Your essay responses on the analytical writing section will be reviewed by ETS essay-similarity-detection
software and by experienced essay readers during the scoring process. In light of the high value placed on
independent intellectual activity within United States graduate schools and universities, ETS reserves the
right to cancel test scores of any test taker when there is substantial evidence that an essay response
includes, but is not limited to, any of the following:
• text that is substantially similar to that found in one or more other GRE essay responses;
• quoting or paraphrasing, without attribution, language or ideas that appear in published or
unpublished sources;
• unacknowledged use of work that has been produced through collaboration with others without
citation of the contribution of others;
• essays that are submitted as work of the examinee when the ideas or words have, in fact, been
borrowed from elsewhere or prepared by another person.
When one or more of the above circumstances occurs, your essay text, in ETS’s professional judgment,
does not reflect the independent, analytical writing skills that this test seeks to measure. Therefore, ETS
must cancel the essay score as invalid and cannot report the GRE General Test scores of which the essay
score is an indispensable part.
Test takers whose scores are cancelled will forfeit their test fees and must pay to take the entire GRE
General Test again at a future administration. No record of the score cancellations, or the reason for
cancellation, will appear on their future score reports sent to colleges and universities.