Boost your GRE essay score: 20+ data-backed tips

While many resources have opinions on crafting strong analytical writing for the GRE, we set out to provide authoritative answers. Preparing for the GRE can be overwhelming, so you deserve to know exactly how to improve your GRE score. This is achieved not just through practice, but also by understanding what top essays do differently. That’s why we worked with expert GRE instructors to hand-score over 1,000 GRE analytical writing examples. With this empirical data, we uncovered what truly elevates a GRE essay and pinpointed the factors behind high scores.

Leveraging these analytically scored GRE essay examples, we developed an advanced machine learning model: an essay grader that predicts your Analytical Writing GRE score and pinpoints specific ways to elevate your writing.

Our research revealed the 5 most critical elements for a high-scoring GRE Analytical Writing response:

1. Total word count
2. Noun usage throughout the essay
3. Incorporation of key prompt terminology
4. Adjective diversity
5. Sentence structure variety

Throughout this article, we will detail our approach for building a machine-learning GRE essay grader and break down what sets an excellent GRE Analytical Writing response apart. You’ll also find a step-by-step GRE Analytical Writing template you can use, along with targeted tips for GRE essay success and insights drawn from top-performing GRE essay example responses. Get ready to master the analytical writing section and optimize your score with science-backed advice.

The GRE analytical writing section

Essay writing is often one of the most challenging aspects of GRE analytical writing, and excelling on the exam means mastering the GRE Issue Essay and the GRE Argument Essay. These GRE essay writing tasks are designed to evaluate your analytical writing skills, including your ability to think critically, develop clear arguments, communicate complex ideas, and present a focused, logical discussion. Although the GRE issue essay and GRE argument essay use different essay prompts, the evaluation criteria and recommended strategy for how to write GRE essays are essentially the same across both tasks.

With just 30 minutes for each analytical writing GRE section, maximizing your time is crucial. Imagine having access to proven analytical writing GRE tips, developed with the help of machine learning and real test data, to dramatically improve your analytical writing GRE score. Using such insights could make achieving that elusive perfect 6.0 on GRE analytical writing much more attainable.

Each section of GRE analytical writing presents a unique topic with specific instructions, challenging you to analyze the prompt, quickly plan your essay, and write a coherent and well-organized response, whether it’s the issue essay or argument essay. Strengthening your GRE essay writing means efficiently supporting your points with relevant evidence and maintaining clarity in your discussion, all within the strict time limit. If you’re wondering how long your GRE analytical writing essay should be, focus on developing a concise yet comprehensive response in approximately 300-400 words.

When it comes to time management, every moment truly matters in analytical writing. To help students maximize their potential, we’ve developed a machine learning-powered essay grading system trained on thousands of real, professionally graded essays using official GRE essay prompts. The tool provides actionable feedback and tips for GRE essay success.

By leveraging advanced technology and expert-backed recommendations, you can refine your approach with top analytical writing GRE tips, elevate your GRE essay writing performance, and confidently aim for the highest possible analytical writing GRE score.

The GRE essay grader

The Educational Testing Service (ETS), the official designers of the GRE, offers guidelines for achieving a top GRE essay score of 6.0. According to the GRE essay rubric shared by ETS, high-scoring writers are expected to articulate a clear and insightful position, fully develop that position, present compelling reasons or persuasive examples, and convey ideas fluently and precisely. While this direction helps students understand how essays are evaluated, these standards can seem subjective. Many test takers wonder exactly what makes an argument “clear and insightful” or how to create examples that genuinely stimulate a high essay GRE score.

To demystify GRE essay scoring, we wanted an approach based on evidence, not guesswork. That’s why, in designing our GRE essay grader, we focused on deeply analyzing the traits and patterns that drive superior GRE essay scores. Through our research, we identified the specific issue and argument essay characteristics that consistently earn high GRE essay scores, and these form the backbone of our scoring methodology to help you improve your GRE score.

After meticulously studying graded data from more than 1,000 professionally scored essays, our team isolated the key factors that lead to consistent success. Leveraging this data and innovative technologies, we created a state-of-the-art GRE essay grading tool reliably aligned with the GRE essay rubric. This platform is specifically built to make GRE essay scoring transparent, showing you exactly how to improve your GRE score on the analytical writing section. You can trust Achievable’s platform to advance your skills with confidence and clarity.

Let’s take a detailed look behind the scenes.

Analyzing the ETS GRE resources

The first step in building our GRE essay grader was a comprehensive review of every official ETS resource related to GRE essays and analytical writing. Since our GRE essay grader is specifically designed to maximize your GRE essay scoring potential, relying on guidance from the actual test creator ensures unmatched accuracy and value.

We meticulously studied ETS’s GRE resources, analyzing what sets apart high-scoring GRE essays. From evaluating extensive GRE issue essay examples to scrutinizing argument essay samples using the official GRE essay rubric, we did the in-depth research so you don’t have to. This exhaustive process culminated in nearly twenty pages of notes on key factors influencing GRE essay scoring.

Our analysis covered everything from clear-cut GRE essay rubric features like word count to finer details such as language complexity and the frequency of adjectives used. At this stage, initial patterns were informed by our expert observations about elements relevant to GRE essays. Ultimately, it would be up to our GRE essay grader’s machine learning model to determine which features truly impact a high-scoring GRE essay response.

NLP and key entity extraction

Having twenty pages of notes was a great start, but we knew the next step would be the major challenge. We needed a reliable way of extracting these traits from a piece of English writing. Unfortunately for us, computers don’t inherently understand English, which meant we needed to dive into the field of Natural Language Processing (NLP).

NLP is a subfield of linguistics, computer science, and artificial intelligence (AI) that is helping to bridge the gap between the language humans use and the way computers process information.

Luckily, we love to learn here at Achievable, and after a whole lot more research we were ready to build software that could take an essay and dissect it into a list of features. This process, called key entity extraction, was fundamental to building our GRE essay grader. Now that we could reliably process GRE essays and get our feature data out the other end, we were almost ready to train our model.

Machine learning

The last step before training was to prepare the extracted data. Machine learning is very good at one thing, and that’s discovering relationships between sets of data; otherwise, it’s not as smart as you’d think. Outliers in the dataset can skew the results, especially when the outliers are very large or small compared to the average. This meant that the data provided to the ML algorithm had to be pre-processed or normalized.

Data normalization usually involves rescaling the data so all values are between 0 and 1. Using the results of our previous analysis, we determined lists of trait values that could be used to normalize the data.

For example, most GRE issue essay templates and GRE argument essay templates follow the conventional essay writing advice of using a 5 paragraph essay structure. This GRE essay template format includes a thesis, 3 body paragraphs, and a conclusion. Normalizing the paragraph count by 5 would create a trait that the ML algorithm could use to work its magic. If we provided more traits to the model, such as the paragraph count normalized by 3, and also by 10, the model could give us more information, and a high degree of confidence, whether 5 paragraphs is the way to go to get a high score. Following this approach, we normalized our dataset of GRE essays and provided hundreds of traits for the machine learning model to analyze.

With our key entity extraction software ready to go and our sample GRE essay data prepared, we were ready to train a machine learning model using the thousands of hand-scored, real-world GRE issue essays and GRE argument essay examples.

We built our machine learning model using TensorFlow, and in the training stage, passed huge amounts of data through neural networks, resulting in a model that could reliably predict the score of a GRE essay. Using a variety of data science tools, we generated charts to help describe the results. These charts help illustrate how each trait affects the predicted score of a GRE essay. We can see which traits have the most significant effect, and by how much, making it very clear how to write a GRE essay.

GRE essay score analysis results

Beeswarm plot

The chart below is called a beeswarm plot and represents the combined results of the thousands of GRE essays graded by the machine learning model.

• Each row in the plot corresponds to a specific feature
• The rows are ordered from top to bottom, starting with the feature that had the largest impact
• Each colored dot in the row represents a single instance of the feature, i.e., the value of the feature for a specific GRE essay
• The dots are colored according to the size of their value, where the lowest values are blue and the highest values are red
• The gray line down the middle is the zero-impact line, with values falling to the right having a positive impact on the predicted result and the values falling to the left having a negative impact

For example, we can see from the plot that the total number of words used in the essay had the most significant impact on the score. Because the effect of a feature increases as the distance of the dots from the zero-impact line increases, the blue dots extending far to the left indicate that low essay word counts have a sizeable negative impact on score. On the other hand, the red dots tend to cluster slightly to the right of the zero-impact line, indicating that writing a longer essay can help but the impact is much smaller. The takeaway here is that you should avoid writing an essay that is too short, rather than trying to write a very long one.

Force plot

The chart below is called a force plot and gives a general idea of how each feature affects the machine learning model’s predicted result for a specific GRE essay.

• The base value (4.339) is the average predicted score across all graded GRE essay examples
• The actual prediction for this essay is shown at f(x) (5.00)
• Each feature has a positive contribution (red) or negative contribution (blue) to the final score

Examining the force plot quickly tells us about the rough impact of each feature and if any stand out. We can see that the weight distribution is fairly gradual, with no single feature having an extraordinary effect. The force plot gives us a good summary of a specific GRE essay’s scored feature results, but it isn’t very actionable. Our next chart, the waterfall plot, gives us a much more detailed explanation.

Waterfall plot

The chart below is called a waterfall plot and gives us a more detailed view of how each feature affects the predicted score for a specific GRE essay.

• The starting value E[f(x)] (4.339) is the average predicted score across all graded GRE essay samples
• The features are ordered from top to bottom by the magnitude of their impact, which can be either positive (red) or negative (blue)
• The final value f(x) (4.999) is the predicted score

For this GRE essay, a low spelling error rate, i.e., a low number of spelling mistakes, significantly impacted the score (+0.11). On the other hand, a low word count (-0.11) neutralized the positive contribution of the low spelling error rate. Similarly, a good usage of nouns throughout the essay positively contributed (+0.07) to the score, while a low word count for the body paragraphs (-0.07) negated this impact.

Top findings

Word count

• Higher word count values have a positive effect on the predicted score, while lower values have a significant negative impact.
• Low word counts were more significant in their negative effect on score, so rather than trying to write a long essay, focus on not writing one that is too short. In fact, high values also hurt some essay scores, likely when the essay was long but low in quality. In other words, a short essay will tend to bring down your score.

Noun count

• A higher value for noun count contributes positively, while lower values contribute negatively.
• Since nouns identify a person, place, or thing, an essay lacking in nouns would be unfocused and imprecise. It’s hard to score a 6.0 on a GRE essay if no one knows what you’re talking about! So, a low number of nouns contributes significantly to a lower score.

Prompt keywords

• Measuring the presence of keywords from GRE essay prompts within the entire essay demonstrated that lower usage of prompt-relevant terms was associated with reduced scores. This effect was especially notable when analyzing responses to both GRE issue essay prompts and GRE practice essay prompts.
• The impact was even more pronounced in the thesis paragraph, which should explicitly state your main stance on the specific issue or argument. By directly incorporating key phrases and terminology from the GRE essay prompts, you ensure your response remains directly aligned with the assigned topic. This strategy consistently results in more focused and higher-scoring essays.

Adjectives count

• For the adjectives count, low values made only a minor and somewhat ambiguous negative contribution, while higher values strongly contributed to a higher score.
• A higher number of adjectives indicates a more descriptive essay. Since being descriptive helps to develop and clarify your response, be sure to use lots of adjectives alongside your nouns.

Sentence variety

• Looking at the number of short, long, and very long sentences and the ratios between these values, we found that long sentences (16 to 49 words) were the optimal sentence length. We also saw that a higher proportion of short sentences to long sentences contributed to a lower score.
• This suggests that you should prefer longer sentences to shorter sentences in your writing. However, using only long sentences can also lower your score, so be sure to include odd short sentences to establish variety.

Spelling error rate

• A high spelling error rate contributed to a lower score.
• No surprises here, making spelling mistakes will bring your score down!

Average sentence count

• Paragraphs that were either too short or excessively long were found to slightly reduce the overall GRE essay score.
• For optimal GRE essay structure, each paragraph should provide a clear and focused discussion that effectively introduces and supports your main point, without losing coherence or drifting off topic. In terms of how long a GRE essay should be, the ideal length is about 8 sentences for each body paragraph, while the thesis and conclusion paragraphs should typically be around 5 sentences each. This balanced approach helps demonstrate your ability to organize ideas logically within the recommended GRE essay structure.

Thesis word count

• Thesis paragraphs under 100 words contributed to a lower score.
• The thesis paragraph should be long enough to describe the focus of your response and your main reasons for supporting it.

Thesis sentence average word count

• Short sentences in the thesis paragraph showed a slight negative contribution.
• The thesis paragraph must provide enough context to introduce and focus the essay response effectively.

Thesis people count

• The GRE essay grader found a relationship between mentioning a person’s name in the thesis paragraph and a higher score.
• Whether you are repeating a name found in the GRE essay prompt or trying to provide context, try to reference a person’s name in your thesis paragraph.

Body paragraph word count

• Body paragraphs shorter than 150 words often contributed to a lower score, indicating that both the length and substance of your writing matter when considering how long GRE essays should be.
• In terms of how long a GRE Analytical Writing task should be, remember that the body paragraph is the core of your essay. It must be sufficiently developed to clearly introduce your main point, offer robust evidence and insight, link your argument back to the thesis statement, and transition effectively to the next section. Maintaining an appropriate body length helps answer concerns about how long GRE Analytical Writing responses should be for maximum impact.

Body paragraph quotation count

• Surprisingly, using quotations in body paragraphs contributed to a lower score.
• While quotations may help provide evidence in general essay writing, focus on concisely responding to the prompt when writing a GRE essay.

Body paragraph exclamatory sentence count

• Using exclamatory sentences (those ending with an exclamation mark) contributed to a lower score.
• Exclamation marks are generally not used in academic writing. WHY??!?! They just don’t feel that professional!!!
• If you need to emphasize a point, make sure you do so with your language.

Conclusion word count

• A concise conclusion (about 100 words) contributed to a higher GRE essay score.
• A conclusion should wrap up your GRE essay, not introduce more information. Make sure to focus the conclusion on summarizing the GRE essay topic and the essay’s main points, and make the connection to your thesis clear.

Conclusion sentence word count

• Conclusions composed of fewer but longer sentences contributed to a higher score.
• Sentence variety doesn’t play a significant role in the conclusion paragraph. Use long sentences to summarize your main points and tie everything together.

Case study: A high-scoring GRE issue essay example

The following is one of the best GRE issue essay examples, written by an Achievable user and scored as a perfect 6.0 by both our expert GRE instructors and our machine-learning GRE essay grading system.

Here is the official Issue Essay GRE prompt used for this response:

> The surest indicator of a great nation is not the achievements of its rulers, artists, or scientists, but the general well-being of all its people.

> 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.

The names of the greatest rulers, artists, and scientists is what is taught in most history classes. Little attention is given to the common people. Despite the fact that the most prolific and talented members of a society have a profound effect on their nations, it is the common people that truly embody the nation and it is them who keep it running. From the plumber, to the lawyer, to the homeless person; they all contribute their grain of salt to the identity and strength of the nation. The purpose of a nation is to create a just society in which every individual can enjoy the wealth and resources of the nation. A nation without a solid base will never be able to allow artists and scientists to create their most innovative and creative master pieces. Without the combined effort of all its people, there will be no Albert Einstein or Mozart, because there will be no resources to encourage these geniuses to develop their talents to their highest potential. The only way a nation can have a solid base is by guaranteeing the well-being of all its citizens. With happy citizens, nations have the solid foundation needed to produce the greatest achievements humanity can accomplish. Thus, the greatest of all nations are those in which the general well-being of its population is at its highest because happy citizens are more productive, more generous to each other, and more knowledgeable.

First, citizens living in a society that ensures their well being become much more productive than in a nation in which their well-being is not guaranteed. Dr. Friedman, in Berlin in the year 1975, conducted a controlled random experiment in which he tested the effects that well-being had in the production level of the subjects of the experiment. He created a control group and an experimental group, and assigned members to each group randomly. The experimental group was in a room that was very hot, whereas the control group was in a well ventilated room. Next, both groups were given simple tasks such as cutting squares out of circles and coloring an image. After 30 minutes had passes, Dr. Friedman evaluated who was able to complete most tasks in the 30 minute time window. He noticed that the experimental group completed only 80% of the tasks compared to the control group, which completed 100% of the tasks. As per Dr. Friedman: "the results of this experiment show how well-being has a negative effect on the productivity of individuals". Less productive individuals are going to achieve less at work, meaning companies in general will be less productive and less competitive in the global market. In an increasingly competitive world, less productive companies will bring less resources to the nation, making it less likely to invest in the talent of its people.

Second, well-being is directly related to generosity. The more generous citizens of a nation are to each other, the more likely they are to help those in need around them. This, in turn, leads to a collective effort to lift each other up, making the nation more productive and wealthy. Thomas Frank and Imelda Seo developed a randomized experiment in which they tested the relationship between well-being and generosity. The study was conducted in Seoul in 1994 in a public university. The subjects of the test were randomly selected from different levels of the class in an effort to eliminate as many confounding variables as possible. The experimental group was told the very bad news that they had just failed their most recent test. After receiving this news, they were given a limited amount of chocolate and they were told to pick as much as they needed but to think that someone else will come after them and pick what is left from the chocolate. The person that will come later will not know how much chocolate was in the box originally. In contrast, the control group was told the same regarding taking as much chocolate as needed and to be mindful of the person coming behind them, but they were not given the initial bad news that they had failed their test. The results of the experiment show that the experimental group was 70% more likely to take all of the chocolate in the box than the control group. As per Imelda Ser: "this is indicative that when a person's well-being is jeopardized, they are less likely to be generous." This study shows how well-being can have a positive impact on the citizens of a nation, and this generosity can lead to citizens helping each other out more and creating a more cohesive and productive society and nation.

Third, citizens living in a nation in which their well-being is adequate are more knowledgeable. More knowledge can lead to greater discoveries. Great artists, scientists, and rulers all require proper education during their early years to achieve the success. If society as a whole is more educated, it is much more likely for a nation to be able to cultivate the talents of their next genius. For example, Amadeus Mozart was the son of a talented musical father that lived in Vienna, the classical music capital of the world at the time of this life. If Mozart would have been born in an empoverished family with no resources and no knowledge of music, who is to tell Austria would have produced such a notable musical expert. The father of Mozart lived a comfortable life that allowed him to develop his own talents, and later pass his new found knowledge to his son, who later took this knowledge to never before seen levels of musical prowess. To guarantee that the knowledge is passed on to the greatest individuals of a nation, it is necessary to ensure the general well-being of its citizens. Only then will a great nation be able to produce a Mozart, an Albert Einstein, or a Napoleon.

In conclusion, a nation can only be great if it can guarantee the well-being of all its citizenry. This is the only way a nation can ensure that the individual talents of certain prolific people can flourish. These individuals require a strong enough safety net that will allow them to pursue their dreams without having to worry about heating the house or finding the next meal. Also, citizens that are happy and living comfortable can produce more for the nation as a whole, and lift each other out of poverty, thus creating a great nation

This particular issue essay response received a near-perfect score (f(x) = 5.999). The waterfall plot below shows which features most influenced its evaluation:

In this case, using numerous adjectives made a significant positive impact on the issue essay GRE score. The author also included detailed examples relevant to the GRE issue essay prompt, strengthening the thesis throughout.

At 1,083 words, this is among the longer GRE issue essay examples, another factor that contributed positively to its score.

Referencing notable creatives like Albert Einstein and Mozart added valuable context to the thesis paragraph. These references supported the argument that nations prioritizing citizen well-being foster creativity and innovation, a hallmark of high-quality issue GRE essay responses.

The author further boosted coherence by using many nouns directly tied to the prompt’s subject matter, which is common advice found in effective GRE issue essay examples. Long sentences provided ample space for developing complex ideas and supporting evidence. A minimal spelling error rate also helped boost this GRE essay score. Interestingly, mentioning specific locations like Berlin increased content relevance in the scoring algorithm.

Minor penalties were applied for slight overuse of verbs in the thesis paragraph and a few spelling mistakes throughout the GRE essay. However, these were outweighed by strong performance in key areas, demonstrating how focusing on effective strategies can help you craft high-scoring GRE issue essay examples.

Case study: A medium-scoring GRE argument essay

The following is an example of a medium-scoring GRE essay submitted by an Achievable user. Our human GRE instructors and our machine-learning GRE essay grading system score this as a 3.5 with room for improvement.

Here is the GRE essay prompt:

> The following is an internal memo distributed by the regional manager of Hamburger House.

> "Three months ago, all of the Hamburger House franchises in the Northeastern region began deep frying their french fries in canola oil rather than vegetable oil. During that period, french fry sales increased by 40%, and individual restaurants saw an average increase in unique customers of 25%. Furthermore, though Hamburger House has long prided itself on the distinctive flavor of its fries, very few customers complained about the switch. In fact, customer ratings of local restaurants on online review sites have never been higher. Consequently, we are now actively replacing oils in other dishes with canola whenever feasible, and we recommend that all Hamburger House franchises throughout the country follow suit."

> Write a response in which you examine what additional evidence is necessary to evaluate this argument, and discuss how inclusion of this evidence would impact the argument.

More information is needed to accurately determine if the recommendation from the regional manager of Hamburger House should be followed. Information detailing the reason for changing to canola oil, the cost of canola oil, the effect canola oil has on the taste of french fries and other foods, if the public was made aware of the switch to canola oil, public's perception of canola oil, if the customer reviews over the past two months were about the taste of the fries, any operating changes made at the company that could have affected sales, other factors that could have increased sales, Hamburger house expanding their locations and customer base, the effects on net profits are needed. Additional evidence is necessary to evaluate Hamburger House's internal memo to franchises.

The reason for why Hamburger House switched to canola oil is the first piece of missing information needed. If canola oil was chosen because it is cheaper than vegetable oil, it would be a sensical choice to reduce costs and choose the cheaper oil. If canola oil were the more expensive option, there must be non-cost-related reasons that justify the switch. In either of the aforementioned scenarios, one must examine if the canola oil makes the fries and other foods taste the same, better, or worse. If canola oil makes all foods taste better and has a net positive effect on profits, franchises should follow the recommendation. If canola oil makes some but not all foods taste better, franchises should only use canola oil in foods that taste better and if there will be a net positive effect on profits.

The second piece of information needed to evaluate Hamburger House's recommendation is the public's perception of canola oil and vegetable oil and whether the public was made aware of Hamburger House's switch to canola oil. If canola oil is perceived to be a healthier option or vegetable oil is perceived as an unhealthier option, it can be expected that the public would react positively to Hamburger House's use of canola oil and increase foot traffic to its locations. However, if the public was not made aware of the switch in oils, information regarding the content of the positive reviews that Hamburger House has received in the past two months and if those positive reviews were all for locations that switched to canola oil are needed. If the reviews mentioned that the foods that contained canola oil tasted better, it would be reasonable for franchises to switch to canola oil to make their food taste better and, thereby, increase sales.

The third piece of information needed is whether Hamburger House expanded its locations and customer base in the past two months. An increase in french fry sales and average unique customers would naturally increase french fry sales.

The most important aspect as a business is the impact that canola oil has on earnings. It is necessary for a business to be financially profitable to survive. Therefore, if the switch to canola oil allows franchises of Hamburger House to be financially viable, franchises should make the switch if doing so if there is a positive effect compared to keeping vegetable oil.

This essay received a low score (f(x) = 3.503), and the waterfall plot below describes what features had the biggest impact:

The feature with the greatest impact for this GRE essay was the total word count (-0.29). At 526 words, this example illustrates how dramatically a short GRE essay can affect the predicted score. In fact, we can see that the argument essay is penalized for low word count in various ways by other features, such as the body paragraph average word counts, total sentence counts, etc. Writing an extended argument essay is a straightforward way to guarantee a higher score. It gives you more space to elaborate on and support your position on the GRE essay topic.

The second feature in the list measures the negative impact (-0.14) of the ratio of short to long sentences in the conclusion. In this case, the author used too many short sentences, resulting in a lower score. The conclusion is meant to summarize the essay’s main points and tie them together with the thesis statement, a task that typically requires longer sentences. The writer could have improved the conclusion of this argument essay by using longer sentences to explain specifically how the thesis and supporting points are connected in addressing the issue laid out in the prompt.

The plot shows a high thesis noun count, contributing to a lower score (-0.11). If we examine the thesis, we can see the author uses an extremely long sentence that repeats many of the same nouns over and over again (e.g., canola oil). While using nouns is important to keep an essay focused on the topic, the nouns should be relevant to the GRE essay topic and varied. Simply stuffing nouns into a paragraph will not have the desired effect. This thesis could have been improved by introducing fewer points while elaborating on how each point supports the thesis statement.

While the author did a few things right, it is clear that this GRE argument essay’s low score was mainly due to a low word count, weak use of nouns, poor sentence variety, and an overall lack of focus and specificity. Catching issues like these before the exam can help you improve your writing skills and boost your score by multiple points.

Summary of results: GRE essay tips for a great GRE analytical writing score

So, what do you need to do if you want to improve your GRE analytical writing essay skills?

• Make sure your essay is long enough to avoid being penalized for a short essay
• Ensure your essay is focused by using plenty of nouns that relate to the topic
• Write a descriptive essay by using lots of adjectives to describe your position, evidence, and ideas
• Read the prompt carefully, highlight keywords, and use these keywords throughout your essay, most importantly in your thesis paragraph
• Vary your sentence length, but in general, favor the use of longer sentences
• Avoid making spelling mistakes
• Aim for 8 sentences per body paragraph and 5 sentences for thesis and conclusion paragraphs
• Keep your thesis and conclusion paragraphs concise, but use at least 100 words
• Reference a person’s name in your thesis paragraph if it’s relevant
• Keep your body paragraphs above 150 words
• Avoid the use of exclamation marks and quotations

Our Achievable GRE course offers hundreds of GRE essay prompts and GRE essay topics for the GRE issue and argument essays, giving you the opportunity to practice your analytical writing skills until you are 100% confident in getting a top GRE essay score. The testing software will automatically save your work as you write and includes a timer to keep you on track.

Achievable’s proprietary GRE essay grading system uses AI and machine learning to analyze your GRE essay writing. It provides instant feedback on exactly what you can do to boost your score. Backed by our vast amount of data from real-world GRE issue and argument essay examples, we’ve created the smartest GRE essay grader that exists today, included with your purchase of Achievable GRE.