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mdf2
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TIPS on Essays 13 Jan 2005, 02:57
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Hi guys,
Thanks to the foundator of that blog / forum. :lol:

I am a bit confuse on the essays. We do not have a lot of clues on how to deal with them. I am french and for those who know the way we write they will understand :twisted: . French way of writing tends to appear very messy as we put few ideas in one sentence.
do you have any tips on how to structurate / write / timeline this.
many thanks


Matt :P
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ghangis1
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TIPS on Essays 23 Jan 2005, 10:41
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Hey Matt,

I used the Princeton Review's Verbal Workout and Cracking the GMAT for AWA.

I did not practice writing essays for the AWA section. I just memorized a template for both essay types. When I took the real GMAT I wrote out my templates and filled in the blanks with supporting detail.

During the first essay my mind went blank and I barely wrote 4 paragraphs. I knew I probably received a 2.5-3.0 at the most for that essay. However for the argument essay, my brain was warmed up and I ended up writing 7 paragraphs. Per my official scores I received a 4.5 for the AWA.

So my advice to you:
1. Design and memorize the templates for both essays.
2. Practice writing essays using your templates under timed conditions.
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mdf2
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TIPS on Essays 23 Jan 2005, 22:38
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many thanks mate for your feed back. I am gonna get started. any input others ?
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Paul
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TIPS on Essays 23 Jan 2005, 22:49
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From my own experience:

AWA - right after writing the exam
Quote:
I don't think I did too well this time on AWA. Perhaps 4.5 or so. I just had nothing to say on the issue analysis but I'm sure I rocked the argument part. Make sure that you take the breaks after this as it will give you the final breath before the "real" thing starts. I wasn't happy with how the issue part unfolded but never looked back or even had any thought about that in the following sections. I would recommend you to stick to a combination of PR/OG templates as it works with just any situation. Last time I stuck with those I got 5.5. I think that as long as you got 4+ and a good GMAT score, AWA should not be a major concern. Don't sweat it.
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2 weeks later, when I received my score
Quote:
I just received my official score report today and found out, to my astonishment, that I got 5.5 AWA score. Quite happy with that and this proves one thing: Stick to the templates being given in the prep material. I used a combination of the OG template analysis of argument and PR analysis of issue. To be honest with you, I really had nothing much to say for issue part and I felt like I repeated myself. Quite strange

By skipping the AWA parts during practice tests, my way of using the CAT is not necessarily recommended because you might not have "feel" of going through a whole 4 hour test whereby at the end of the verbal section, you might have been drained. To make up for this though, I really did many CAT but I was somewhat confident that I could just ramble on about just any topic by sticking to templates. What you can do is just adapt the template to 2 or 3 issue/argument questions from the OG and you should do just fine.
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I am also french from Quebec so I know what you mean :wink:
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