DOs and DON'Ts for GRE Essay Prep

Related Sites   GRE Writing Skills  24-Hour GRE Prep  GRE Word Smarts     Top GRE Books   Official GRE Practice  Kaplan GRE Verbal  GRE Math (ARCO)

 
Don't try to memorize my sample essays.

If you actually were to memorize each and every sample essay in Parts 2 and 3 of my book GRE—Answers to the Real Essay Questions and reproduce any two of them on the actual exam, you might deserve some sort of award for memorization, but don't expect the testing service to reward you for this effort. Be forewarned: GRE readers will have access to my book and are likely to recognize plagiarism when they see it. In fact, the testing service employs sophisticated software that automatically detects phrases and sentences that match those used in model essays.

There's nothing wrong with borrowing ideas, reasons, and even transition and rehetorical 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 my GRE essay book 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 GRE essay book. Concentrate instead on improving your own performance.

 
Take notes on a variety of Issue topics and Arguments from the official pool.

Download or bookmark the complete pool of offical Issue and Argument topics (you'll find them at the testing service's official GRE Web site (www.gre.org). Select a variety of Issue topics covering diverse themes, as well as several Argument topics. 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 essays from Parts 2 and 3 of my GRE essay book.

For the Issue writing task, identify essay themes (from the list in Part 1 of my GRE essay 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 GRE essay 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 similar 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 GRE essay 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 GRE 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 GRE 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.

Just before your timed Issue writing task, the testing system will present two Issue topics to you, and you'll choose either one for your task. Choose whichever topic you're more familiar or comfortable with. But what if the testing system deals you two unfamiliar cards? 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:
• 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.

Books. Check out books that survey key people, events, and developments in various areas of human endeavor. Here are two useful ones to start with (links open a separate browser window and take you to book information pages at Amazon.com):

• A History of Knowledge: Past, Present, and Future, by Charles van Doren (Birch Lane Press, 1991)

• The World's Greatest Ideas: An Encyclopedia of Social Inventions, ed. by Nicholas Alberly, et al (New Society Publications, 2001)

Your notes from college course work. Try dusting off your notes from college survey courses in art, science, history, politics, and sociology. You might surprise yourself with what you'll find that you can recycle into a GRE 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) "Biography 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, political leaders, and philosophers, and you'll be ready with good Issue examples.