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DOs and DON'Ts for GMAT Essay Prep
WRITING ESSAYS under timed conditions can be a trying experience and can raise your anxiety to a point where you find it difficult to perform well. And when it comes to the GMAT, the fact that the testing service has pre-disclosed each and every one of the hundreds of topics in its two pools only adds to test anxiety. How? You might feel that you're at a competitive disadvantage unless you're ready for each and every one of the questions. So what to do? Don't panic. Here's a useful list of GMAT essay prep pointers — sage advice for minimizing this anxiety and for making the best use of the time you have to get ready for the GMAT Analytical Writing Assessment (AWA).
Don’t try to memorize the book's sample essays.
If you actually were to memorize each and every sample essay in Parts 2 and 3 of GMAT Answers and reproduce any two of them on the actual exam, you would well deserve the highest possible score, just for the effort! Of course, that’s my opinion. Unfortunately, that’s not the way the folks at GMAC view things. Be forewarned: GMAT readers will have access to my book and are likely to recognize plagiarism when they see it. There’s nothing wrong with borrowing ideas, reasons, and transitional phrases from my sample essays. Do try, however, to include your own specific examples, especially in your Issue essay; and be sure that in both essays you express your ideas in your own words.
Practice, practice, and practice!
You could read GMAT Answers cover to cover ten times and still perform poorly on the actual exam. There’s no substitute for putting yourself to the task under simulated exam conditions, especially under the pressure of time. Compose as many practice essays as you reasonably have time for, responding to the official questions. As you do so, keep in mind:
- Always practice under timed conditions. I cannot overemphasize this point. Unless you are put under the pressure of time, you really won’t be ready for the test.
- Always use a word processor for your practice tests. Restrict your use of editing functions to the ones provided on the real exam.
- Evaluate your practice essays. Practicing isn’t all that helpful if you make the same blunders again and again. After composing an essay, use the official scoring criteria to evaluate it. (Better yet, ask an English professor to evaluate it for you.) Then reflect on your weaknesses, and concentrate on improving in those areas the next time. Don’t worry if your essays don’t turn out as polished as the samples in my book. Concentrate instead on improving your own performance.
Take notes on a variety of Issue topics and Arguments from the official pool.
Download the complete pool of offical Issue topics and Arguments. Select 10-15 Issue topics covering diverse themes, and any 10-15 Arguments. For each one, spend about 5 minutes brainstorming and making notes. This exercise will go a long way toward ensuring that you don't find yourself paralyzed, or "stuck," during the actual exam.
Take notes on selected essays from Parts 2 and 3 of my book.
For the Issue writing task, identify thematic areas (from the list in Part 1 of my book) with which you’re especially unfamiliar, then get up to speed for these areas by reading the relevant essays in Part 2 of my book. As you read these selected essays:
- Pick up thesis ideas from the first and last paragraphs of each essay.
- Make note of reasons you find clearest, most convincing, or most useful.
- Highlight transition and rhetorical phrases. (Then, as you compose practice essays, make a special effort to incorporate your favorite phrases so that they become part of your natural writing style.)
For the Argument writing task, randomly select as many essays from Part 3 of my book as you reasonably have time to consider. For each essay:
- Identify each type of reasoning problem that the essay discusses and that you learned about in Part 1 of my book.
- Highlight transition phrases, which connect the essay's points of critique. (Make a special effort to incorporate similar phrases into your practice essays.)
Consult my other GMAT Analytical Writing book.
If your analytical-writing skills need significant improvement, further help is available in my complementary book: Writing Skills for the GRE/GMAT Tests (also published by Peterson's). The book places special emphasis on building rhetorical writing skills, organizing your two GMAT essays, and avoiding or correcting common language, grammar, and other mechanical problems. The book also explores additional (less frequent) reasoning problems with Arguments in the official pool. Finally, to help improve and polish your analytical and writing skills, the book contains a variety of reinforcement exercises for each writing task.
Dig even further for Issue ideas and examples — if you have ample time before your exam.
During your exam the testing system will select your Issue topic randomly from its large pool. So what if the testing system deals you an unfamiliar card? Well, keep in mind that, according to the testing service, no special knowledge about any Issue topic is needed to score high on the Issue essay. Also keep in mind that the specific reasons and supporting examples you cite in your Issue essay are only one of several scoring criteria, and by no means the most important.
But if you have ample time to prepare for the exam, by all means go the extra mile (or kilometer). Referring to the list of common Issue themes in Part 1 of my book, roll up your sleeves, and hit the proverbial stacks for Issue ideas. All forms of media are fair game:
Magazines. The periodicals listed below feature articles that cover common Issue themes:
- Inc: business management, ethics, leadership, entrepreneurship
- Forbes: business management, ethics, leadership, entrepreneurship
- U.S. News and World Report: notable current events
- The Economist: political and economic ideology
- Reason: ideology and culture (loads of cross-discipline articles)
- The New Yorker: arts, humanities, sociology, popular culture
- The Futurist: cultural and technological trends
With this list in hand, head to your local library or the magazine’s Website and rifle through some back issues or archived articles. You’ll come away brimming over with ideas for Issue essays.
Your notes from college course work.
Try dusting off your notes from college courses in business and economics. You might surprise yourself with what you’ll find that you can recycle into a GMAT Issue essay.
The Web.
Take advantage of the World Wide Web to brush up on common Issue themes. Follow my links to useful online resources for Issue topics.NOTE: This link takes you to a page at the Internet Edition of my book Writing Skills for the GRE and GMAT Tests. (Clicking the link opens a new browser window.)
Television and video.
If you’re a couch potato, tune in to the History channel or to your local PBS station for Issue-essay ideas. Also consider purchasing (or renting from a library) "History of the Millennium," a 3-hour A&E (Arts & Entertainment) channel production, which surveys the 100 most influential people of the most recent millennium (1000-1999). Zero in on a few of the featured artists, scientists, business and political leaders, and philosophers, and you’ll be ready with good Issue examples.
Books.
The well-read GMAT test taker holds a distinct advantage over others when it comes to the Issue essay. Here are just a handful of current books that explore the themes common among GMAT Issue topics and that can help you cultivate ideas for your Issue essay (links open a separate browser window and take you to book information pages at Amazon.com):
Business — leadership, management, productivity, teamwork
29 Leadership Secrets From Jack Welch
Execution: The Discipline of Getting Things Done
First, Break All the Rules: What the World's Greatest Managers Do Differently
Topgrading: How Leading Companies Win by Hiring, Coaching and Keeping the Best People
Good to Great: Why Some Companies Make the Leap... and Others Don't
The Lemming Dilemma: Living with Purpose, Leading with Vision
Business — ethical and social obligations
Managing Business Ethics: Straight Talk About How to Do It Right, 2nd Edition
Taking Sides: Clashing Views on Controversial Issues in Business Ethics and Society
Good Work: When Excellence and Ethics Meet
Social welfare and the role of government
I'll Be Short: Essentials for a Decent Working Society
The Future of Success: Working and Living in the New Economy
"Global village" issues
The Case Against the Global Economy: And for a Turn Toward the Local
One World, Ready or Not: The Manic Logic of Global Capitalism
The Work of Nations: Preparing Ourselves for 21st Century Capitalism
Global Information Warfare: How Businesses, Governments, and Others Achieve Objectives and Attain Competitive Advantages
Technological and cultural trends — their impact on business, government, and society
In the Absence of the Sacred: The Failure of Technology and the Survival of the Indian Nations
Technopoly: The Surrender of Culture to Technology
Building the Virtual State: Information Technology and Institutional Change
Simplicity: The New Competitive Advantage in a World of More, Better, Faster
The Experience Economy
The Cult of Information: A Neo-Luddite Treatise on High Tech, Artificial Intelligence, and the True Art of Thinking
Learning lessons from history
Building a Bridge to the 18th Century: How the Past Can Improve Our Future
Education — its methods, role, and objectives
The End of Education: Redefining the Value of School
Social welfare — public health and safety
Risk and Reason : Safety, Law, and the Environment
The Global Environment: Institutions, Law, and Policy
Public and social policy vis-a-vis individual rights
Principles for a Free Society: Reconciling Individual Liberty With the Common Good
A Life of One's Own: Individual Rights and the Welfare State
Social and economic policy vis-a-vis the arts and media
The Economics of Art and Culture
Manufacturing Consent: The Political Economy of the Mass Media
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