analytical writing

Explaining the New Shorter GRE and Its Implications for Test-Takers

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For many years, the Graduate Record Examination (GRE) has served as a crucial first step for students planning to pursue graduate study in the United States. This year, the GRE will be shorter thanks to a series of reforms. The test will have shorter versions of each section, but will still accurately assess test takers’ verbal reasoning, quantitative reasoning, critical thinking, and analytical writing skills. If you plan to take the GRE General Test after September 2023, you should familiarize yourself with these changes and prepare accordingly. The following is a comprehensive summary of all the key modifications to the new, shorter GRE:

Change 1: Reduced Number of Questions and Shorter Testing Period

The length of the GRE General Test has been reduced from 4 hours to 1 hour and 58 minutes. This is a significant change aimed at improving test-takers’ concentration and decreasing test fatigue. The reduced time has been achieved by implementing the following changes in the test.

Reduced number of questions: The number of questions in the Quantitative Reasoning and Verbal Reasoning tests will be reduced. The number of questions in each section will drop from 40 to 27. These 27 questions will be broken up into 12 and 15 for for Section 1 and 2 respectively. This change applies to both quantitative reasoning and verbal reasoning. Despite the reduction in total number of questions, the average time allotted for each question has remained unchanged.

Removal of ‘argument’ section: “Analyze an argument” task has been removed from the analytical writing section. Moving forward, the AWM section will only have the “analyze an issue” task. As a result, you’ll only have to write only one essay.

Removal of the Unscored section: The GRE currently has an unscored section that is used for evaluation of questions by ETS. This section will be removed from the new, shorter GRE, as it does not affect the test taker’s final score.

No Scheduled Breaks: The current 10-minute break after the two hours of the test will be eliminated because the new test time will be less than 2 hours.  Those taking the GRE at a testing center can still take unscheduled breaks; however, the clock will not stop. Exemptions to this policy will be made for test takers with disabilities or health-related needs.Online examinees are not permitted to take unscheduled breaks during the exam.

Change 2: faster Reporting of Test Results

Official GRE scores will be reported to test takers within 8-10 days after the exam. This is a significant improvement over the previous time frame of ten and fifteen calendar days. In the long run, this will save time for those filling out applications.

What won’t change as the GRE moves from its current format to a shorter one?

Despite the fact that the GRE General Test will be shorter, many features will remain unchanged. Given below are the important aspects of the test that won’t be changing:

  • The basic structure of the GRE, including the presence of Analytical Writing, Verbal Reasoning, and Quantitative Reasoning sections, will remain unchanged.
  • Scoring: All three sections will use the same scoring procedure, and the shorter test will use the same performance scales as the current test.
  • The shorter GRE will still be section adaptive I. e., the difficulty level of the second section will be based on your performance in the first section.
  • Although the GRE has been shortened, testing fees have not changed.
  • Graduate and professional schools will use scores from the GRE General Test similarly, regardless of the length.
  • As before, you can retake the GRE General Test up to five times in any rolling 12-month period (365 days), with a maximum of one attempt every 21 days.
  • Your GRE scores will be considered valid for five years after your test date.

Why the ETS is changing the test format

These changes are based on feedback from previous test takers and are the result of expert analysis about how a better experience could be introduced for test takers while retaining the strong validity and reliability that universities expect.

Applying to graduate and professional programs is time-consuming. While you want to show your potential in a comprehensive way, you also want to get through your application checklist ASAP. Shortening the test will help students to stay focused and reduce fatigue. The shorter test will also allow ETS to deliver GRE scores faster. Students can complete their applications sooner as well.

What is yet to be announced?

Verbal and Quantitative Reasoning have had their total number of questions cut down to 27, but how those questions will be distributed among the subsections such as sentence equivalence, text completion and  reading comprehension in verbal section, remains to be seen.

We also don’t yet have details on how the scoring algorithm might adapt to the reduced number of questions.

Which version of the test should you take- Shorter GRE vs. Current GRE

You should weigh your application deadlines against your personal preferences when deciding between the shorter GRE and the current GRE. The current GRE will be phased out on September 22, 2023, in favor of the shorter GRE. If your application deadline is early October or earlier, you should probably take the current GRE. However, if you have more time and your application deadlines are not pressing, you may want to take the shorter GRE because of its streamlined format.

At Dilip Oak’s Academy, We also provide detailed guidance on these processes under our Admission Counseling Services, including a selection of universities, documentation process and visa counseling, and mock visa interviews. In addition, as India’s leading Study Abroad Consultants, we have helped more than 33,000 students to secure their dream admits for various universities in America including MIT, Stanford, Cornell, Carnegie Mellon and other top-ranked universities.

We also offer GRE, TOEFL, and IELTS coaching, GRE Self Prep and guide students with university selection, application essays, and visa counseling under our Admission Counseling Services for USA, Germany and UK.  To enroll, call us on 91-020-67444222, 91-8007878495

Coronavirus Lockdown: How To Use The Lockdown Time For Smart GRE Prep

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The looming uncertainties about visa processes and admissions to US universities due to ongoing lockdown have put the long term plans on hold for many students who have already secured university admits. Meanwhile, many of you, who are currently preparing for the GRE and have joined GRE coaching, are also finding it difficult to plan and manage their studies due to suspension of classes and postponement of tests.

As of now, there is no clarity by when these situations will improve and classes will resume. Therefore, to help you make the best use of this lockdown time without being affected by the mounting pressure, we have come up with a few tips that will help you continue your studies at home, in a smart way! 

Verbal Reasoning Section

  • Keep reading. Not losing touch with the syllabus is most crucial at this point. Revise and practice whatever has been covered in your class till now.
  • Solve at least five to six passages for Reading Comprehension and 10-15 questions for Sentence Equivalence, Text Completion and Sentence Completion every day. Understand where you are going wrong and improvise accordingly.
  • Learn and memorize at least 20 to 25 GRE words every day. Mark the ones you find difficult and practice them more.
  • Brainstorm two to three Issue and Argument topics each, every alternate day to cover different topics.
  • Practice writing at least two Issue and Argument essays each in 30 minutes, every week, to become comfortable with timed writing.

 Quantitative Reasoning Section

  • Make sure to revise and be thorough with basic concepts and formulae.
  • Focus more on quantitative comparison questions since they are trickier than other question types and constitute around 40 percent of the total 20 questions.
  • Solve one set (minimum of 20 questions) every day.
  • The Data Interpretation section is relatively easy to study and score, so make sure you practice that section well. 
  • Most engineering students are good with basic concepts but make silly mistakes during calculations and lose marks. To avoid this, practice manually, using a pen and paper so you become more attentive.
  • For those who are students of Dilip Oak’s Academy, solve Book 4 thoroughly. It will help you to understand the exact requirement of every problem and use the concepts correctly. If you do this, you can manage to score 160+ easily. 

GRE Material and Prep Tools for Quick Study

If you are a Dilip Oak’s Academy student, you have a suite of online features that you can make maximum use of to practice:

Focused Practice – Reinforce your understanding by testing yourself on:

  • Topic-wise questions for the Quantitative Reasoning section
  • Specific question types for the Verbal Reasoning section
  • 400+ on Verbal and Quantitative sections combined

Test Prep

  • Customized Practice Sessions: choose question types and difficulty levels and practice using timed and untimed modes
  • In-depth Explanatory Answers: view detailed explanations for every question
  • Instant Review: view your results immediately after each practice session

Full-length Tests

  • AWM Essays: graded on ETS’s 6-point scale with feedback from the experts
  • Explanatory Review: details explanatory answers for every single question
  • Detailed Analysis: question-wise analysis of your performance to enable you to gauge your strengths and weaknesses

Vocabulary App – Covers 1500 high-frequency words

  • Images illustrating word meaning
  • Sample sentences and roots
  • Test mode to help you master the word list.

Note: All the above-mentioned facilities can be availed fully only if you have enrolled for GRE coaching at Dilip Oak’s Academy. If you are not an academy student, you can still purchase our online practice packages. View our Plans & Pricing HERE

Cracking the GRE: Are You Ready for the Analytical Writing Challenge?

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Are you ready for AW?

AW Challenging… Really?

If you ask students to name the most difficult section in the GRE, most engineers would say: “Verbal Reasoning” and most non-engineers would say “Quant”. Hardly anyone would suggest that Analytical Writing plays much of a role either in cracking the GRE or getting an admit for an MS in US. For most students taking the GRE exam, therefore, the Analytical Writing section (also called AW) is a surprisingly challenging part. There are several reasons for this.

The Problems of the Engineer

  • First, if you are like most students who come to Dilip Oak’s Academy, you have lost touch with essay writing long ago – your last encounter with this lost ‘art form’ was probably 3-5 years ago in the 10th standard, and whatever you did learn about it has long been buried under the load of highly technical data that you had to stuff your head with during your bachelor’s course.
  • Second, as an engineer (or even a non-engineer) you don’t even understand why AW should be included in the GRE at all (check out this article if you are still not clear).
  • And third, you probably think that since you did essay writing in school, you should be able to manage this section without too much trouble.

However, the AW section is important and it demands that you meet a very specialized (and exhausting) set of requirements.

Why the Big Fuss about AW?

1. Do you understand the issues?

The first Task in AW is always the Issue essay where, you have to think deeply about topics that you most probably have never read about or ever thought you would have to tackle. So, for example:

  • Do you think that getting exposure to another culture will help you understand the culture of your own country?
  • How do you think that a civilization should be judged – on the basis of its scientific and cultural achievements or on the basis of the well-being of its people?
  • And finally, do you think that people in public life should be required to hold to the highest ethical and moral standards and do they have any right to expect privacy?

(For the actual topics, see the pool of issue topics here.)

On these unfamiliar topics, you have to come up with a variety of specific examples that show your insight into the topic; and you have to use these examples to examine the central issue from a variety of different angles. At the very least, you are expected to address both sides of the issue.

2. Getting into arguments

In the Argument essay (see the argument topic pool here), which is the second Task you will tackle in the Analytical Writing section, you have to do several things. Among them, you may have to:

  • evaluate the given argument and its line of reasoning
  • raise questions about its hidden assumptions and flaws
  • set out the evidence required to strengthen or weaken it or
  • examine whether its predictions are likely to come about.

You need to know how to do these things and you need to practice them so that, you can analyze and type in smooth, seamless flow. Further, in both these types of task, you will have to fine tune your essay to meet the specific requirements of the question type you are dealing with in that particular task – and there are 6 different question types in the issue task and 7 different question types in the argument task.

Summing up the Challenge

This means that right at the beginning of the exam, you will have to put in an hour of intense analytical effort to identify the key elements in the argument or issue topic and to produce well-written essays which meet the precise requirements of the task. For this your mind will have to be focused, alert and clear and your fingers will have to have the stamina to put in the 20 minute-burst of near-continuous typing required to generate an essay of 350-450 words, the minimum required to adequately cover an analytical writing topic. It’s not the Olympics but, you need to be physically and mentally prepared for the task. So, here’s the bottom line: if you want to be competent at the AW tasks, you will need careful, well-planned preparation and practice. Make sure you do this well beforehand.

Note: If you are a student at Dillip Oak’s Academy you can take a free Analytical Writing Counseling Appointment (scroll to the end of the page on this link for further details).

Cracking the GRE: Getting Hit by the Analytical Writing Bomb – Why You Must Prepare for Analytical Writing

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The AW BombFirst Things First

Here’s a fundamental reason why you should prepare for this section: it is the first section that you will face in the GRE exam – this is always the case. The Verbal and Quantitative Reasoning sections come in random order, and they only come in afterwards. Only Analytical Writing (AW) has a fixed place in the order of sections in the exam, and that place is right at the beginning of this arduous test. It’s a fact you can’t change, it’s a fact you can’t avoid; and it’s a fact that is fundamental to cracking the GRE.

How It is Supposed to Go

Ideally, you should be well prepared for AW. If you are, it should work out like this: you crack the essays. This gives you a surge of positive energy that sets you up to do well in the following sections. The end result? The confidence you gain in AW helps you get through the other sections with flying colors. You walk out of the test center with your head held high, lifted up with the expectation that now you will get some good admits. It’s a happy thought.

The One Thing You Forgot…

On the other hand, imagine this scenario. You know that your GRE score is of paramount importance and you have put in three or more months of grueling effort to make sure that you do well in the Verbal and Quantitative Reasoning sections. You haven’t really done much about Analytical Writing (after all, the only thing you have to do there is write a few essays, and how difficult is that going to be?). But apart from that you are fairly confident that at this stage nothing is likely to mess up your chances of a great GRE score.

…Turns Out to Be the One You Shouldn’t Have

Image credit: Stencil Revolution
Hugging a bomb?

However, the GRE test begins with AW. As you get into the two essay tasks, each with its specific demands and requirements, you realize that there are important things that you don’t understand about the essay tasks, about analyzing the topics and about how to tackle the specific requirements of the question types. It begins to dawn on you that doing a bit of reading would have given you handy examples to use in your essays. You also realize belatedly that that you should have worked on your language skills; and there’s a sinking feeling in your stomach that tells you that you should have practiced so that thinking and typing would be a smoothly flowing process that would fit into the given time.

The Bomb Explodes

Now, however, it’s too late. You are not prepared for AW; and getting hit by all the challenges posed by the AW tasks right in the beginning of your GRE is a big shock. You somehow manage to get through the AW section, but you have lost confidence, and that hits your ability to perform optimally on the subsequent portions of the test – and your performance on the following sections suffers. Not a very good ending after several months of effort.

The Moral

What’s the moral of the story? Don’t take this section lightly – it sets the tone for your performance in the other sections. Start preparing well in advance and set yourself up for success in AW. For those of you who are feeling a little lost, don’t worry, we have some tips for you that will help you to get a grip on this section in a forthcoming blog. Keep your eyes open for it.

Note: If you are a student at Dillip Oak’s Academy you can take a free Analytical Writing Counseling Appointment (scroll to the end of the page on this link for further details).

Cracking the GRE: Why You Can’t Ignore Your AW Score

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Why You Can't Ignore Your AW Score

What Albert Einstein had to Say

A simple survey of most GRE students will show you that Analytical Writing (also known as AW) tends to be one of the most underrated sections of the GRE.

  • Firstly, the general perception is that getting an admit for an ‘MS in US’ depends mostly on your Quantitative and Verbal scores.
  • Further, the AW section is scored on a scale of 0 to 6 which, hardly seems worth bothering about compared to the 260-340 score scale of the other sections of the GRE. So, most students don’t give much importance either to this section or to being adequately prepared for it.

But, as Einstein once pointed out, “Not everything that can be counted counts, and not everything that counts can be counted.” This is certainly true for the AW section of the GRE exam. Especially if you are an ambitious student, you can’t afford to do badly in Analytical Writing. In fact, there are 2 compelling reasons why you should give this section of the exam careful attention. As you will see, good preparation for the GRE will not only help you cracking the GRE, but will help you during your ‘MS in US’ even afterwards.

1. AW Scores Count

Think of it this way: getting a 5 or 6 in AW might not ensure a great admit but an AW score of less than 3 is very likely to deny you one (more about that below). On the other hand, getting a good AW score can give you an edge over the competition. Suppose you and another applicant have a the same GRE score (say, 320/340), a similar academic record and similar work experience. However, there is difference between you: in AW, the other applicant has a 2.5 whereas you have a score of 3.5. The difference in the AW scores is likely to help the admissions committee decide in your favor.

So, if you are very confident about the excellence of your academic record, and that your GRE scores for the Verbal and Quantitative Reasoning sections are going to be great, then maybe you can afford to ignore this section. Otherwise, especially if you are aiming for a top-ranking university, you should think of the competitive advantage that a good AW score can give you.

2. It is Good to Aim High on the AW Section

This is especially true, if you are looking at PhD. programs, or aiming for top-ranking universities and departments. In fact, for some high-ranking programs, an AW score of 4.0 or above is a basic requirement. The reasons for this are quite simple.

  • The professors in most top American universities and departments are looking for students who have good English writing skills. You might be a bright student brimming with great ideas, but what good are those ideas if you cannot convincingly communicate them in your reports, research papers or thesis?
  • Having the requisite language skills also ensures smooth completion of graduate school assignments such as thesis writing or publishing articles in peer-reviewed journals. This is important, since good writing skills on your part gives professors confidence that they don’t need to invest any additional effort in correcting badly written manuscripts or training you in writing.
  • Furthermore, professors often require students to help them in writing manuscripts of research papers or with writing grant proposals. Such activities are an important part of being a good graduate research assistant and it really irks professors if they cannot rely on you for assistance in these matters.

For these reasons, if you are a GRE test taker who is serious about getting into a top ranking graduate program, it is important that you be adequately prepared for the AW section. Your scores will tell your prospective professors whether you are someone who they should choose or someone they should avoid; whether you are someone whose work they will be able to read and enjoy or will have to spend long hours on, painfully correcting every line; whether you are going to be someone who helps them or someone who can’t be counted on to contribute. Guess who they are going to prefer?

Analytical Writing in the Revised General GRE

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Here are some important facts about the Analytical Writing (AW) section of the Revised General GRE that test-takers should know. AW is always the first section in the exam and consists of the same two essay tasks

  • the issue essay task
  • the argument essay task

Both essays have to be typed out in a simple word-processor that has cut, copy and paste functions. So, you need to have a typing speed of at least 40 words per minute. If you haven’t, start learning/ practicing now.

As indicated in our earlier blog on AW (“Why 6 and 8 are Important Numbers for the New GRE Analytical Writing Section“) some things make this section, just a little bit demanding – read it and find out. The overview below will tell you what this section is like as a whole.

Help for Essay Writing in the GRE AW and TOEFL: Hypergrammar from Ottawa University

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Prepare to be Sentenced!

One of the most important building-blocks of an essay is the sentence. Writing an essay for an Analytical Writing Task in the GRE or the GMAT – or even the TOEFL Independent Writing Task – means that you will be expressing your thoughts in an academic context. So, you need to use sentences that are acceptable in that kind of context, but also effectively to translate your ideas onto the screen

  • Complex sentences show that you are able to use the language fluently
  • Clear well-formed sentences make your essay easy to understand
  • Variety in sentence construction will make your essay interesting

How can you write like that? Simple, click on the link below and find out:

http://www.uottawa.ca/academic/arts/writcent/hypergrammar/bldsent.html

The link will take you to some useful suggestions published by the University of Ottawa, Canada on ‘Hypergrammar,’ their online resource page for grammar and writing. Use this link to understand:

  • the importance of sentence structure
  • the purpose of different types of sentences,
  • what kind of sentences work best in formal writing assignments such as essays.

Happy reading. Happy writing!

Write Better Essays with OWL – A Simple Aid to Improving Grammar

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Essays

For GRE and GMAT test-takers, the Analytical Writing Section may sometimes seem to be an uphill climb. With only a half an hour to brainstorm ideas, make an outline and finally type in the entire essay, it may not always be possible to transfer your thoughts to the word processor exactly as you want. The result is often essays that fall short of what the examiner expects in order to award a 4.

The links below are a part of the Online Writing Lab, a project started by Purdue University, which helps teachers and students in developing their English Language skills and rectifying the errors that they make in their essays. They provide valuable suggestions on how to structure sentences correctly and avoid minor errors in English that we as non-native speakers of the language tend to make. Visit them and start improving your Analytical Writing essays immediately.

Note: if you are taking the TOEFL exam, these links will be a big help to you too.

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