GRE Analytical Writing Score

Graduate School
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<p>Kryptonsa, I was being flip. But still, it would be very difficult for a great academic writer to get a 3.0. If someone scores a 4.0 or under, then that’s probably the only time AW DOES count. </p>

<p>Most professors haven’t seen the AW test. They haven’t read ETS’s examples of essays in the different score tiers, so they don’t know what the section tests. If they were given those essays and told to rank them in order of skill, they would grade them exactly as ETS did. They might even start caring about those scores. But you’re right. Right now, they give AW scores only a glance.</p>

<p>The problem for me is the recent change in ETS’s method of scoring the essays: they use one human grader and a computer program. If the two agree, then that’s your score. Before that change, they used two human graders, with a third called in if the scores varied too widely. Anyone who knows even a little about computers knows that they cannot measure logic, critical thinking, and other intangibles; they can only pick up signs that those elements might be there. The human grader is more reliable, but what happens if that grader is biased against your style of argument – or even against the argument itself? The two-person system protected test-takers from this kind of bias.</p>

<p>But few programs care about the AW not because they think it’s inaccurate but because they care much more about the rest of the application. In the humanities and social sciences, applicants have to send writing samples relevant to their field, a much better indicator of their analytical writing ability. In the sciences, lab research outweighs writing ability. If you’ve published a paper, then it is also assumed that you can write.</p>

<p>That said, probably the biggest general complaint among science professors is that too many of their graduate students cannot write. When I say “cannot write,” I’m not talking about the ability to write sentences and paragraphs, which every graduate student can do, but instead about the ability to write clear, logical prose that conveys complex thought and that progresses smoothly from one idea to the next. This is what the AW purports to measure. Does it? Well, yes, at least in theory. Test-takers run into problems if they think it measures writing skills and therefore don’t prepare for it. As someone else said, writing well is only part of it; you must be able to analyze an argument and present a well-written, nuanced short essay. The section tests logic, critical thinking, progression of ideas, strength of conclusions, etc.-- everything your advisor will value. If your PI/advisor is rewriting huge portions of your papers (and you should be reading the finished product to know this), then you aren’t writing well enough. Professors gripe all the time about doing work that their graduate students should have done, and that includes writing.</p>

22

<p>

Oh, heck no. Two of the smartest individuals I know (they are winners of prestigious fellowships/scholarships with significant essay-writing components) both scored a 3.0 on the AW section. Which is why I brought up my point even though I know you were being flippant. People wouldn’t care so little about the AW section if it reliably gave great writers 4.0+.</p>

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<p>krypton - I’ve known a few people who got sub-4 on the AW, and I have yet to be significantly surprised by the result. Conversely, I have never personally known anyone who I thought was even a decent writer who got below 4. Heck, I don’t know any good writers who got below a 5.</p>

<p>I am not saying that the test is perfect (not by a long shot), or even accurate to within a point, but if your friends really got a 3.0 despite their ability levels, then something went seriously wrong for them. Perhaps it was the time limitation, perhaps it was the lack of spellcheck and other tools, perhaps it was the inability to bounce their essays off of colleagues and professors, perhaps they just had a really bad day.</p>

<p>The unfortunate thing is that the professors I have spoken to generally don’t give a dang about the AW… UNLESS what you just described occurred. As flawed as the AW score is, it isolates the individual from whatever writing support structures they usually have around them.</p>

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<p>Time limitation and having a bad day might have been reasonable explanations, were it not for the two people I mentioned reporting their test day as seemingly going great (and Q/V scores confirm that).</p>

<p>So no, none of those even remotely begins to describe a situation that could have possibly happened to them.</p>

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<p>The people I’ve heard of who scored low but who considered themselves good writers generally did not understand the test and what it measures. It does not only measure mechanics and the ability to write. It measures the ability to think critically, and that includes acknowledging the merits of a flawed argument before taking it apart. If your essay doesn’t reflect that, then you can’t score a 5 or above. </p>

<p>A 3.0 is really low. Such an essay would lack organization, proper grammar, sentence length and variation, etc. It indicates flawed thinking and writing mechanics. I could see an excellent writer getting a 4.5 on a bad day, with the wrong prompt; however, a 3.0 is a complete collapse.</p>

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<p>620v, 760q, 4.5aw. pretty salty about the aw; i felt i did the best on this out of all the sections, tbh… wrote outlines, utilized standard 5 paragraph format, even threw in the counterargument paragraphs. but it’s heartening to see that schools don’t put too much weight into aw. </p>

<p>but my comparably low verbal, coupled with my aw makes me nervous. i’m looking at walsh, elliot, SIS, fletcher, BU and maybe SAIS: will my aw being <5 with the mediocre verbal hurt me enough with admissions that i should consider retaking the damn test?</p>

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<p>Your verbal should still be around the 90th percentile – and that’s of all the people who take the GRE, which is already a pretty selective group. Are you required to submit a writing sample? If so, that may make the difference.</p>

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<p>I know someone who got got very similar scores: 700/800/4.5. Diagnosis was that she’d gotten too cute in how she treated the prompt, structuring the response like a mathematical proof instead of just giving the five-paragraph essay that was expected. One rule for these standardized tests: give 'em what they expect to see. You have lots of other places to demonstrate your cleverness and creativity.</p>

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<p>from where did she get the diagnosis? rescore?</p>

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<p>TD, now who would that be? :)</p>

<p>I think the 5-paragraph essay is a myth for the GRE. I know someone who wrote a 7-paragraph essay and got a 5.5. It helps if you can type quickly, if you’re good at proofreading, and if you adhere to traditional academic standards instead of having fun with it. I also wouldn’t be surprised if the longer GRE essays get better scores, just as it is with the SAT.</p>

31

<p>What TheDad said. I consider myself a very good writer, and I did very well on the verbal portion of the exam, yet it turned out that my AW score was lower than I was expecting. I can only imagine that this was due to the fact that I focused too much on style rather than “giving them what they want.”</p>

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<p>

Then I have nothing for you. You friends apparently went in with great talent, great skill, and had a great day, and yet both scored abysmally low because … the test is completely arbitrary? It’s strange, because most people are generally within a point or so of where they expected to be, but I can see how your friends results completely invalidate the test.</p>

<p>Incidentally, were your friends aware that GRE offers a review/challenge process for the AW score? It’s not free, but well worth it in cases such as theirs.</p>

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<p>Rodao - what was your score?</p>

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<p>730 verbal, 5.0AW. I was hoping for at least 5.5.</p>

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<p>I got a 5.5 on my AW score, which was a bit of a surprise to me since I got something like a 510 on the SAT II Writing way back when. I remember feeling one of my essays was probably a 6 and the other a 5.</p>

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<p>Rodao - I think a 5.0 is perfectly fine. It’s always nice to get higher, but I got a 720V, 6.0AW and I think your 730V is more impressive than my 6.0AW. Like I said before, the difference between 5.0 and 6.0 is just not enough for any adcom to get worked up over.</p>

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<p>I guess rationale here is just take a grain of salt when interpreting AW score. Some with great writing skills could botch up the AW section completely, and yet those skills could also notch up AW 6, whatever reasons one can account for: bad day, well preparedness, time constraint, and others</p>

<p>Obviously, those with lower AW score could have missed what ETS is looking for in AW section. One with good writing aptitude might wind around the prompt with fringes like developing their counter-arguments (typical features of novel, fiction, short stories writer) rather than jumping straight ahead to “I completely disagree with the author’s statement” (which ETS is looking for in most cases?). I believe there are many factors accountable for low or high AW score. </p>

<p>Like TheDad and MFWN said, it’s advisable for future test takers to give what ETS wants in AW section. </p>

<p>I wonder how Einstein, Leo Tolstoy, Jared Diamond score in AW if they were waived for the fee to take GRE General test these days. Not calling another argument, just my wondering</p>

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<p>The GRE, especially the AW, is all about playing the game. You may not want to give them exactly what they want to hear based on principle, but I feel if you are a native speaker with an undergraduate degree and have had time to prepare for it, there is no reason to get below a 5. Every question is posted on their website for crying out loud.</p>

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<p>Yeah cosmic, I’m not concerned, as GRE is a small factor overall, the AW is even smaller, and 5.0 is solid. Likewise, in your case, I wouldn’t fret about being in the 98% percentile instead of 99% for verbal. </p>

<p>It could be worse. I was snooping around another graduate admissions forum, and someone claimed to have gotten 800v and 4.5 AW.</p>

40

<p>

Which is the entire reason for the AW score. The verbal is tough and challenging, but ultimately it is something you can cram instead of really learn. There are a ton of people who, knowing it is their weakness, spend a year studying word lists and doing GRE puzzles to prepare for that part of the test, all without improving any real langauge skills. To me, the relationship between the scores is the interesting thing:</p>

<p>high V + low AW = good studier, poor writer and/or speaker</p>

<p>low V + high AW = poorly prepared or badly memorized, but very functional writer</p>