Hi,

I wanted to ask a question about something I wrote about in the real AWA I took last week. To give context, I consider myself a fairly good writer on standardized tests (I got a 12/12 on the SAT Writing essay in high school and a 6.0 on the AWA when I took the GRE). However, I did something a bit unusual on the GMAT that I wanted to share with you and ask your opinion on.

Given that I don't think I'm allowed to give away the exact question, I will say that it was in the form of "Do you think people should support 'A' both at work and at home?"

I wrote that I wholly support A at work but I think A should be applied in a limited way at home. I then gave two examples supporting A and one example as a counterargument to A (a privacy argument showing that it can't fully be applied at home).

I ended by saying that Examples 1 and 2 show that A should definitely be applied, but of course with considerations to Example 3, which limit the extent to which it should be applied.

I've never taken a "qualified" stance on a standardized test essay before. Do you think that my lack of a polarized opinion might have hurt my chances? It's more of a pride thing, I know - I don't think I scored lower than a 4 and I think I did well on the Analysis of an Argument section (5.5-6 level). But I'd like to know what your opinion is on forming stated, but qualified positions on Issues essays.

You can absolutely do this and it won't hurt your score (if you do it well, obviously).

The only reason I recommend NOT doing something like this is that our goal on the (GMAT) essays is to get a decent score while expending the minimum brain energy necessary. It's harder to write the kind of essay you described, which leaves you less fresh for the multiple choice. (Although, given your history, perhaps you're such a good writer that it didn't actually take much more effort for you to do what you did!)

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Stacey Koprince
Instructor
Director of Online Community
ManhattanGMAT