As a business leader, you’ll need to know how to identify weak arguments and analyze assumptions.
Welcome to “Land Your Score,” a blog series in which Kaplan instructor Jennifer Land shares key insights and strategies for improving your GMAT performance on Test Day. This week, Jennifer discusses how to approach the Analytical Writing Assessment using the Kaplan Method.
The Kaplan Method for Analytical Writing
In this post, I’ll lead you through planning your essay on Test Day. The Analytical Writing Assessment is the first task you’ll encounter on the GMAT. You will have 30 minutes to produce your analysis of the argument presented in the prompt.
To do so, you will assess the logic and use of evidence in the argument; the argument presented is ALWAYS flawed, so to do well on the writing assessment you need to explain the ways in which the author has failed to fully support the conclusion. Not only do you have to identify its major weaknesses, you must also explain them.
Let’s look at a sample Analytical Writing Assessment prompt from the GMAT:
“The problem of poorly trained teachers that has plagued the state public school system is bound to become a good deal less serious in the future. The state has initiated comprehensive guidelines that oblige state teachers to complete a number of required credits in education and educational psychology at the graduate level before being certified.”
Take apart the argument
The first step in the Kaplan Method for Analytical Writing is to take apart the argument. (This should sound familiar, as it is much like what you do for Critical Reasoning.) First, identify the conclusion and evidence provided.
Once you have identified these components, you can paraphrase the argument in your own words: “The author concludes that the problem of badly trained teachers will be reduced in the future. Her evidence is that new teachers will be required to take a certain number of graduate-level classes.”
That paraphrase will start your writing assessment’s first paragraph, and you will conclude that paragraph with a thesis statement: “However, this conclusion relies on assumptions for which the author does not provide sufficient supporting evidence.”
Select the points you will make
For the second step of the Kaplan Method, identify the author’s assumptions:
- She assumes that the courses will improve teachers’ classroom performance.
- What about bad teachers who are already certified? Would they also be required to retrain?
- Have currently poor-performing teachers already had this training?
Decide which ones are most significant to the argument; these will become the seeds for your “flaw” paragraphs. Discuss the worst flaw in paragraph 2 and explain the second flaw in paragraph 3. (Kaplan students have a five-paragraph Analytical Writing Assessment template provided as part of their course materials.)
In your fourth paragraph, discuss the evidence that the author could include to strengthen her argument: what would validate those assumptions you identified?
Finally, conclude by restating your thesis: “Without additional evidence to support the assumptions and conclusion, this argument cannot be accepted as valid.”
Note: Your opinion doesn’t matter
Whether you think the plan sounds terrible, whether you have a better idea on how to solve the problem—none of that matters. All that matters is that you explain how the conclusion is based on assumptions that are not supported by the evidence provided.
That is basically all there is to it!
Want to master the Analytical Writing Assessment? Visit Kaptest.com/gmat to explore our course options.
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