The Issue Essay in the GRE- Prompts & Scoring

The Issue Essay

The GRE essays can seem a little intimidating at first because the instructions are different from what you probably remember on the SAT or ACT. But once you break them down, they’re not that tough! In this lesson, we’ll talk about one of the two GRE essays, the Analyze an Issue essay. On this essay, you’ll take and support a position on a given topic in response to a specific task.

There’s no correct answer to these questions; they’re all issues that reasonable people could disagree about. You also don’t need specialized expert knowledge of the issue. The point isn’t what side of the argument you pick: it’s how well you construct your essay. That’s what you’ll be graded on, so that’s where you want to focus your test prep energy.

In this lesson, we’ll discuss what that means, some common pitfalls to avoid and how to approach the task to get your highest score.

The Prompt and Task

Analyze an Issue prompts are exactly what they say on the tin: you get an issue, and you have to analyze it.

Here’s a sample issue prompt taken directly from the GRE website:

‘Critical judgment of work in any given field has little value unless it comes from someone who is an expert in that field.

Write a response in which you discuss the extent to which you agree or disagree with the claim. In developing and supporting your position, be sure to address the most compelling reasons and/or examples that could be used to challenge your position.’

As you can see, the prompt gives you:

A topic of general interest. You won’t have to bring in any specialized knowledge about the topic from the outside, and you won’t have to cite any exact statistics or remember a bunch of facts from outside sources. These are prompts that anyone can answer.

A specific task. The task gives you instructions for organizing your response: you’re supposed to agree or disagree with particular focus on potential counterarguments.

Your job here is to state and support your opinion in response to the task. Do NOT:

Discuss both sides of the question without taking a position.

Take a position on the issue in general without addressing the specific task. You have to follow the instructions in the task - in this case, you have to provide and address counterarguments.

Make sure that you DO:

Take a clear position, and support it with evidence and reasons.

Respond specifically to the task.

Anticipate and respond to potential counterarguments.

Scoring

Your essay will be scored basically on how well you follow that list of dos and don’ts. It’s all about how well you argue your case and respond to the task; it doesn’t matter which side you pick as long as you argue it well.

The readers are primarily looking for:

A clearly stated position that responds to the task

Well-organized support for the position with logical connections between ideas

Basically fluent English grammar, vocabulary and sentence structure

You could accomplish these things with a variety of different essay lengths and organizational structures; you don’t have to stick to the typical five-paragraph essay unless you want to.

Your essay will be scored holistically on a scale from 0 to 6, in half-point increments. 0 is the worst, and 6 is the best.

First, a human will read it and give it a score based on how well it fulfills the criteria. Then, a computer program will read it and give it a second score. If the scores are the same, the human score is used. If the scores are significantly different, a second human will read the essay and score it, and the final score will be the average of the two human scores.

Test Day Tips

So, now that you know what the graders are looking for and what kind of prompt you’ll get, here’s a list of test-day tips for writing a high-scoring essay.

Step 1: Read the issue and task. Then, stop and read it all again. Make sure you’re crystal clear on what the task is asking you do to.

Step 2: Quickly outline and brainstorm. Don’t try to write a full outline; just jot down your position and major examples or reasons, and roughly work out how you’re going to organize them. At this point, you should be roughly five minutes into your 30 minutes of essay time.

Step 3: Write. This step should take up the vast majority of your time. The good news is that you get to type your essay on a computer, so there’s no need to worry about handwriting. As you write, look back at your outline to make sure that you’re following it and are on track to finish in the given amount of time.

Step 4: Make quick spelling and grammar revisions. Don’t try to fix anything major; just take a couple minutes at the end of your essay to check for typos.

Lesson Summary

In this lesson, you got a look at the GRE Issue Essay, including what the prompts look like, how you’ll be scored and what to do on test day.

Each prompt will give you a topic of general interest and a specific task. Your job is to take a position on the topic in response to the task - not just take a position on the topic in general. You’ll be scored on how well you state your position, how organized and compelling your supporting arguments are and how well your control of language is.

On test day, plan to spend a couple minutes reading the prompt thoroughly to make sure you understand exactly what the task is asking. Then, briefly outline your essay and devote the bulk of your 30 minutes to writing it. A brief spelling and typo check at the end is all you really have time for. Don’t worry - the graders know you’re in a rush.