Tips and Strategies for the AWA

Support your position withreasons and/or examples from your own experience, observations, or reading.. Support your position withreasons and/or examples from your own experience, observa

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The following section offers specific tips and strategies to use on the AWA during the exam Practice thesestrategies as you complete the sample essay prompts that follow.

G e n e r a l W r i t i n g S t r a t e g i e s

■ Remember the general guideline for dividing your time on an essay exam: use about one-fourth of thetime to plan, one-half of the time to write, and one-fourth of the time to revise and edit

■ Look for key words in the essay prompt to be sure you address all aspects of the assignment

■ The key to brainstorming is to avoid censoring yourself Keep an open mind and write down whateverideas come to you You do not have to use everything in your essay

■ Remember that your brainstorming and outline are for your eyes only Use whatever brainstormingand outlining techniques you find most useful

■ On an essay exam, every minute counts Don’t wait around for ideas to come to you If you are havingtrouble coming up with ideas, use brainstorming techniques such as listing and freewriting to get ideasdown on paper

Tips and Strategies for the AWA

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■ A good thesis makes an assertion about the topic; it does not just repeat the topic or ask a question.Make sure your thesis takes a clear position on the issue or argument.

■ Your planning time is probably the most crucial part of an essay exam Create a detailed outline toorganize your ideas Revise your outline before you begin writing to make sure you have sufficient sup-port and specific examples and that you have addressed all of the elements in the prompt

■ Make sure you have at least two or three supporting ideas for your thesis If no other organizationalpattern makes sense, put them in order of importance, with your most important idea last

■ Remember, it’s important to get going and keep moving If you can’t think of the exact word or phraseyou are looking for, approximate You can come back to fix it later if you have time For now, writingsomething that is close enough must be good enough so you can get the rest of your ideas down

■ Remember to keep it simple Your time is limited, and your readers will be looking for basic structuraland organizational elements Don’t worry about impressing your readers with sophisticated organiza-tion or style; you don’t need anything out of the ordinary to impress your readers A formulaic butclear essay will do better than one that is overly complex

■ Remember that first impressions are important, but it’s more important to finish your essay Don’t gethung up trying to write a perfect introduction Simply summarize the argument or issue and state yourthesis If you have time later, you can come back and write a catchier introduction

■ Signpost, signpost, signpost Use strong transitions throughout your essay to make the relationshipsbetween ideas clear Remember that both your human reader and E-rater® will be looking for theseguides

■ A specific fact or detail has more power than a general statement Include specific examples wheneverpossible

■ In general, unless you have less than five minutes left, revise first and then edit Save your grammar andspelling check until after you have made “big picture” changes to your essay If you are nearly out oftime, read through your essay quickly and make any revisions or editorial changes

■ If a sentence seems unclear to you, it may be that you are trying to do too much in one sentence Trybreaking it up into two simpler sentences that are more clear

■ Remember the guidelines for effective style: be precise, be concise, use the active voice, vary the tence structure, and avoid jargon and pretentious language Make sure you use an appropriate level offormality and a serious, respectful tone throughout your essay

sen-■ Correct punctuation is important, but don’t get hung up on trying to determine whether you need acomma or a semicolon Make your choice quickly and move on to the next issue

■ If you are unsure about capitalization, ask yourself whether the word in question is something specific

or general If it is a specific person, place, or thing, then it probably should be capitalized Remember, in this regard, specific means particular or individual, not detailed For example, a poodle is a specific type

of dog, but it is not capitalized because it doesn’t refer to a specific (individual or particular) dog

Rover, however, should be capitalized because Rover is a specific (individual or particular) dog.

■ If you have the time, read your essay backward line by line This will enable you to spot errors that you

might miss reading straight through

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A n a l y z i n g t h e I s s u e

■ Remember that in the Analysis of an Issue essay, there is no correct answer A good essay will take aclear position and support that position Don’t be afraid to say what you think Just be sure to back upyour opinion

■ A strong issue essay will address counterarguments Take a minute to imagine how someone taking theopposite point of view would support that position Acknowledge key concerns and then show whyyour position has more merit

A n a l y z i n g t h e A r g u m e n t

The argument you are presented with on the GMAT exam may have many different problems To address all

of the different possibilities, break down your analysis into two steps: (1) what the argument has and (2) what

it might be missing:

1 What is already there? Check the premises and conclusion Are the premises (stated and unstated)

logical? Do they lead logically to the conclusion? Is the evidence strong and convincing? Are there anyfallacies in the argument?

2 What might be missing? What alternative explanations or counterarguments are missing from the

argument? What evidence would strengthen the conclusion? What missing information would helpyou better evaluate the argument?

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The following practice section contains ten prompts for the Analysis of an Issue section and ten prompts forthe Analysis of an Argument section Use these prompts to practice your timed writing skills for the AWA.Give yourself 30 minutes for each essay Sample essay responses are provided after the sample prompts.

To create a realistic testing scenario, it is important that you do not read the prompts until you are ready

to begin your timed session Even a quick glance at the topic will give you the opportunity to start ing ideas for an essay Remember, you will not have any incubation period on the GMAT® exam; you will onlyreceive your topic when your timed writing session begins

develop-You will have to write two essays in a row on the GMAT exam, so practice doing one of each kind ofessay consecutively The first few times you may find that you lose steam on the second essay; after all, writ-ing two essays in just one hour is hard work But the more you practice, the easier it will become, and the morecomfortable you will be with pacing yourself through the writing process

It is also critical that you use a computer with a basic word processor to practice writing the essays You

will not have the option of writing the essays by hand on the AWA, so you must be comfortable composing

and revising on the computer Be sure to turn off the spell check and grammar check; the word-processingprogram on the GMAT exam will not include either of these features Have several sheets of scratch paperavailable so that you can brainstorm and outline your essays

AWA Practice

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A n a l y s i s o f a n I s s u e S a m p l e P r o m p t s

1 A leader who is respected is more powerful than one who is feared.

Discuss the extent to which you agree or disagree with this opinion Support your position withreasons and/or examples from your own experience, observations, or reading Complete your essay in

30 minutes

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2 The main goal of education should be to teach students to be good citizens, not to prepare them for the

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3 One of the problems with our society is that we have created such a large divide between the home and the

workplace Even if people bring their work home from the office, their professional life has little connection

to their home life.

30 minutes

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4 Every employee deserves a certain amount of privacy in the workplace, whether that means a private office

or cubicle or the ability to make private phone calls or send personal e-mails.

30 minutes

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5 Without competition, people stop trying to improve and become complacent Competition is therefore good

for individuals and businesses alike.

30 minutes

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6 Success requires sacrifice You cannot be successful in your professional life without sacrificing something in

your personal life.

30 minutes

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7 Art reminds us of our humanity and connection to others We all need some form of art in our lives to keep

us human.

Explain what you think is meant by the previous statement and discuss the extent to which youagree or disagree with this opinion Support your position with reasons and/or examples from yourown experience, observations, or reading Complete your essay in 30 minutes

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8 A creative person can succeed, but not without diligence Diligence is the most important factor in success.

30 minutes

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9 Today’s highest paid teachers are those who teach high school and college students But the most important

years in a human being’s educational development are the earliest years Therefore, early childhood tors should receive the highest salaries.

educa-Discuss the extent to which you agree or disagree with this opinion Support your position withreasons and/or examples from your own experience, observations, or reading Complete your essay in

30 minutes

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10 You must be committed to your goals and beliefs, but not be inflexible An unwillingness to change course

or to compromise will lead to your downfall.

30 minutes

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A n a l y s i s o f a n A r g u m e n t S a m p l e P r o m p t s

1 The following appeared in an article in a trade magazine for the advertising industry.

Because of the increasing diversity of the American population, new products and services must appeal and be marketed to a very specific group or subculture within society These days, attempting to appeal to the public at large is a losing proposition.

Discuss how well reasoned you find this argument In your essay, be sure to analyze the argument’slogic and use of evidence For example, you may need to consider whether the assumptions thatunderlie the argument are sound or whether counterarguments or alternative explanations wouldweaken the conclusion You may also discuss the kind of evidence that would strengthen or refute theargument, what revisions to the argument would make it more reasonable, or what information, ifany, would help you better evaluate the argument Complete your essay in 30 minutes

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2 The following appeared in an editorial in a local newspaper.

For over a decade, Main Street has suffered from a lack of business People do not like to shop on Main Street, and store turnover has been relentless What Main Street needs is a face-lift We should make a number of small improvements that will make Main Street a more pleasant place to shop, such as better lighting, more benches and potted plants along the sidewalks, and improved parking, which has always been a problem for shoppers along Main Street These small but important changes will attract both new businesses and new customers to Main Street.

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3 The following appeared in a plan proposed to the board of directors of Fresh Food Corporation.

To distinguish our stores from our competitors and draw more customers into Fresh Food stores, we should donate a portion of each purchase to a well-known nonprofit organization each year With the right publicity, people will begin to choose us over our competitors because they will feel good about buying from Fresh Food, even if our products cost a little more.

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4 The following was proposed at a town meeting in North Hillsborough.

North Hillsborough has seen a record increase in crime in the last five years, while the crime rate in South Hillsborough has seen a slight decline North Hillsborough has only five police officers, while South Hillsborough has eight Clearly we need more police officers if we want to reduce crime in North

Hillsborough.

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Tiêu đề	Tips and strategies for the awa
Trường học	Unknown
Chuyên ngành	Writing
Thể loại	Essay
Năm xuất bản	Unknown
Thành phố	Unknown

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