A Template Approach to the GMAT EssayYou will be given an essay topic that ETS expects to be debatable. In other words, about half of the people willagree with one side, while the other half will agree with the other side.ETS will not give you a topic that mostpeople agree on. For example, you will not see a topic asking you to give your opinion on the value of education for children, nor on whether or not the government should have programs to decrease the number of the drug users.However, you might see an essay topic asking you to give your opinion on school vouchers, for example, or youmight see a topic asking you to pick whether you think it is primarily the government's or the family’sresponsibility to prevent drug use among children.In general, do not take one side of the argument completely. A good rule of thumb is to argue your opinion atabout 60 percent or 70 percent. I should emphasize this—even if you believe you are one hundred percentcorrect, you should still pretend that you are 60 or 70 percent correct.Although the GMAT essay scorers are trained to forgive certain mistakes given the time constraints of theessay, ETS can be very picky. Pay attention to your grammar, spelling, and logicalsequence, just to name afew. How can you improve your score? ETS also looks for sentence variety and ability to use language. I willshow you some simple ways to do this—really, it's not that hard!OK, here we go.One WayFirst of all, you have to figure out why they chose this as a topic. Remember—not everybody will agree, in factit should be about 50/50. This is your hint. Try to find about five points for and against each side (ten pointstotal). Don't worry if you think that your points are stupid or trivial. The important thing right now is just to getsome ideas down on paper, to start your brain working.Second, figure out which side you are going to take. Duh.Third, start writing! Don’t worry about an introduction or a conclusion right now—they are the hardest to writeand everybody gets hung up on them. Just get your ideas down first.Next, make sure you have about three or four paragraphs. You should be thinking about adding some examplesnow. Try to make one personal, maybe from your country and another one either international or American (theidea is that most educated Americans will have heard about the topic before). Don’t make your examples toopersonal! Imagine your prospective boss is reading this.Now, go back and spice up your language—add something witty, an illustrative anecdote, a rhetorical question,even sarcasm or irony. Also, try changing the order of some of your sentences, i.e., put the subordinate clausefirst.Almost done! Write your intro and conclusion!Last, check grammar and spelling. Viola! A perfect essay!TemplateOkay, let’s try the essay now.First Paragraph: Introduction
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To give credit where credit is due, this document is from Erin @ URCH.com I just got back my score and I got a 6.0; I used the following template, which I now recommend. http://www.platinumgmat.com/about_gma...