The Most Unprofessional GMAT Teaching and Sharing Platform

Author: dudududud (dudududud)
Board: GMAT
Title: [Experience] Third Attempt 730, OG is extremely important
Time: Sat Feb 4 14:24:19 2017

Academic Background: NTU
Tutoring Period: 2015/7-8 Training Class, 2016/3 Test Prep Materials Class
Preparation Period: 2015/7-9 and 2016/1-3, approximately 4 months
Preparation Materials: OG, PP, GWD,
A2 Training Class Handouts, Dustin Self-Study Website, Manhattan SC, CR Bible, Chasedream Website
First Attempt: 2015/9 630 (Q49 V26) IR:7 AWA:5.0
Second Attempt: 2016/2 640 (Q51 V25) IR:6 AWA:4.5
Third Attempt: 2016/3 730 (Q51 V38) IR:8 AWA:4.0

Key Takeaway:
OG is extremely important. You can ignore everything else, but review OG at least 2 times!

First Attempt:

At first, I thought GMAT was very difficult, as everyone said, and I heard A2 was super good, so I signed up for the summer training class.
I have to say, A2’s handouts are really well-organized, and the classes were very funny,
so studying for the GMAT was actually quite enjoyable!

But don’t think that after finishing the class, you can just do a few PP and GWD questions and go take the test. I was quite bold for my first attempt.
I never even opened the PP1-4 electronic files A2 gave me. I only downloaded PP and did it 4 or 5 times before taking the test
(I think I didn’t even do GWD?). I probably didn’t even read the handouts once.
I only did the OG homework A2 assigned, and I didn’t review it. I didn’t have time to finish the OV SC part in the last few classes, so
I didn’t finish it (though I still hadn’t finished it even after my third attempt XD).

Anyway, the first attempt was just for experience, it was super chaotic… I originally thought I’d continue preparing after school started and take it in November or something
(because A2 said not to stop, and it turned out to be true, I didn’t stop between the second and third attempts).

In October, I briefly summarized SC OG up to 40 questions and CR up to about 30 questions,
but the summary method wasn’t quite right, and I later found it meaningless.
I also looked at Manhattan SC, about 3/4 of it, but then schoolwork got busy,
with midterms and quizzes every week, I didn’t have time to study anymore… and it dragged on until winter break.

Second Attempt:

Winter break was a complete block of time, so I thought I’d tackle the GMAT during the break, as dragging it out further wasn’t an option.
I took out A2’s SC audio recordings for the parts I wasn’t familiar with (comparisons, expressing ideas) and listened to them once,
to refresh my memory (I found I still remembered A2’s jokes… but I’d forgotten all the SC key points XD).

Then I thought I hadn’t looked at PP before, but I had already reviewed OG once in my first attempt,
so I summarized the Verbal section of PP1 once. Looking back now, that wasn’t really a summary at all…
It was just looking at the differences between options. And I summarized it on the computer, so I just highlighted the different parts.
For sentences I couldn’t understand, I looked for Ron’s explanations or referred to A2’s handouts.
But I never had a complete system; I always used bad tricks to solve problems.
Although I always knew meaning was important, I never knew how to use it. And the biggest drawback of PP is that it has no explanations.
Although there were grammar notes from mainland China, I didn’t know about them then.
So when I summarized, I was just writing down what I already knew, making no progress at all,
and not understanding the test points or anything.

Compared to my very poor SC, my CR and RC accuracy wasn’t bad after A2’s explanations, and I also summarized PP once for those.
For mock tests, I did GWD 3-9 sets and PP twice for Verbal.

After the second attempt, I was a bit stunned. My score was only 10 points higher than my first attempt.
But then I thought, I really deserved it. Looking at the high-score sharing on the board and Chasedream, I immediately knew how to improve.
Even Dustin reviewed OG 4 times and PP 2 times, while I only did each once (and didn’t even review them…).
So I didn’t go to A2, because I couldn’t even produce a summary file. There was nothing to say if I went.
I just thought I’d go when I had done all those things…

Third Attempt:

The day after my second attempt, I read everything on Dustin’s self-study website and came to some very important conclusions:
(I recommend anyone who hasn’t seen that website to spend an afternoon reading it all; it will be a huge eye-opener)

1. Even after tutoring, 90% of the time still requires self-study

I was too reliant on A2 at first, naively thinking that everything would be fine after class. “The master leads you to the door, but you must walk through it yourself.”
Just as A2 said in class, Taiwanese people are too comfortable and don’t work hard enough. When preparing for the GMAT, you should only sleep 6 hours a day!

2. Correct OG Summary

Seeing how Dustin summarized, and seeing his notebooks filled with notes, I suddenly realized.
My study habit since childhood has always been to write things down step by step. I’m not someone who can take notes on a computer.
My typing speed is slower than my writing speed. For my third attempt, I summarized with pen and paper (more details later).

3. Spend more time on SC

This part came from reading Dustin’s experience article and hearing that SC accounts for 16 out of 41 questions.
If I could solve all SC questions in 20 minutes, wouldn’t that free up a lot of time for CR and RC?
If SC accuracy increased to 80-90%, the Verbal score would jump significantly! (I hadn’t thought of this before… so silly!)
So for my third attempt, my time allocation was SC: 40-50%, CR: 30-40%, RC: 10-20%.
Although this was quite different from A2’s original recommendation, I believe study time allocation really depends on the individual!

SC

1. Manhattan SC once.

2. OG horizontal summary once, vertical summary once.

Manhattan SC is really well-written. It’s quite simple but covers important concepts.
I used to hear about summarizing all the time, but I never knew what it actually meant…
Until I read many sharing posts from mainland Chinese students on Chasedream (honestly, if you think you’re working hard, go check Chasedream; you’ll realize how insignificant you are. They are truly terrifying…).

OG Horizontal Summary

Analyze every option, and the key is to look at the official explanations (although many people say OG is vague, I found it okay; I have to thank A2’s handouts for providing a good foundation).
What’s in your own head is always limited; no matter how much you think, it won’t improve your ability.
Later, when summarizing OG, I also referred to something called “Qianhang” on Chasedream.
The key is to refer to others’ ideas, and add in test points you didn’t notice or think of.
I wrote this part with pen and paper (I also typed the essence into Excel for vertical summary).

OG Vertical Summary:

Open an Excel file and categorize by Manhattan’s headings (Parallelism, Modifier, S-V Agreement,
Pronouns, Idioms…).

List every test point for each question. Don’t just write “modifier” or “verb tense.”
After my first attempt, my notes were too general, which made them feel meaningless. But don’t be too detailed either, it’s a waste of time.
For verb tense, I might write “past perfect needs a past event.”
Under comparison, I might write “comparable objects for comparison,” “like + noun phrase,” etc.
The focus is on principles that can be applied across different questions.

Then, use the filter function to specifically study modifier test points.
I would first organize the relevant parts from A2’s handouts, such as two-way modification,
and then add the test points from each OG question, organizing my own notes (I think having your own notes is very important).
Additionally, after my second attempt, I personally believe that the test-taking direction has changed in recent years. Don’t use PP1 for summary (it’s too simple),
and the focus on modification relationships in current questions feels different.

Many PP1 questions felt like they could be solved without understanding the meaning, just by checking for parallelism with “both…and” or “either…or”
(but it’s also possible that my personal ability was too poor and I didn’t grasp the essence of PP1 back then…).
I believe OG15 (or 16) is very good; the questions feel more like the actual test.

CR

1. OG horizontal summary once, vertical summary half-done (not fully organized).

2. Read part of the CR Bible in the last 3-5 days.

Dustin’s CR summary method, public classes,
and patterns of incorrect options (which are actually similar to what A2 taught in class; once you truly understand CR, it’s not difficult at all).
Bible chapters 2-3 are quite good, especially for those who don’t understand premise and conclusion. Many questions can actually be solved by identifying the conclusion and using relevance/irrelevance.
The later parts of the Bible are less valuable because A2’s CR handouts already explain this part very clearly,
even organizing the analysis of incorrect options. It’s just a matter of whether you want to read and understand it.

RC

If I understood the structure taught in A2’s class, I felt RC wouldn’t be too difficult.
Moreover, RC has test prep materials (JJ) that can help understand the main idea of the articles, so I spent relatively little time on my third attempt.
Sometimes I would read 2 articles in a day, sometimes only once every couple of days.

Dustin’s website also teaches how to summarize, and I think that method is quite good.
I tried writing a few articles (I started from the last OG question and wrote up to about question 90),
but later I spent my time on SC and CR, so I didn’t touch RC much.

During my first attempt, I heard that most people had the highest error rate in RC,
so I thought I should spend more time on RC (after all, as a child, I was always told that improving from 50 to 80 is easier than from 90 to 100,
so I should start with the worst subject).
Later, I realized I completely ignored that my other two subjects weren’t that great either…
It’s better to spend more time on SC and CR.

Q

I thought my first attempt wasn’t very high (though even now I can’t understand why my math score was only 49 in the first attempt; it was never that low in mock tests, not even the first time I did PP ==, and I felt quite smooth on the day…).
So for my second attempt, I timed myself doing one GWD set organized by KH every day, with no more than 3 incorrect questions per set,
finishing 20-30 minutes early. But one failure in my second attempt was spending too much time on math.
It wasn’t necessary; doing one set per week was enough. For my third attempt, I barely studied Q, only reviewing the test prep materials (JJ) 2-3 times a few days before the exam.

**The key is that I had taken KH’s class and was very familiar with GMAT math question patterns, so it really depends on individual circumstances.
Don’t just blindly apply it.

BTW, in my third and first attempts, I actually encountered one completely identical question!
I remembered it well because I thought it was a bit difficult when I first saw it in the JJ. Both times it appeared among the 30-something questions.
That’s when I realized GMAT can indeed give the same person the same questions~

IR

I only listened to Kory go over those 50 questions once during the training class.
After listening, I found it very simple and didn’t study it again. I got a 7 on my first attempt, which I should probably thank Kory for!
For my second and third attempts, I didn’t study it at all, literally didn’t even look at it.
I only clicked through the answers for the 12 questions in the Prep mock test that I had already done countless times (otherwise, I couldn’t proceed to the later questions XD).
I genuinely feel that studying Verbal already covers everything, so there’s no need to spend extra time on it.

AWA

Just memorize a template and the seven deadly sins. I was most familiar with faulty analogy.
The questions in my second attempt didn’t have it, so my score was worse XD. I still recommend writing a few times to get a better feel for it,
and to practice your typing speed at the same time.

Test Prep Materials

For my third attempt, after seeing Dustin’s website, I thought he was amazing, so I decided to enroll in Dustin’s Test Prep Materials class,
to see him in person XD. I also bought KH’s Math JJ. I have to say, the test prep materials are really powerful…
This time, all four RC passages were covered, and about 4 CR questions were also covered, which saved a lot of time.

Additionally, I recommend reviewing the JJ at least twice, otherwise don’t bother. Think through the article structure yourself,
and consider what the test points are (Dustin’s organization is quite clear).
Otherwise, even if you encounter a covered question, it’s useless; you still won’t know the answer or grasp the main idea….
For math, across three attempts, about 2/3 of the questions were covered by the JJ, but I really must advise everyone not to trust the answers from mainland Chinese sources…
Calculating and thinking through it yourself is the most important thing. When I reviewed the JJ, I would think about how the answer would change if the question were phrased differently (a form of finding joy in hardship?).
When you actually take the test, you’ll find that some mainland Chinese people’s ability to understand questions is quite… questionable,
and this, of course, relies on accumulated practice to develop that intuition!

1. Don’t assume JJ will solve everything; you still need to work hard yourself!

2. When you think you’ve worked hard enough, go read the experience sharing posts on Chasedream/PTT to see how much others have done,
and then you’ll realize that a low score is truly your own fault….

Related posts:

Expert vs. Novice GMAT Thinking GMAT 710: Breaking the 630 Plateau & Boosting Verbal from 25 to 35 GMAT 710 High Score Insights from an Office Worker (Fourth Attempt): The Recommended Study Method of Waking Up at 6 AM Daily GMAT 檢討心法：Record, Retrospect, and Revise