About the GRE General Test Work as rapidly as you can without being careless. Since no question carries greater weight than any other, do not waste time pondering individual questions you fi nd extremely diffi cult or unfamiliar. During the actual administration of the General Test, you may work only on the section the test center supervisor designates and only for the time allowed. You may not go back to an earlier section of the test after the supervisor announces, “Please stop work” for that section. The supervisor is authorized to dismiss you from the center for doing so. All answers must be recorded in the test book.
Breaks There is a 10-minute break following the second Analytical Writing section. Understanding GRE Scoring Analytical Writing Measure of the Computer-delivered Test For the Analytical Writing measure, each essay receives a score from at least one trained reader, using a six-point holistic scale. In holistic scoring, readers are trained to assign scores based on the overall quality of an essay in response to the assigned task. The essay is then scored by e-rater ® , a computerized program developed by ETS that is capable of identifying essay features related to writing profi ciency. If the human and the e-rater scores closely agree, the average of the two scores is used as the fi nal score.
If they disagree, a second human score is obtained, and the fi nal score is the average of the two human scores. The fi nal scores on the two essays are then averaged and rounded to the nearest half-point interval on the 0–6 score scale. A single score is reported for the Analytical Writing measure. The primary emphasis in scoring the Analytical Writing section is on your critical thinking and analytical writing skills. Scoring guides for the Issue and Argument prompts are included in this publication, and they are available on the GRE website at www.ets.org/gre/scores/how.
Analytical Writing Measure of the Paper-delivered Test For the Analytical Writing measure, each essay receives a score from two trained read- ers, using a six-point holistic scale. In holistic scoring, readers are trained to assign scores based on the overall quality of an essay in 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 two scores on each essay are averaged. The fi nal scores on the two essays are then averaged and rounded to the nearest half-point interval on the 0–6 score scale. A single score is reported for the Analytical Writing measure.
The primary emphasis in scoring the Analytical Writing section is on your critical thinking and analytical writing skills. Scoring guides for the Issue and Argument prompts are included in this publication, and they are available on the GRE website at www.ets.org/gre/scores/how. 7