Who Scores the GRE Analytical Writing Assessment?

October 15, 2008

While you’ll probably never meet the people scoring your GRE essays on test day, you can learn a bit about who they are in general, and about what they’re looking for. Did you know that readers rarely spend more than three minutes reading an essay?

That’s right: The readers are so good at what they do that in three short minutes, they’ll have already assessed how well your essay addresses the four key criteria. Let’s find out more about these readers, and about what they’re looking for.

GRE Reader Training

Two people will be scoring your essays, and they will probably be college or university faculty. To qualify for the role of “reader”, these individuals had to pass a scoring test. That means they had to score a collection of previously (secretly) scored essays, and come up with the same scores (plus or minus a point on a select few).

Although some might argue that the human element means GRE readers will be subjective in scoring essays, these readers have been rigorously trained in identifying the key components of your essay. In the event two readers differ by more than a point on either essay, a master reader will be called in to issue a final score. ETS works very hard to ensure that students receive fair scoring.

How Your AWA Score is Calculated

You will receive only one essay score, but that score will be the result of the averaging of four individual scores. Each reader will give you one score for the issue essay and one score for the argument essay. Scores range from zero to six, and can be in increments of 0.5. To be a 90th percentile GRE essay writer, you’d need a score of 5.5. This score will come to you by mail roughly ten days after your test date.

Jeff Sackmann is a test-prep tutor based in New York City and the author of Total GRE Math, among other GRE and GMAT resources.

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