Ah yes, the writing section of the GRE. For most students it is either a complete afterthought or the most daunting aspect of the exam. If you're a native English speaker, and follow the task it should not be overly difficult to get a sufficient score. In this post, we'll talk about how to manage your time for each of the 30-minute essays, understanding that for either task, the pacing should be rather similar.

So, why is the GRE essay so exceedingly tertiary for most students? Well, because the GRE is the catchall exam that can be used for everything from business school to law school to PhD admissions, most of these programs will require a much more relevant writing sample as part of the admissions packet. However, the GRE essay, in a very similar fashion to the LSAT or GMAT essays, is presented in large part to prove basic English language writing capabilities because the identification processes of the exam guarantees that the writer is the applicant. Whereas there is no way to prove that any other submitted essay wasn't surreptitiously translated from its original language by someone other than the applicant.

Now, there are folks who should not follow this pacing guidelines... anyone aiming to get a 6 will likely need to practice speed writing to produce enough prose in ~30 minutes of writing to achieve that score. That said, no one needs a 6 on the GRE essay except those who have been told explicitly to get a 6 by their target program. In all of my years teaching this exam I have only encountered one such case, a student seeking a doctorate in literature at an Ivy League university! For all other students, it is much better to follow this pacing to aim for a 4+ score that will satisfy just about every other application scenario.

Notwithstanding high personal standards, it is really important to recognize that a score of 4.0 out of 6 will be more than sufficient to satisfy the admissions committee for nearly all (non-Ivy lit PhD) graduate programs, so this pacing guide will be for the exceedingly vast majority of GRE candidates for whom the Analytical Writing score has this bar to clear, and honestly in many cases even a 3.5 will be enough. One of the most important ways to guarantee clearing that 50th percentile score of 4 on the GRE essay is to organize your thoughts before writing.

Brainstorming | First 3-5:00
Issue Essay
The first essay is always the issue essay which tasks the writer with taking a position on an issue that the GRE believes should be of some interest to the average graduate student. Your job as GRE essay writer is to let the supporting examples you can derive under pressure dictate your position, rather than allowing your personal feelings to constrict the examples you can use. So, for the issue essay consider pros and cons by thinking about the issue at hand and let whichever side you have more examples for be your position that day. Then, you will have the primary pieces of support that are so integral to reaching the score of 4 knowing that the issues of the GRE can be supported from either position.

Argument Essay
The second essay is the argument essay wherein the task is to evaluate an argument, not attack an argument. So, in the brainstorming for the argument essay use the 3-5:00 to first identify the explicit conclusion requiring evaluation. Then, consider the evidence provided leading to that conclusion to articulate new information that would help to determine whether the argument is sound or less convincing. Be sure to use measured language and literally interpret the evidence closely to highlight vague terms that require additional investigation to clearly evaluate the validity of the conclusion or recommendation.

Essay Writing | Next 22-25:00
Both essays should follow a simple four paragraph structure, unless you have been explicitly told you need a score of 6 for admission. Which, as we've already covered should not be a frequent occurrence

So, spend the next 22 to 25 minutes writing an introduction, support paragraph 1, support paragraph 2, and conclusion. Do not try to be creative. Produce a rote structured to guarantee that you are able to finish the essay and complete your thoughts. Time management is one of the primary skills the Analytical Writing is attempt to assess, so be sure to finish your essay!

Proofreading | Final 2-3:00
This is easily the part of pacing that most applicants ignore --> Don't fall in that trap! With the time pressure, it is all too easy to leave out a sentence that was in your head or simply produce a clause that doesn't make sense in English. Allow yourself enough time to read through your own work and fix any major errors you encounter. It is hugely important, and if you plan ahead to have this 2-3:00 minutes at the end of the section, you're also ensuring you have enough time to complete your conclusion. Remember, the main goals of these essays is to cogently accomplish the tasks, so reread your work to confirm that you clearly did articulate your position in your introduction or to guarantee that you actually explicitly identified the conclusion of the argument in need evaluation. Remember that the GRE grader, whether human or algorithm, is judging very basic qualities and scoring your work in < 5:00, so missing a major piece of the task because of rushing to insert two additional sentences is a poor tradeoff.

By following these pacing guidelines, though, you'll be more than halfway to making the GRE Analytical Writing section the afterthought it should be, even if it was once a major worry!!