12, where we discuss strategies for analyzing arguments quickly and effectively and go over the most common errors test-takers make when they write under pressure.

The benefit of having more than one reader evaluate your essay is that if one reader happens to assign you an unfairly low score, he won’t be able to sabotage your score.

College and university faculty members from a variety of academic disciplines score your essays. Some are from business management programs, but you can’t expect that the particular readers who score your tasks will have any special knowledge of business. So avoid using jargon or assuming that your reader has had all the same business classes that you’ve had.

The automated scoring program that may grade your essay is designed to reflect the judgment of human readers, so it looks for the same elements that human readers do. Regardless of who (or what) reads your essay, your goal is to present quality analysis and sound reasoning with a minimum of grammatical errors. In Chapter 12, we tell you how to avoid common writing errors.

Readers look for two things when they take on your essays: clear analysis and good writing. For an essay to earn a score of 5 or 6, it must clearly analyze the argument, demonstrate good organization, and provide specific, relevant examples and insightful reasoning. The essay must demonstrate clear control of language and apply a variety of sentence structures. It can have some minor flaws in the way you use standard written English but not too many.

Interpreting the scores

The GMAT reports your AWA score as a number from 0 to 6 in half-point increments. For one administration, a score of 6, the highest possible score, lands you in the approximately 90th percentile, meaning that 90 people out of every 100 test-takers received a lower score. A score of 6 is obviously difficult to earn, and only about 10 percent of test-takers achieve that score! For the same test, a score of 5.5 puts you in the approximately 81st percentile; a score of 5, in the approximately 57th percentile; 4.5, the approximately 43rd percentile; and 4, the approximately 20th percentile.

The mean final score on the AWA is about 4.4. The typical essay, therefore, falls somewhere between 4 (adequate) and 5 (strong). A number of papers fall into the 3 (limited) category or lower, and the cream of the crop is recognized with a 6 (outstanding). To make sure your score surfaces to the creamy top, practice using the techniques we provide in Chapter 12.

Requesting your essay be rescored

After receiving your essay score, you may think it’s too low. If that’s the case and you truly think you wrote a better essay than your score represents, you can take advantage of the GMAT’s AWA rescoring service. Within six months of your exam, you can pay $45 to have an independent reader score your essay. The new score stands, whether it increases or decreases, so requesting a new score can be risky. But if you think a real discrepancy exists, you can take your chances by sending in a rescoring request form. The new score result is sent to you and the schools that have already received your original AWA score.

The rescoring service applies only to the AWA. The GMAT won’t rescore the other three sections, which makes sense because you can’t do much to change a multiple-choice test score!