I know that many of you are

applying to business school and

are about to take GMAT.

I've been there.

I took my GMAT in 2014

My decision to do MBA was pretty spontaneous.

I made a decision that yes

I'm going to study in the USA

at the end of October.

I was taking my GMAT

on December 25th.

I concentrated mostly on

quantitative and verbal parts

Only in the end of my preparation

I realised there's also essay

in integrated reasoning section.

When I started to take this essay,

I realised it doesn't really affect your score.

So it doesn't matter how much you score on

the essay.

700 or 750 or whatever you score

during your verbal and quantitative part

would not be affected by the essay.

Essay actually stands

as a separate note

on your GMAT score.

When I started to read different blogs,

and forums whether universities actually care

how much you score in writing.

And I realised that universities mostly care about quantitive and verbal part.

There are kind of business schools

that might be interested in your writing score

overall performance.

Having that information in mind I

only spent two or three hours preparing for my writing section.

I really concentrated on quantitative and verbal parts

I scored 5 on my writing section

and it gave me 60%

which is pretty decent

because I'm not a native speaker.

I also had 700 on my GMAT

overall.

That was enough for me to get

into the university of my dreams

and get full financial assistance to pursue my MBA.

I want to share with you my strategy

of handling GMAT essay.

The first thing you need to know is

writing section is all the same.

They'd actually give you a paragraph,

or a statement

and they'd tell you to discuss it.

But what this means

discussing is actually disagreeing

with a statement

And you need to prove that it's insufficient,

that the statements are made on wrong or

insufficient assumptions.

Essays have to consist of five paragraphs,

in the first paragraph you tell what's going on

second, third and fourth paragraphs

you disagree with different parts of the statement.

In the fifth paragraph you summarize everything.

It's important to remember that 2,3 and 4 paragraphs

depict your ideas

Each paragraph stands for the idea.

It's important to make sure that

each paragraph of the same value.

Otherwise they might think that

some of your ideas are not well-developed.

I'm going to use a specific example

I'm going to read a task.

I'm going to give you the exact templates that you can use

for all of the GMAT essays.

This templates helped me to do what I've done.

Prepare for that section in two hours

and get a pretty decent score.

Here is the statement.

Following appeared in the editorial section of the newspaper.

This past winter 200 students from

state college

travelled to the state capital building to protest

against proposed cuts in funding in various state college programs.

The other 12000 students

evidently weren't so concerned about their education.

They either stayed on campus or left for winter break.

Since the group who didn't protest

is numerous,

it has more representative

of the state college students

that are the protestors.

Therefore the state legislature

need not heat the appeals

of the protested students.

Discuss reasons blah...blah...

This is very typical of GMAT,

they give you some statement

and you need to discuss it.

As I said

in the first paragraph

you need to state what you've read.

In the first paragraph I say

The argument claims

This is what you need to learn.

You start with a phrase "the argument claims"

that the state legislature

need not heed the appeals of the protesting students

since the group who did not pretest is far more numerous.

Comma.

Now you need to explain that you got the data.

That is in the article.

This is the second phrase you need to remember.

The conclusion of the argument is based on the premise

Remember that.

The conclusion of the argument is based on the premise that 12000 Waymarsh students who did not protest were not so concerned about their education.

We're still in the first paragraph.

Now I'm giving you the phrase how to finish it.

The conclusion of the argument relies on assumptions for which there is no clear evidence.

Hence, the argument is unconvincing and has several flaws.

I basically learned that sentence.

When you have a structure in mind,

you just need to insert several things from the essay

and from the article

and this is how you write the essay.

I basically give you a half of the first paragraph.

Try to remember those phrases.

Now we move on to the second paragraph

where you have your first thought and you have to be convincing.

I start with a phrase "First, the argument readily assumes

that the students, who have not taken part in the protest were not concerned about their education.

However, don't forget all those linking words.

Super important.

However, it fails to mention other factors, which could affect students' decision concerning the participation in the protest.

For example, I'm still on the first paragraph.

200 students that have travelled to the state capital building could have been appointed as other students' representatives.

These are my thoughts.

I'm trying to argue with the article because

I'm not sure they're making the right conclusions.

And I'm using my ideas for that.

For example, I thought that those 12000 students

appointed those 200 students

to travel and protest on their side.

Then another phrase you have to remember.

The author fails to mention.

With all of those phrases you're going to show that

you disagree with the article.

It doesn't rely on enough data.

The author fails to mention

the laws that regulate protest.

The legal number of people taking part in the protest might have been limited in compliance with these laws.

Another argument that I thought of

Now we go to the second paragraph.

Here's my second thought.

Second, - the phrase you need to remember.

the argument could have been much clearer if

I started with this phrase.

This is what you have to do.

starting your second paragraph with the exact same phrase.

That would really help you structure your ideas.

Second, the argument could have been much clearer if it provided information on any other similar protests aroused by proposed cuts in funding for various state college programs.

Now you can always appeal to a thing

that the article only describes one case.

Try to mention that it doesn't describe other processes.

Which results they brought in.

Always use this comparative method.

Another phrase you should remember.

In fact, it is not at all clear if similar actions also were also taken by students of other colleges affected by proposed cuts.

And now we got to the third paragraph.

Finally, the argument fails to mention one of the key factors, on basis of which it could be evaluated,

This is actually the whole phrase you need to learn.

I'll repeat it once again.

You see it on the screen.

Please feel free to stop the video and write everything down.

I actually have a paper

that you can carry with you and

repeat things before you actually take the test.

Finally the argument fails to mention

key factors, on basis of which it could be evaluated, namely if any of 1200 students

who haven't taken part in the protest are enrolled in the programs which would be affected should the cuts take place.

This was my third paragraph.

I think it's a little shorter

than the second one.

Really what would I do

I'd add something else to the third paragraph.

And the last paragraph.

Finally, the argument fails to mention one of the Without this information, the argument remains unsubstantiated and open to debate.

You can always finish with the exact same phrase

and exact same words.

I'm going to write the whole thing down.

Please feel free to take the phrases.

Write them down and have something like this for yourself.

I really hope this video was helpful.

Let me know if you have any other questions

I'd be happy to film more.

I'm interested in that topic.

I wish you all the best to get into your dream graduate business school.

Don't forget to subscribe to my channel.

Stay tunned with other GMAT videos.

And I'll see you soon.

Thank you for watching this.

Bye bye!