gmat essay tips

gmat essay tips

Effective Strategies for Writing a High-Scoring GMAT Essay

1. Introduction to the GMAT Essay Section

The test makers designed the essay section to judge two specific, quantifiable, and unchanging factors. The first is the quality of your writing on a piece of paper. Second, and most important, the essay is designed to assess how well you can evaluate and communicate an argument. This is why the GMAC uses an argumentative essay instead of other formats. To gain admission into their respective business schools, high scorers who earned a top percentile standing on the GMAT poured pressing emphasis into their essay scores. They realize several things. They know that they already spent the last several years studying grammar, spending long nights at the computer writing critically. They paid an arm and a leg for their preparation courses, all of which included strategies for top score results on their essays. Therefore, it’s suffice to say that the top MBA programs pay close attention to your performance in this section. You should, too.

The GMAT is unlike any other test you’ve ever taken. If you’re a second-year accounting major at a reputable university and you’re a week away from graduation, you might even be in for a big surprise if you’ve never taken the exam. Not only is it computer-based, giving you your results instantly, but the exam consists of four sections, not five. The new analytical writing assessment section is the one that is the best indicator of your writing abilities, a quality that is most sought after by the top business schools in the country. Of all the things the Graduate Management Admission Council (GMAC) could have tested you on, they chose to see how effectively you could convey an argument. Guess what? Yelling doesn’t do it.

2. Understanding the GMAT Essay Prompts

It is extremely important that you understand the structure of the argument. There are two components: the argument and the relationship. The scope is the argument itself, the text says, and the analysis determines why the argument is convincing. You must find evidence of the analysis’s support, strength, feasibility, and formal-greened understanding of the original argument. Your opening essay should show your ability to do this well. You also must be able to draw connections to the original argument. Since the original argument was that X is a good course of action, you must be able to come up with potential cause and reason why this is a good course of action. Sure, the case that you make might not necessarily be what the original author had in mind, but it serves as a check-point of where the argument is coming from.

Perhaps the most important thing to understand in preparing for the GMAT essay, also known as the AWA essay, is understanding the topic. The essay question provides evidence of your ability to think critically and write persuasively, skills that are absolutely essential to succeed in graduate-level study. On the test, you will be given 30 minutes to write your essay. The prompts are pretty basic, and you have two to choose from, which is pretty short and straightforward. Topics fall into three categories: business, society, and government. You have an obligation to focus on the argument and understanding what the argument is.

3. Structuring Your GMAT Essay

Chances are if you wrote a proper introduction and conclusion and you had an efficient structure that you properly developed and transitioned between paragraphs and ideas in the body of your essay. But to become really good at creating a logical progression of essay ideas that make sense and develop your structure in a clear and efficient manner, we will have to work at it consciously and repeatedly. Here are some valuable techniques for constructing a logical flow in your response to a GMAT essay prompt. With practice, patience, and perseverance, these methods will become more automatic and less clunky. At that point, you can concentrate more on the synthesis of interesting or relevant ideas instead of struggling with your structure.

– Does the writing exhibit a logical flow or progression? – Does the writing stick to the main point? To put it another way, does the bulk of the writing focus tightly on a central theme or idea, or is the writing all over the map? – Does the writing sound professional and serious, or does it sound amateurish, dishonest, silly, untrue, hyperbolic, etc.? – In terms of persuasiveness and effectiveness, is the writing sufficient to the task at hand? – Lastly, good writing exhibits sufficient depth. Superficial papers achieve only a passive understanding of the topic at hand, whereas effective papers achieve active understanding.

In no particular order, here are five critical factors the reader focuses on when evaluating a piece of writing:

4. Incorporating Critical Reasoning and Analysis

In your essay, you’ll be writing about the flaws in the argument. You can debate them in your essay, but in order to get a high score, you need to point them out. Are there any assumptions that were not supported with really good evidence? Is the conclusion the only possible explanation? Is there any evidence needed to evaluate the argument presented? These are questions that need to be answered. You need to focus on them as well. You should be able to get three paragraphs out of this. While you are pointing out the flaws, you should use this opportunity to explain the logical structure of the argument. If you miss a part of the structure, then you’re probably going to miss some flaws as well and your score will reflect this mistake. To better understand this, it would make more sense to understand these fallacies before you sit down to actually write your essay. After you have chosen a position, do you really know what cutting and breaking really is?

5. Top Tips for GMAT Essay Success

First, as with anything in life, it is recommended that you practice writing essays often. This advice might seem rather obvious but facing a blank page head-on can be incredibly daunting for even the most experienced writer. By the time you have finished your third essay, you should find that writing the subsequent ones becomes so much easier. Do remember, however, that quality should always be considered over quantity. Ensure that you identify the core of the argument and break it down well. Their length tends to vary but, on average, essays are about 500 words long. At the very least, students are expected to produce two essays and you should aim to produce at least one a week in order to attain the best results. A high-quality essay generally contains a good balance of both verbal and analytical components.

What are the five best tips for scoring top marks on your GMAT essay? Accuracy in your choice of language and an excellent level of reasoning are integral components, but so too is the quality of your argument, essay organization, and style. Paced and structured, your essay needs to demonstrate an introduction, body, and conclusion, and elaborate on the most important arguments. Here are our top five tips for success in your GMAT essay writing.

In order to achieve good GMAT results, one of the first things you will need to do is practice your essay writing skills. Therefore, it is truly worth investing some time in improving writing skills. No matter what experience you already have, you can always benefit from continuing to work on your writing and critical thinking abilities.