How to Write Awa Essay Gmat Text

Jonathan Friesen - Writing Coach

I demonstrated some brainstorming and identified six objections to this argument. introductory paragraph: in a memo to the president of omega university, the music department chair argued that the university should expand the music therapy program. The argument presents inconclusive information, offering dubious support, and from this draws unreasonably far reaching conclusions. first main paragraph: the evidence cited involves ambiguous language. For example, the argument asserts that the symptoms of mental illness are ldquo less pronounced rdquo after a group music therapy sessions.

Academic Position Paper

Of course, calm music will have a soothing effect on almost anyone, but can this be considered a legitimate treatment for the mentally ill? presumably, the benefits of music therapy are neither as powerful nor as long lasting as those of appropriate medications. Simply by making the claim that symptoms are ldquo less pronounced rdquo , the author has failed to indicate whether the improvement is significant enough to merit any serious investment in this new field. The music chair also cites an ldquo increase rdquo in job openings in the field of music therapy. The word ldquo increase rdquo might mean that music therapy is a wildly burgeoning new field, although nothing suggests that this is the case. Quite rare is the combination of a vibrant professional field and a thriving economy, such that applicants entering this field have ldquo no trouble rdquo finding a job.

Even if there are a plethora of jobs in this mental health niche, how do we know that these jobs would go to recent graduates of omega university? surely practitioners with years of experience, or recent graduates of more prestigious universities, would be preferred for such positions. Even interpreting the questionable evidence in its most optimistic light, we hardly can expect that this one field will explode with employment possibilities for omega graduates. This conclusion is far too strong, and therefore the request for funding is not well justified. third main paragraph: this music therapy program is already in existence, so presumably it has already had graduates leave omega university in pursuit of employment. Evidence that all these recent music therapy graduates found robust job possibilities waiting for them would enormously strengthen the argument. If we knew the employment statistics of these recent graduates, these numbers would help us to evaluate this argument better. fourth main paragraph: the music chair draws another untenably strong conclusion when he asserts that expanding this program will ldquo help improve the financial status of omega university. Rdquo when alumni of a university make millions or even billions, and choose to give back in substantial amounts to their alma mater, that undoubtedly strengthens the financial standing of a university. We don rsquo t know the specifics of jobs in music therapy, but their salaries most certainly do not rival those of hedge fund managers mental health services are clearly not a field in which practitioners routinely amass remarkable wealth.

Even if the graduates of music therapy had relatively good job prospects, which is doubtful, having a few more alumni with middle class to upper middle class incomes, who, if they choose, may make some modest contributions to, say, the university rsquo s annual fund mdash this is not an impactful issue in the overall balance sheet of university rsquo s total budget. The claim that these alumni will substantially improve the ldquo financial status rdquo of the university is hyperbolically overstated. concluding paragraph: this argument is neither sound nor persuasive. The music director has failed to convey any compelling reasons for omega university to expand the music therapy program in his department. this is a particular long and thorough sample essay, but it gives you an idea of what it takes to get a 6.

Notice that i organized, developed, and expressed my ideas about the argument presented. I didn rsquo t just say, ldquo this is bad, rdquo but i provided a cogent and reasoned critique. Finally, i ldquo controlled rdquo the elements of standard written english: that is to say, a i made no spelling or grammar mistakes, b i used a wide vocabulary not repeating any single word too much , and c i varied the sentence structure employing subordinate clauses, parallelism. As you write practice essays, check yourself afterwards: is every grammatical form commonly tests on gmat sentence correction present in your practice essay? that is an excellent standard to use. How important is it to get a 6 for the awa? how important is the awa section on the gmat. As i discuss in that post, the awa is clearly the least important part of the gmat, less important than either ir or quantitative or verbal, but you can rsquo t neglect it entirely. This sample essay should give you an idea of the standard for which to strive on the analytical writing analysis.

For the analytical writing assessment awa on the gmat, students are presented with an argument and are asked to evaluate it. Students need to break down the argument, point out weaknesses and gaps in the reasoning and examples, and suggest ways to improve the argument. In order to write an effective essay in thirty minutes, i recommend walking into the test with a meaty skeleton of an introduction so that you can get to what really matters mdash the body paragraphs. Encyclopedic texts require long introductions thirty minute essays require a short introduction. My introduction for this article was only three sentences and i recommend that you aim for around that length in your awa essay.

The very first sentence, before the argument, tells us where the argument is from. This is important information because it provides context for the argument, and it gives us language to use in our essay. You want to know who wrote the argument, who the audience of the argument is, and where it appeared. In the introduction, you really have only two tasks mdash summarize the argument and state that the argument is weak. You always want to paraphrase and summarize the argument mdash never copy it word for word. You rsquo ll end up discussing the premises in your body paragraphs when you talk about weaknesses so no need to worry about them in the introduction. Don rsquo t repeat the same idea, but you should repeat phrases and even entire sentences every time you write a new essay.

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The graders won rsquo t know how many times you recycled a phrase or sentence so make it a point to repeat yourself from essay to essay. Here are some possible sentences to end your introduction: ldquo this plan is likely to fail due to flaws in the reasoning and logic of the editorial. Rdquo ldquo this argument contains some egregious flaws in reasoning making the conclusion doubtful. Rdquo ldquo the success of this recommendation is doubtful considering the logical flaws and faulty assumptions on which it is based. I have pulled an argument from the list of arguments that could appear on the test. All argument prompts for the awa are made available so this is the perfect place to practice.

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