Mencakup baik persiapan tes atau ujian TOEFL maupun IELTS yang dibutuhkan untuk pendaftaran sekolah dan kuliah luar negeri baik untuk S1, S2, maupun S3
Mencakup baik persiapan tes atau ujian TOEFL maupun IELTS yang dibutuhkan untuk pendaftaran sekolah dan kuliah luar negeri baik untuk S1, S2, maupun S3
Sebagai penyelenggara kursus GMAT dan GRE terbaik di Jakarta, anda akan mendapatkan apapun yang dibutuhkan untuk mendapatkan skor yang tinggi, dan tips menghadapi tantangan yang muncul sebagai pelajar Indonesia yang ingin melanjutkan S2 dan S3
Dengan success ratio diatas 50%, kami menawarkan konsultasi bagi para pelajar dan profesional di Indonesia untuk dapat melanjutkan studi S2 dan S3 di universitas terbaik dunia seperti 8 universitas yang tergabung dalam Ivy League atau universitas yang tergolong dalam B School
Sebagai lulusan perusahaan-perusahaan Management Consultant terbaik dunia dibuktikan dengan success rate yang tinggi, kami akan membantu anda yang ingin bekerja di salah satu perusahaan tersebut untuk dapat melewati tahap case interview
By NADIA INDRIANA
March 4, 2016
The GMAT AWA (Analytical Writing Assessment) is the first exam in the three-and-a-half hour GMAT exam. Contrary to popular belief, the 30-minute exam does not focus on your English writing skills alone, but even more importantly, on your critical reasoning skills. Although the GMAT AWA score does not affect your overall GMAT score, schools still care about them. They also have access to read the actual GMAT AWA essay you wrote in addition to your score. Some top programs such as MIT Sloan will read the actual essay, as they believe that the GMAT AWA has a higher correlation to your future academic performance and professional/career success than the other parts of the GMAT exam.
If you are interested in learning more about the other GMAT sections, I have previously written a guide on the GMAT Verbal section that provides high-level tips and strategies that you can read .
The score ranges from 0 to 6 and goes up by intervals of 0.5. Below is a table that breaks down the full range of the score:
Score | Percentile | Analysis |
0 | 0% | This is impossible to get unless you leave it empty |
0.5 | 3% | It is unlikely that you would score this poorly unless you don’t write much and have little knowledge of written English. |
1 | ||
1.5 | ||
2 | ||
2.5 | 5% | This range is better, but not adequate for the requirements of business schools. |
3 | 6% | |
3.5 | 13% | |
4 | 21% | This is generally the minimum score that business schools require |
4.5 | 44% | A safe average score |
5 | 60% | A strong score |
5.5 | 81% | A great score |
6 | 92% | Excellent score |
As a general guideline, we recommend our students to score at least a 4.5 on their GMAT AWA.
As mentioned, GMAC evaluates your AWA score based on two components in general: critical reasoning skills and writing skills. The AWA section includes a quoted stimulus of the argument given and a question below the stimulus. The following are the directions given before the stimulus argument.
In the ‘Evaluation of Your Response’ section, the first two bullet points refer to your critical reasoning skills, whereas the last bullet point refer to your English writing skills. Of the two skills, the critical reasoning skills are more likely to impact your score. You should therefore focus more on how well you present your argument (macro) than on the linguistic parts (micro) like grammar, spelling.
Standard Written English (Micro)
There are a couple of things to pay attention to here. First rule of thumb is to avoid using contractions (don’t, I’m, can’t, I’ll, etc.). The second rule of thumb is to use as many complex sentences as possible; if you use simple sentences consistently you are probably not going to score high on the English language or micro aspect. The third rule of thumb is variation. You should vary your vocabulary and phrases. Make sure to avoid using the same words and phrases over and over again. Last but not least, always communicate clearly. A few minor grammatical mistakes can be looked over as long as people reading your essay understand clearly what you are trying to communicate.
Strategy for Presenting Your Argument (Macro)
The main task of the GMAT AWA is to evaluate a stimulus argument taken from random sources (newspapers, magazines, reports, newsletters, etc). Below is an example of a stimulus argument.
A good strategy to tackle the GMAT AWA is to analyze the stimulus argument just like how you would for Critical Reasoning questions from the GMAT Verbal. Instead of picking an answer from a multiple-choice question however, you are writing an essay about it. If you are interested in learning more about the Critical Reasoning part of the GMAT Verbal, you can read this other article I wrote .
The following are the steps to break down the stimulus argument:
The following outline is a possible GMAT AWA template that you can follow to at least earn an average score. Following this template will also save you a lot of time.
Managing time is critical since you only have 30 minutes. Here’s a suggestion how you might allocate those 30 minutes:
Good luck and please share to others that might find this GMAT AWA guide helpful.