The two-essay Analytical section is the first section you encounter after surviving the interminable form-filling-out pre-GRE shenanigans. It does not have much in common with its Math and Verbal siblings. The Analytical section is scored differently, structured differently, and takes longer to complete than both other sections combined. This last point can be somewhat frustrating if your Analytical score is not relevant to your particular graduate program, since you will have to spend the first 75 minutes of the test mucking about and wasting valuable brainpower units in a section that’s not important to you. If this is the case, conserve your energy for the sections that matter, but don’t blow off the section either.

Immediately after you complete your GRE CAT, your Quantitative and Verbal scores appear on the screen. The Analytical score takes two to six weeks longer to get, since your essays must be sent off to “GRE-Land,” where they are read and graded by professional readers. These readers might be English graduate students, former English teachers, or educational professionals of one ilk or another. Whatever their background, the professional readers share some traits in common:

1. They are experts in the essay-writing format and are well-qualified to make judgments about the effectiveness of a particular essay.



2. They use a shared rubric to evaluate both essays and decide upon a single score for each test-taker.



3. All the ones who give out the lowest scores are members of Mrs. Smith’s 8th grade class at Lawrence Middle School.

The third point might not be factually accurate (it’s more of an outright lie), but the other two points are true. Both essays are read, evaluated, and given a score from 0 to 6 by two different readers. A 6 is the highest score, while a 0 means you didn’t make much sense or use real words. You can get halfpoint scores if one reader gives you a 4 while another gives you a 5; if that’s the case, you end up with a 4.5 on that test. If two readers disagree by a lot, then a third reader is brought in to help resolve the disagreement.

A 4 or 5 are both good scores, a 3’s a bit dodgy, and a 1 or 2 show you have some deficiencies in the essay-writing arena. The goal of this section is to give you the knowledge needed to score at least a 4 on the essay. A 5 or 6 is also a possibility, but the primary goal is to keep your score above a 3. Level 2 Analytical, which begins on page 245, focuses on scoring a 6.

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