This is a no-nonsense guide to doing well on the GRE Essay (Analytical Writing) Section. By “doing well”, a 4.5 generally suffices, even for the best programs, but of course the higher the better.
Scoring on the GRE Essay
The Essay is scored from 0.0 – 6.0, in increments of 0.5. There are two graders: one human, and one AI. In case they disagree on the score by more than 1 point, a third (human) grader is brought in to arbitrate. In the vast majority of cases, the two graders will agree, especially if the essay is scoring at the higher levels (which is where we want you to be scoring anyway!)
Having the Right Mindset
Let’s first talk about mindset. A common issue is over-thinking the essay and trying to write something that’s either aiming at perfection, or aiming at something grand and breathtaking to read. Many students try to write something amazing. Our stance on this is: don’t.
Well, you could, if you think you can pull it off in just 30 minutes (this is a very short amount of time to be writing anything even remotely close to amazing!) But in reality, the human graders are very aware that the essays that they are reading are written in haste, and these graders, in reality, just have a checklist that they’re ticking off points for as they read your essay.
Often, students wildly overestimate how much time will actually be spent on grading their essay. We’ve heard figures such as 5, 10, or even 15 minutes that the grader will spend on the essay. Try taking a guess: how much time do you think the human grader spends on reading?
The answer is that it’s likely that the human grader is spending less than 1 minute, on average, per essay (and the AI is spending literally just seconds). Think about it from the company’s point-of-view, and think about the sheer number of people who are taking the GRE. They need to hire professional graders who can go through a huge number of essays. If graders actually spent 10 minutes per essay, they would go through a measly six per hour, which would cost the ETS way more money than they would like to spend on grading! Now think about it from the human grader’s point-of-view: they’re likely already quite exhausted by the time they reach your essay, and even if yours is one of the first ones they’re seeing, they’re already preparing their stamina for the onslaught of additional essays they need to grade. Also, take into account that about half of the essays are scoring 3 or below – that probably further wears the readers down! To illustrate what these essays actually look like (and so you get a general gauge of the competition), here are some sample essays and their official grades. The first two are actually pretty good, so we’ll skip past those for now. Scroll down to the ones getting 3 or below. Notice how the essay that got a 1 is literally a single sentence. The one that got a 3 is just two paragraphs. The one that got a 2 is a bit longer, but doesn’t make a clear point. All you need to do is just a bit better than a 4. Granted, this is a decent essay, but there are still many easy points this one is missing. All you need to do for a competitive score is to do just a bit better.
What all this means, is that we don’t need to strike awe into our readers! They’re just going through a checklist to award points, which means that we just need to write to get points. And this is what this guide will do – a no-nonsense approach to getting those points. Following this guide generally gets students at least a 4.5, although we’ve had many get 5+ and several have even gotten a perfect 6!
Length and Signposting on the GRE Essay
First, some general tricks for scoring higher. We know that the AI grader generally rewards length – longer essays tend to score better (as long as it’s not gibberish of course!). And as long as we use signposting language the human grader will also feel that the essay is worthy of a higher score (and we are trying to give that poor overworked grader easy reasons to mark us well!)
Here are some signposting words/phrases for now as examples – we’ll come back to these later.
To start a new body paragraph:
- First, Second, Third; Moreover; Furthermore; Additionally; In addition, Finally
To wrap up a body paragraph:
- In sum; Taken together; Therefore; Thus; Hence; On balance; This [reason/example] shows that…; This supports the thesis that…
So, while it’s helpful to write to write longer essays, it’s equally critical to make good use of signposting language so that the graders (both human and AI) can easily and quickly follow the logic and structure of the essay.
GRE Essay Sample Prompts
Next, here is a list of every single possible prompt that the test could ask. On test day, you will be given one of these. Have a look through these to familiarize yourself with the kinds of prompts that you could see. No, really, actually have a quick look. We’ll wait!
Writing the GRE Essay – Structure and Brainstorming
We’ll aim for a 6-paragraph essay. The first is the Introduction, the next three are Body Paragraphs, the fifth one is called the Concession Paragraph, and the last one is the Conclusion. Yes, that sounds like a lot, but it’s completely doable so long as we strategically create the structure for it. So here’s what we’ll do.
Step 1: Read the prompt and brainstorm. Here’s the formula for doing this:
Come up with ideas for both sides. To make things easier, try to strictly agree or disagree with the prompt. Many students are tempted to take nuanced or middle-ground positions – these are fine if you feel very confident in arguing them, but remember that we only have 30 minutes! The most efficient way is often to just take a hard stance on whether you agree or disagree.
So make a T-chart, one side for Agree, and the other for Disagree. Think of ideas or reasons for each side. For reasons, feel free to use real-world examples, or even make up hypotheticals! This is completely allowed by the ETS. For example, you can say something like, “Consider a typical university…” or discuss general trends such as “There has been a rise in social media usage…” You can even use personal examples (and realistically, you could also take creative liberties here). The only thing you probably won’t want to do is to make up definite statistics or historical claims; even though the graders won’t have time to fact-check, using these on this type of essay will still make the human grader uneasy. But you should be fine with just real-world examples or hypotheticals!
You can stop brainstorming once you have 3 for one side and 1 for the other.
Writing the GRE Essay – Introduction and Conclusion
Step 2: Next, we’ll write the Introduction. Start with your thesis sentence. This can take the form of:
- When it comes to [paraphrase prompt], I agree/disagree for [reason1], [reason 2], [reason 3].
Highlight everything you wrote. Press cut and then press paste twice. This gives you two thesis statements. Rewrite the second one, using past tense. For example:
- In conclusion, on the topic of [paraphrase the prompt differently], I have shown that [reword the general argument based on whether you chose agree/disagree] for [reasons 1, 2, 3].
Hopefully this entire process has only taken about 5 minutes or so. At this point, you can flesh out the Introduction a bit more. For instance, you can start adding length by talking a lot about the background context of the prompt, or explaining it. And feel free to reword any of that for the Conclusion as well (although this is far less important). Once you’re satisfied (and remember, it doesn’t take too much to score decently here!) you now have the beginning and end already done. This lets you focus entirely on the reasoning for the rest of the duration (human graders will often see unfinished essays from students who didn’t manage to finish in time) and that way you won’t have to worry about writing a Conclusion out of nowhere.
Writing the GRE Essay – The Body Paragraphs
Step 3: Now, you can start writing your Body Paragraphs. Remember, we want to strategically go for length! One easy way to do this is to really make use of signposting – we can make topic sentences, and closing sentences.
We can start with a topic sentence:
- “First, on the [paraphrase prompt] a key reason I agree/disagree is because [reason 1].”
Next, try to write 2-3 (ideally 3-4) sentences about this reason and why it supports the essay’s thesis.
Then, close it off with a closing sentence:
- “In summary, [reason] shows that [whatever about the prompt]”
Do this 3 times, and that only leaves one paragraph left!
Writing the GRE Essay – The “Concession” or “Counterargument” Paragraph
Step 4: Write the Concession Paragraph. This is what’s known as a counterargument. Remember that one idea/example that we brainstormed for the “other side?” This is where it comes in. This is an easy way to score additional points, especially if we want to push from a 5 towards a perfect 6. Here’s how we can do it.
Start with a topic sentence as usual, this time with counterargument signposting:
- While it can be argued that…; Admittedly…; Opponents could make the counterargument that…
(There are a lot of additional ways you can signpost this, such as Granted; To be fair; While it is true that; Critics may argue that; It could be contended that…)
Next, write a sentence or two about why this poses an issue for your argument. Now, the trickiest part comes after, when you need to present a defense against this counterargument. So we don’t need the counterargument to be too strong (feel free to use a weaker point that you can more easily defend against). Next, you’ll want to refute it. We can again use signposting language, this time to signal a rebuttal:
- Nevertheless…; However…; Even so…”
And explain how the counterargument could be defeated. Once you finish this point, congrats! You’re just about done, since we’ve already added a Conclusion.
Writing the GRE Essay – Proofread, Finalize, and Submit!
Step 5: Proofread. While you want your spelling and grammar to be as good as it can be, a small number of spelling or grammar errors is not going to affect your score. Additionally, time permitting, try to add more word count if possible, perhaps to the Conclusion. But if you’ve made it this far, you should be getting an excellent score!
Final Thoughts and Takeaways
At the end of the day, remember that the GRE Essay isn’t testing for writing genius. Rather, it’s a test of structure, clarity, and efficiency. Follow the checklist, write for length, use signposting language, and keep your reasoning clear. If you go in with a plan and execute it calmly, you’ll outperform most test-takers. That’s all the graders are looking for: not perfection, just proof that you can organize your thoughts and communicate them effectively under time pressure.
Looking for a complete sample essay? We’ve put together a full‑length GRE essay — with a detailed outline and commentary — to show you exactly how to put the strategies in this guide into practice.
Read the Sample Essay here: https://reasontestprep.com/your-guide-to-success-on-the-gre-essay-template-and-sample-essay/