GMAT Analytical Writing Assessment Overview One of the three sections of the GMAT exam is the Analytical Writing Assessment (AWA) section.  The AWA section consists of two essays and is the first section that you will complete on the exam. In one of the essays, the student must read and analyze an argument.  In the other essay, the student must read and analyze an issue. The time duration for each essay is 30 minutes and is graded on a scale of 0 (at the lowest) to 6 (at the highest) in .5 point increments.  The average score for an essay is just above 4. Each essay is graded by two different readers:  A computer program called IntelliMetric and a human reader.  If the score from the computer and the human reader differ by more than a full point, a third reader (also human) will [+]