Understanding the Context for Writing: Purpose and Audience of the Argument Task

The purposes of the task are to see how well equipped you are to insightfully evaluate an argument written by someone else and to effectively communicate your evaluation in writing to an academic audience. Your audience consists of GRE® readers carefully trained to apply the scoring criteria identified in the scoring guide for the "Analyze an Argument" task.

To get a clearer idea of how GRE readers apply the Argument scoring criteria to actual essays, you should review scored sample Argument essay responses and reader commentary. The sample responses, particularly at 5 and 6 score levels, will show you a variety of successful strategies for organizing and developing an insightful evaluation. The reader commentary discusses specific aspects of analytical writing, such as: cogency of ideas; development and support; organization; syntactic variety; and facility with language. The commentary points out aspects that are particularly effective and insightful as well as any that detract from the overall effectiveness of the responses.