Worrying about the GRE essay? A lot of test-takers find it intimidating to sit down at the computer on test day and have no choice but to kick things off with a 30-minute Issue Essay. Of course the writing measure can seem overwhelming, but it doesn’t have to be. A handful of key GRE writing tips will help you sit down at and proceed—with confidence—to get the Analytical Writing Assessment (AWA) score you desire.
8 Issue Essay Writing Tips
While the GRE writing section can seem unpredictable, there are still ways to prepare for the essay! We will get to the eight tips to help you prepare a little bit later in this post. First! Check out this video that breaks down the process for attacking the Issue Essay.
Note: This video was made prior to the changes to the GRE in September 2023. All the Issue Essay writing tips are still relevant and will help you approach that essay with confidence. However, any and all references to the Argument Essay can be ignored; the Argument essay was cut from the test!😀
1. Know the topics
If you’ve been practicing for the AWA, you may be thinking, “What topics? They’re totally random!” But there’s definitely a pattern to GRE prompts! We’ve identified seven types of analytical writing prompts on the GRE, including:
- Education
- Technology
- Cities
- Arts
- Government and Power
- Intellectual Endeavors
- Philosophy
Before you take the official exam, review sample topics in these areas so you know how you’ll address different types of subjects as they come up. You can see all possible Issue tasks on the ETS website.
Word to the wise: as you look at all those GRE Issue prompts, make sure you don’t waste time outlining a possible essay for each and every one. The time it takes—plus the memorization it would involve—is not worth the effort! Instead, focus on perfecting your approach to different topic types.
Remember, you don’t need to be an expert in these areas, or even have outside knowledge—instead, work on coming up with examples to address different types of prompts and how to write about topics you’re unfamiliar with in a short period of time.
2. Read the directions thoroughly
Read the directions? Of course I read the directions! Almost all test-takers think this—but in our experience, not enough are reading the directions thoroughly.
Each Issue prompt comes with specific directions, which follow the prompt and are written in non-italicized letters. Make sure to read the directions; do not gloss over them. In your essay, if you do not directly address what the question is asking, your score will take a hit. Let’s take a look at two different directions that follow an Issue prompt:
Write a response in which you discuss the extent to which you agree or disagree with the claim. In developing and supporting your position, be sure to address the most compelling reasons and/or examples that could be used to challenge your position.
Write a response in which you discuss the extent to which you agree or disagree with the recommendation and explain your reasoning for the position you take. In developing and supporting your position, describe specific circumstances in which adopting the recommendation would or would not be advantageous and explain how these examples shape your position.
You’ll notice that they begin very similarly but then veer away from each other. Nonetheless, both ask you to what extent you agree or disagree with the argument. The first set of instructions asks you to consider possible objections to your point of view (which implies you want to show how those objections are somewhat lacking). The second set of instructions asks you to offer up specific instances in which the recommendation either holds true or doesn’t.
Here’s some good news: the instructions don’t create entirely different essays. Oftentimes, being true to the instructions entails nothing more than a few well-deployed sentences that mimic the language of the prompt either in the introduction, conclusion, or at the end of a body paragraph.
3. Manage time well
If you’re like most test-takers, you’ll feel that the 30 minutes you’re given to write the essay starts to shrink once you sit down at the screen. Time truly does fly when you’re working against the clock.
To make the most of those 30 minutes, we suggest dividing up the writing section like this:
- 2 minutes to read through the prompt and directions
- 3 minutes brainstorming, outlining, and writing a thesis statement
- 20 minutes writing the body paragraphs and examples of your essay
- 2 minutes to edit for small mistakes
- 3 minutes (if available) to write an intro
Nope, that’s not a mistake—save the intro for last. Why? A few reasons. First of all, if you’ve already stated your thesis at the beginning, it’s not that important. And yet, second of all, test takers get so caught up writing the “perfect intro” that time speeds by and they haven’t focused on their body paragraphs—the meat of the essay—at all. Try moving the introduction to the end during practice. You may find it gives you a better chance of writing a well-developed essay that gets a high AWA score.
4. Write as much as you can
Open ETS’s Official Issue Essay Samples and you will see several sample essays. If you turn to the lowest scoring essay—the one awarded a ‘1’—what is most notable about it isn’t necessarily the egregious syntax: the essay is only one sentence long!
Now I highly doubt you will receive a ‘1’. Even if you hammer out a paragraph of barely discernible prose, you are likely to get higher than a ‘1’. The key point here is length matters. And it doesn’t just make the difference between a ‘1’ and a ‘2’; the ‘6’ essay is notably longer than the ‘5’ essay. Sure, the ‘6’ essay is of a general higher quality, but had the ‘6’ essay been the length of the ‘5’ essay it might have received a ‘5.5.’
So, don’t think you can just fast and furiously scribble your way to a ‘6’. Rather, as you work to improve the quality of your essays, keep in mind that the more high quality stuff you write, the better.
5. Come up with pro/con statements
One of the most important things about the Issue essay is that it requires you to take a side.
To do this, make a list of statements that either support or refute the prompt (pros and cons). Then, choose whichever side you think has the best statements. Take a look as Magoosh’s experts walk you through a pro/con evaluation of a topic here!
We recommend you work in shorthand. It doesn’t have to be pretty! It just has to be understandable as you go back through your notes. This shouldn’t take a lot of time—remember, you don’t have a ton of time for brainstorming! Practice pro/con lists until you can make one in under a minute.
6. Choose a side
Based on what you’ve written in your pro/con statement, it’s time to pick a side. You’ll find that the directions for the Issue essay always ask you to agree or disagree. That’s how important this is to creating a high-scoring essay—they actually put the fact that you need to state your opinion in the prompt.
It doesn’t matter what you actually think about this in real life—or even if you have no opinion on it whatsoever! All that matters is that you pick the side you can most easily support.
So how should your opinion show up in the essay? Make sure you state it immediately, as part of your thesis statement. Just as importantly, select examples that support this point of view really well, then explicitly tie them back to your opinion with reasoning throughout the rest of the essay.
7. Relate all examples and reasoning back to your thesis
As you make your pro/con list (described in Tip #5), you’ll be jotting down statements that help support different sides of the argument. Once you’ve chosen what side you’ll be arguing, as in Tip #6, you’ll need to elaborate on those with real-world examples or reasoning.
What’s the difference? Reasoning explains why something’s true (“From the statements X and Y, we can see Z”), while examples show a particular case in which that is true (“The ubiquity of Mickey Mouse proves Z”). Depending on how you brainstorm, you’re likely to have come up with a pro/con list featuring mostly reasons or examples.
Balance it out by making sure you explain why each example is important, relating it to your thesis, and providing a specific instance of each reason you give—again, one that’s relevant to your thesis. Want to see this in action? Take a look at a Magoosh expert brainstorming potential Issue task examples!
8. Make a concession point
Back in Tip #6, we encouraged you to make the position you’re taking in the Issue task really, really clear, and then support your position. But when you look closer at the Issue prompt, you’ll see that you’re also asked to look at both sides of the argument. How is this possible?
The GRE AWA is looking for pretty nuanced thinking! You will need to bring up an argument from the side your essay disagrees with, that is true in some cases. This is called a concession point. The instructions don’t tell you to do this exactly—but it’s the best way to discuss both sides of the argument while making sure that you stick to your main argument.
How do you find a concession point? If you’ve followed Tip #5, it’s easy. You’ll need to whip out that old pro/con statement again!
In the end, while you will need to make a concession point, it’s important that the entire essay—including any concession points—all drive the reader back to one opinion: yours.
A Final Word on GRE Writing Tips
While the AWA can seem overwhelming when you first encounter it, practicing these GRE analytical writing tips can cut that frustration way, way down. Use them to work through some of the prompts on the ETS website, and you’ll see exactly what we mean.
Guidance for your GRE prep journey doesn’t just stop at advice for the Issue Essay! Sign up for a Magoosh Premium Plan today to access all our tried and true tips and strategies to help you master all the sections of the GRE. You will also gain access to new features like Magoosh’s AI Expert Tutor, which will not only score your AWA essay but also give pointers on how to improve your writing!
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