i suck at writing

I got the GRE score.

As you know, my verbal score was 610 and my quantitative score was 740.

Now, you'll know my score for Analytical Writing, as graded by graduate students and some faculty: 4.0, in which 32 percentile scores below me. 6 is the highest, and 0 is the lowest. 4.0 simply means that I am "competent." It means, I did competently, not spectacularly nor stupidly, arguing for or against a phrase that I chose and critiquing the rhetorical argument of a given paragraph.

I am just "competent." The mean for Analytical Writing is 4.2, with a standard deviation of 0.9. As this was read by graduate students and faculty, and not machine computed, they are telling me that my writing is just competent.

I think that this poor grading arises from not taking any writing-intensive class in the last two years. The only paper I had to write was for City Planning and Greek Myth, both of which I didn't do well. It could not be simpler, but I didn't do well on that paper either. I've had people occasionally tell me that I am eloquent, but this is saying to me that my writing is also vacuous and empty of engaging insights or thoughts.

So in conclusion, I can belch the air, but it is all hot air. Still, I want to try to take a critical or rhetorical writing class, because I still think about journalism, perhaps focusing on science writing. We shall see.