GMAT Essay: Minimum Effort for Maximum Return
The first section of the GMAT requires you to write an essay. But heres the interesting part: The schools dont care very much about your essay score. So why even try at all?
Well, for starters, the schools do care if you score in about the bottom 20% of test-takers on the essayso you want to make sure that your score is higher than that. A score of 4.5 (43rd percentile) is good enough, and even a score of 4.0 (20th percentile) is probably good enough. (Note: the essay scoring scale goes up to 6.0.)
So if you have to do a good enough job, then why not just go all out and aim for a 6.0? Thats not a great idea, either, because you still have the entire rest of the test to do. Mental fatigue is a significant issue on the GMAT.
So the real trick is to figure out how to do a just-good-enough job on the essay while saving as much mental energy as possible for the later sections of the test.
Start with a template
A template is an organizational framework on which to hang your writing. The template will not, of course, tell you exactly what to write. For that, youd need the actual essay prompt, which you wont see until you take the test. You can, however, determine how to organize the information ahead of time, as well as the general kinds of messages you need to convey at various points throughout.
The template will vary a little bit from person to person; the important thing is to have a consistent template for yourself that youve worked out in advance of the official test.
A good template will look something like this:
Paragraph 1: Intro. Summarize the conclusion. State my thesis. Introduce the main points I want to make.
Paragraph 2: Body. Discuss my first main point.
Paragraph 3: Body. Discuss my second main point.
Paragraph 4. Conclusion. Restate my thesis and summarize my two main points.
Each paragraph should contain certain things; these are listed in the below sections. The information does not need to be presented in the order given below, though; just make sure that each paragraph does contain the necessary information in some sort of clear and logical order.
Brainstorm
Spend about 3-ish minutes brainstorming before you start writing.
First, read the essay prompt. It will look / feel just like the critical reasoning arguments on the Verbal portion of the test, so tackle it in the same way! The argument will most closely resemble Assumption Family arguments, so find the conclusion and make sure you understand how the author is trying to support his / her conclusion. Next, brainstorm any assumptions* that you can think of and jot these down (or type them into the essay response area).
*Note: if you havent started studying CR Assumption Family questions yet, assumptions are unstated pieces of information that the author is assuming must be true in order to draw his/her conclusion.
Next, articulate flaws. Any assumptions are automatically flaws, because the author hasnt established that those assumptions are, in fact, true. You may also think of other flaws along the way.
Finally, pick your two best flaws; these will form the basis of your essay.
Many people find this the hardest part of writing an essay; you can practice by opening up the essay chapter of your Official Guide book and brainstorming for one essay prompt. Dont write the whole essayjust do the brainstorming portion once a day (only a few minutes out of your day!) for a week or two and youll become much more skilled at this step.
First Paragraph
- Summarize the issue
- State a thesis
- Acknowledge that the other side does have some merit
- Introduce your examples
- Aim for 3 sentences total
First, briefly summarize the conclusion of the given argument (not more than a sentence). Make sure to write using your own words (don't simply quote the exact language from the essay prompt, though using the same word here or there is fine).
Youll also need a thesis statement, which conveys to the reader your overall message or point for the essay that you wrote. For the Argument essay, you can write most of your thesis sentence before you get to the test! You already know that the Argument will contain flaws, and that you will be discussing how those flaws hurt the authors conclusion. Guess what? Thats always your thesis!
Then finish up by briefly introducing your two best flaws. Dont go into great detailthats what your body paragraphs will do.
Heres an example intro paragraph:
The author concludes that [blah blah]. While the argument does have some merit, there are several serious flaws which serve to undermine the validity of the authors conclusion. In particular, [flaw 1 blah blah and flaw 2 blah blah].
Now, do NOT use that exact structure. Theyre going to get suspicious if hundreds of people use the same intro paragraph. :) Instead, use the above to come up with your own rough structure and then just go ahead and use that on the test.
Note this bit: While the argument does have some merit. This is whats called acknowledging the other side. We dont say, Hey, your argument is completely terrible! Theres nothing good about it at all! We acknowledge that some parts may be okay, or some people may feel differently, but our position is that the flaws are the most important issuethat is our thesis: the argument is flawed.
Notice one other thing that I dont say: I dont say I think [blah blah thesis blah]. I state my thesis as though it is fact and reasonable people surely agree with me. Thats a hallmark of a persuasive essay.
Body Paragraphs
Each flaw gets its own paragraph, so youll write 2 body paragraphs of approximately 4 sentences each.
Your goal here is to support your thesis statement. In each paragraph:
- Introduce one flaw
--> dont repeat the exact language from the prompt or from your intro paragraph
- Explain why it is a flaw
-->how does this weaken the conclusion or make it less likely to be true?
- Suggest ways to fix the flaw
-->youre fixing the flaw, not changing the conclusion (more on this below)
-->what could the author do to strengthen his/her argument?
For example, lets say that an argument claims that firing half of a companys employees will help the company to reduce costs and therefore become more profitable.
Whats the conclusion, what supports that conclusion, and what assumptions is the author making?
Its kind of a terrible argument. While its certainly true that chopping half of your payroll will reduce costs, it doesnt necessarily follow that the company will become more profitable! That loss of personnel may negatively impact revenues, reduce productivity, hurt morale of the remaining employees, and so on. The author is assuming that no such adverse effects will result from this actionand you can write about that bad assumption.
The author could bolster the claim by, for example, presenting evidence that half of the employees work for a division whose product is about to be made obsolete and there isnt any alternative work that they could do for the company.
Dont worry about whether this is likely, whether such evidence actually exists, or even whether there would be other, better ways to improve profitability. Your job is only to strengthen the authors existing argument a little bit. If the author could actually produce evidence showing that there wouldnt be adverse effects from such layoffs, then his conclusion would be strengthened. Period.
Conclusion Paragraph
- Restate your thesis
- Re-acknowledge the other side
- Briefly summarize how your examples supported your thesis
- Aim for 3 sentences total
Are you noticing a theme within the above bullet points? Basically, the conclusion paragraph isnt going to contain anything new. Your major points should already have been made earlier in the essay. Now, youre just restating (in new words, please!) what you already said.
Your main message is this:
Yes, the argument has some merit, but it is ultimately flawed and I proved my case using examples X and Y.
As I mentioned , just make sure that you do use new wordingyou want to show variety in word choice and sentence structure.
Takeaways for the Essay
(1) Have a template before you go into the real test. Dont pre-write and memorize actual sentences (too much brain energy!), but do know in general the kinds of points you want to make in each paragraph.
(2) When the section starts, come up with your two flaws and then start filling out your template.
(3) Practice until you can execute with minimal mental effortand then go get your good-enough score on test day!