Sunday, March 16, 2008

My GMAT AWA strategies...

The AWA essays written by students taking the GMAT are rated usually by one human reader and a computer program called E-rater. These essays are marked on a scale of 0 to 6.0 and the score is rounded off to the nearest half point.

The E-rater is not programmed to appreciate your individual style of writing, humor, or yours inspirations. It looks for the style and structure of your essay to that of other high-scoring essays. The key to write a 6.0 point essay on the AWA section is to understand the algorithm of the E-Rater.

  • A Sample Structure

- Restate the argument or your understanding of the issue
- Take a stand early
- Use PREP strategy
Point
Reasoning
Example
Point again
- Cover all your points in about 5-6 crisp paragraphs
- Conclude by restating your stand

  • Key words to impress the E-Rater

- In this argument/issue
- To begin with
- First, Second, Third..
- In addition to…
- Finally, Additionally
- Further more, Moreover
- In sum, In conclusion
- Inorder to strengthen the argument
- For example,
- For instance,
- Not only…But also
- Another problem

  • Some good links for AWA

Kaplan AWA

Majortests.com

800score.com AWA Essay guide

  • Live Online E-raters

WayAbroad.com (Choose english from the top right corner)

  • Bottom line…

Practice is an important for improving your essay writing skills. Always make it a habit to write your AWA essays along with all the Full length practice tests.

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

Thanks for pointing out keywords to impress the E-Rater.

preeti said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
GMAT Critical Reasoning Questions said...

Those students preparing for GMAT exam and facing problems in the preparation, then they should go for e-GMAT to learn. e-GMAT offers most comprehensive courses for exam preparation. Their preparation courses are designed by their expert instructors.

sara said...

GMAT Essay is very important for students so it is need to take care about it.

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