官网作文

An Introduction to the Analytical Writing Section of the GRE® General Test August 2010 This publication includes a description of the GRE Analytical Writing section, strategies for each task, scoring information, scoring guides, score level descriptions, a sample test, and essay responses with reader commentary. Table of Contents Overview of the Analytical Writing Section 3 Preparing for the Analytical Writing Section 3 Test-Taking Strategies for the Analytical Writing Section 3 How the Analytical Writing Section is Scored 4 Present Your Perspective on an Issue Task Understanding the Issue Task 5 Understanding the Context for Writing: Purpose and Audience 6 Preparing for the Issue Task 6 Deciding Which Topic to Choose 7 The Form of Your Response 7 Sample Issue Topic 8 Strategies for this Topic 8 Essay Responses and Reader Commentary 9 Analysis of an Argument Task Understanding the Argument Task 14 Understanding the Context for Writing: Purpose and Audience 15 Preparing for the Argument Task 15 How to Interpret Numbers, Percentages, and Statistics in Argument Topics 16 The Form of Your Response 16 Sample Argument Topic 17 Strategies for this Topic 17 Essay Responses and Reader Commentary 18 Sample Test 23 Scoring Guides 27 Score Level Descriptions 29 Copyright 2010 by Educational Testing Service. All rights reserved. EDUCATIONAL TESING SERVICE, the ETS logo, GRADUATE RECORD EXAMINATIONS, GRE, and POWEPREP are registered trademarks of Educational Testing Service (ETS) in the United States and other countries. 3 Overview of the Analytical Writing Section The analytical writing section measures your critical thinking and analytical writing skills. It assesses your ability to articulate and support complex ideas, analyze an argument, and sustain a focused and coherent discussion. It does not assess specific content knowledge. The analytical writing section consists of two separately-timed analytical writing tasks: • a 45-minute "Present Your Perspective on an Issue" task • a 30-minute "Analyze an Argument" task You will be given a choice between two Issue topics. Each states an opinion on an issue of broad interest and asks you to discuss the issue from any perspective(s) you wish, so long as you provide relevant reasons and examples to explain and support your views. You will not have a choice of Argument topics. The Argument task presents a different challenge from that of the Issue task: it requires you to critique a given argument by discussing how well reasoned you find it. You will need to consider the logical soundness of the argument rather than to agree or disagree with the position it presents. The two tasks are complementary in that one requires you to construct your own argument by taking a position and providing evidence supporting your views on the issue, whereas the other requires you to critique someone else's argument by assessing its claims and evaluating the evidence it provides. Preparing for the Analytical Writing Section Everyone—even the most practiced and confident of writers—should spend some time preparing for the analytical writing section before arriving at the test center. It is important to review the skills measured, how the section is scored, scoring guides and score level descriptions, sample topics, scored sample essay responses, and reader commentary. The topics in the analytical writing section relate to a broad range of subjects—from the fine arts and humanities to the social and physical sciences—but no topic requires specific content knowledge. In fact, each topic has been field-tested to ensure that it possesses several important characteristics, including the following: • GRE test takers, regardless of their field of study or special interests, understood the topic and could easily discuss it. • The topic elicited the kinds of complex thinking and persuasive writing that university faculty consider important for success in graduate school. • The responses were varied in content and in the way the writers developed their ideas. To help you prepare for the analytical writing section of the General Test, the GRE Program has published the entire pool of topics from which your test topics will be selected. You might find it helpful to review the Issue and Argument pools. You can view the published pools on the Web at www.ets.org/gre/general/prepare. Test-Taking Strategies for the Analytical Writing Section It is important to budget your time. Within the 45-minute time limit for the Issue task, you will need to allow sufficient time to choose one of the two topics, think about the issue you've chosen, plan a response, and compose your essay. Within the 30-minute time limit for the Argument task, you will need to allow sufficient time to analyze the argument, plan a critique, and compose your response. Although GRE readers understand the time constraints under which you write and will consider your response a "first 4 draft," you still want it to be the best possible example of your writing that you can produce under the testing circumstances. Save a few minutes at the end of each timed task to check for obvious errors. Although an occasional spelling or grammatical error will not affect your score, severe and persistent errors will detract from the overall effectiveness of your writing and thus lower your score. Following the Analytical Writing section, you will have the opportunity to take a 10-minute break. There is a one-minute break between the other test sections. You might want to replenish your supply of scratch paper during each scheduled break. How the Analytical Writing Section is Scored Computer-Based GRE General Test For the computer-based Analytical Writing section, each essay receives a score from at least one trained reader, using a 6-point holistic scale according to the criteria published in the GRE Analytical Writing Scoring Guides (see pages 27 and 28). In holistic scoring readers are trained to assign scores on the basis of the overall quality of the response to the assigned task. The essay score is also reviewed by e-rater®, a computerized program developed by ETS, which is being used to monitor the human readers. If the e-rater evaluation and the human score agree, the human score is used as the final score. If they disagree, a second human score is obtained, and the final score is the average of the two human scores. The final scores on the two essays are then averaged and rounded up to the nearest half-point interval. A single score is reported for the Analytical Writing section. The score level descriptions, presented on page 29, provide information on how to interpret the total score on the analytical writing section. The primary emphasis in scoring the analytical writing section is on critical thinking and analytical writing skills. Paper-based GRE General Test For the paper-based Analytical Writing section, each essay receives a score from two trained readers, using a 6-point holistic scale according to the criteria published in the GRE Analytical Writing Scoring Guides (see pages 27 and 28). In holistic scoring readers are trained to assign scores on the basis of the overall quality of the response to the assigned task. If the two assigned scores differ by more than one point on the scale, the discrepancy is adjudicated by a third GRE reader. Otherwise, the scores from the two readings of an essay are averaged. The final scores on the two essays are then averaged and rounded up to the nearest half-point interval. A single score is reported for the Analytical Writing section. The score level descriptions, presented on page 29, provide information on how to interpret the total score on the analytical writing section. The primary emphasis in scoring the analytical writing section is on critical thinking and analytical writing skills. GRE Readers In general, GRE readers are college and university faculty experienced in teaching courses in which writing and critical thinking skills are important. All GRE readers have undergone careful training, passed stringent GRE qualifying tests, and demonstrated that they are able to maintain scoring accuracy. To ensure fairness and objectivity in scoring • responses are randomly distributed to the readers • all identifying information about the test takers is concealed from the readers • readers do not know what other scores a response may have received 5 • the scoring procedure requires that each response receive identical or adjacent scores from two readers (or from a human reader and e-rater®); any other score combination is adjudicated by a third GRE reader ETS Essay-Similarity-Detection Software Your essay responses on the analytical writing section will be reviewed by ETS essay-similarity-detection software and by experienced essay readers during the scoring process. In light of the high value placed on independent intellectual activity within United States graduate schools and universities, ETS reserves the right to cancel test scores of any test taker when there is substantial evidence that an essay response includes, but is not limited to, any of the following: • text that is substantially similar to that found in one or more other GRE essay responses; • quoting or paraphrasing, without attribution, language or ideas that appear in published or unpublished sources; • unacknowledged use of work that has been produced through collaboration with others without citation of the contribution of others; • essays that are submitted as work of the examinee when the ideas or words have, in fact, been borrowed from elsewhere or prepared by another person. When one or more of the above circumstances occurs, your essay text, in ETS’s professional judgment, does not reflect the independent, analytical writing skills that this test seeks to measure. Therefore, ETS must cancel the essay score as invalid and cannot report the GRE General Test scores of which the essay score is an indispensable part. Test takers whose scores are cancelled will forfeit their test fees and must pay to take the entire GRE General Test again at a future administration. No record of the score cancellations, or the reason for cancellation, will appear on their future score reports sent to colleges and universities. Present Your Perspective on an Issue Task Understanding the Issue Task The "Present Your Perspective on an Issue" task assesses your ability to think critically about a topic of general interest and to clearly express your thoughts about it in writing. Each topic, presented in quotation marks, makes a claim about an issue that test takers can discuss from various perspectives and apply to many different situations or conditions. Your task is to present a compelling case for your own position on the issue. Be sure to read the claim carefully and think about it from several points of view, considering the complexity of ideas associated with those perspectives. Then, make notes about the position you want to develop and list the main reasons and examples that you could use to support that position. The Issue task allows considerable latitude in the way you respond to the claim. Although it is important that you address the central issue, you are free to take any approach you wish. For example, you might • agree absolutely with the claim, disagree completely, or agree with some parts and not others • question the assumptions the statement seems to be making • qualify any of its terms, especially if the way you define or apply a term is important to developing your perspective on the issue • point out why the claim is valid in some situations but not in others • evaluate points of view that contrast with your own perspective • develop your position with reasons that are supported by several relevant examples or by a single extended example 6 The GRE readers scoring your response are not looking for a "right" answer—in fact, there is no correct position to take. Instead, the readers are evaluating the skill with which you articulate and develop an argument to support your position on the issue. Understanding the Context for Writing: Purpose and Audience The Issue task is an exercise in critical thinking and persuasive writing. The purpose of this task is to determine how well you can develop a compelling argument supporting your own perspective on an issue and to effectively communicate that argument in writing to an academic audience. Your audience consists of college and university faculty who are trained as GRE readers to apply the scoring criteria identified in the scoring guide for “Present Your Perspective on an Issue" (see page 27). To get a clearer idea of how GRE readers apply the Issue scoring criteria to actual responses, you should review scored sample Issue essay responses and readers' commentaries. The sample responses, particularly at the 5 and 6 score levels, will show you a variety of successful strategies for organizing, developing, and communicating a persuasive argument. The readers' commentaries discuss specific aspects of analysis and writing, such as the use of examples, development and support, organization, language fluency, and word choice. For each response, the commentary points out aspects that are particularly persuasive as well as any that detract from the overall effectiveness of the essay. Preparing for the Issue Task Because the Issue task is meant to assess the persuasive writing skills that you have developed throughout your education, it has been designed neither to require any particular course of study nor to advantage students with a particular type of training. Many college textbooks on composition offer advice on persuasive writing that you might find useful, but even this advice might be more technical and specialized than you need for the Issue task. You will not be expected to know specific critical thinking or writing terms or strategies; instead, you should be able to use reasons, evidence, and examples to support your position on an issue. Suppose, for instance, that an Issue topic asks you to consider whether it is important for government to provide financial support for art museums. If your position is that government should fund art museums, you might support your position by discussing the reasons art is important and explain that museums are public places where art is available to anyone. On the other hand, if your position is that government should not support museums, you might point out that, given limited governmental funds, art museums are not as deserving of governmental funding as are other, more socially important, institutions. Or, if you are in favor of government funding for art museums only under certain conditions, you might focus on the artistic criteria, cultural concerns, or political conditions that you think should determine how—or whether—art museums receive government funds. It is not your position that matters so much as the critical thinking skills you display in developing your position. An excellent way to prepare for the Issue task is to practice writing on some of the published topics. There is no "best" approach: some people prefer to start practicing without regard to the 45-minute time limit; others prefer to take a "timed test" first and practice within the time limit. No matter which approach you take when you practice the Issue task, you should review the task directions, then • carefully read the claim made in the topic and make sure you understand the issue involved; if it seems unclear, discuss it with a friend or teacher • think about the issue in relation to your own ideas and experiences, to events you have read about or observed, and to people you have known; this is the knowledge base from which you will develop compelling reasons and examples in your argument that reinforce, negate, or qualify the claim in some way • decide what position on the issue you want to take and defend—remember you are free to agree or disagree completely or to agree with some parts or some applications but not others • decide what compelling evidence (reasons and examples) you can use to support your position 7 Remember that this is a task in critical thinking and persuasive writing. Therefore, you might find it helpful to explore the complexity of a claim in one of the topics by asking yourself the following questions: • What, precisely, is the central issue? • Do I agree with all or with any part of the claim? Why or why not? • Does the claim make certain assumptions? If so, are they reasonable? • Is the claim valid only under certain conditions? If so, what are they? • Do I need to explain how I interpret certain terms or concepts used in the claim? • If I take a certain position on the issue, what reasons support my position? • What examples—either real or hypothetical—could I use to illustrate those reasons and advance my point of view? Which examples are most compelling? Once you have decided on a position to defend, consider the perspective of others who might not agree with your position. Ask yourself: • What reasons might someone use to refute or undermine my position? • How should I acknowledge or defend against those views in my essay? To plan your response, you might want to summarize your position and make brief notes about how you will support the position you're going to take. When you've done this, look over your notes and decide how you will organize your response. Then write a response developing your position on the issue. Even if you don't write a full response, you should find it helpful to practice with a few of the Issue topics and to sketch out your possible responses. After you have practiced with some of the topics, try writing responses to some of the topics within the 45-minute time limit so that you have a good idea of how to use your time in the actual test. It would probably be helpful to get some feedback on your response from an instructor who teaches critical thinking or writing or to trade papers on the same topic with other students and discuss one another's responses in relation to the scoring guide. Try to determine how each paper meets or misses the criteria for each score point in the guide. Comparing your own response to the scoring guide will help you see how and where you might need to improve. Deciding Which Issue Topic to Choose Remember that the General Test will contain two Issue topics from the published pool; you must choose one of these two. Because the 45-minute timing begins when you first see the two topics, you should not spend too much time making a decision. Instead, try to choose fairly quickly the issue that you feel better prepared to discuss. Before making a choice, read each topic carefully. Then decide on which topic you could develop a more effective and well-reasoned argument. In making this decision, you might ask yourself: • Which topic do I find more interesting or engaging? • Which topic more closely relates to my own academic studies or other experiences? • On which topic can I more clearly explain and defend my perspective? • On which topic can I more readily think of strong reasons and examples to support my position? Your answers to