Boosting My Score: A2 and Dustin’s Advice
September 2020 GMAT 710 V34 Q51 Experience (Verbal Intensive Course)
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Exam Scores
- First Attempt: 620 Q49 V26 AWA:?? IR:6 (cancelled)
- Second Attempt: 590 Q50 V20 AWA:?? IR:3 (cancelled)
- Third Attempt: 650 Q50 V27 AWA:5 IR:7 (2019/08)
- Fourth Attempt: 710 Q51 V34 AWA:4.5 IR:3 (2020/9/14)
Background and Preparation Resources
- Academic Background: Department of Business Administration, NCU; currently employed.
- Preparation Time: January 2019 ~ August 2019 + June 2020 ~ September 2020 (totaling nearly a year on and off).
- Preparation Materials: 2019 OG, Manhattan SC, PP1+2, GWD, A2 Intensive Course materials.
Foreword
When I first started preparing for the GMAT, and even up until my second attempt, I was enrolled in a different test prep center. My English foundation wasn’t particularly strong, so I needed a comprehensive preparation method. However, the teaching style of my previous prep center didn’t seem to suit me, and I felt like my first two attempts were a waste of both time and money. Later, a classmate introduced me to A2’s intensive course. I hoped to achieve my target score quickly, and I’m grateful for A2 GMAT’s diverse training methods, which ultimately helped me reach my goal!
First Attempt
With a mindset of just testing the waters, I felt I had gained some insights after three months of preparation. I also wanted to gauge my current level. I completed one round of OG, PP1+2, and a few GWD practice tests before registering for the exam. But during the actual test, I relied solely on my intuition and random techniques. To save time, I just picked answers randomly, completely losing track of my pace and barely reading the options. Although the score wasn’t great, I had no idea what I was doing during the test; it felt like I was just shooting in the dark.
Second Attempt
This attempt was even worse than the first. Believing that simply putting in time would lead to improvement, I engaged in many unproductive activities. For instance, when reviewing CR questions, I would meticulously write down every problem-solving idea that seemed useful at the moment, but I struggled to apply them to new questions. I also continued to practice GWD questions I hadn’t seen before without solidifying my fundamentals. Thinking I would naturally improve with each test, I didn’t seek specific guidance from an instructor. Instead, I worked in isolation, continuing with my previous practice methods. This led to a complete breakdown during the exam. When I reached the Verbal section, I started guessing randomly based on gut feeling. As the questions got easier, I knew something was seriously wrong.
Third Attempt
This time, I knew I couldn’t afford to slack off any longer. Around July 2019, I enrolled in A2’s intensive video course. I diligently took notes and reviewed the course materials thoroughly. I also practiced following A2’s problem-solving process, gradually getting a feel for the exam. Unfortunately, because I had become accustomed to the RC questions, I didn’t dedicate much time to practicing them. Instead, I focused all my efforts on SC and CR. While my SC and CR scores improved, my RC performance suffered due to a lack of practice, leading to a breakdown in that section.
Fourth Attempt
Due to personal reasons, I returned to GMAT preparation after a year. During this period, I began to deeply understand each question and identify the specific concepts the questions were designed to test. In addition to my previous preparation methods for SC and CR, I continued to practice active reading for RC.
I also want to thank Kory for the candid advice he gave me during a consultation two weeks before the exam. After returning to GMAT prep, I had retaken the OG, and found it a bit too easy, leading me to believe its value was limited. However, after my consultation, Kory advised me to thoroughly review the OG again and compare it with my previous notes to identify blind spots. With a mix of skepticism and hope, I redid the OG questions and discovered that reviewing them more carefully helped me uncover previously unnoticed thinking errors. The key takeaway: It’s crucial to achieve near-perfect accuracy on the OG (at least for easy and medium difficulty questions)!
Additionally, I’m grateful for Dustin’s occasional live problem-solving sessions on YouTube. During these sessions, Dustin shared many insights about the training methods used in the “Terminator” class. While the number of participants wasn’t too high then (apologies if this changes after I post this), the quality of questions asked was quite high. Dustin’s live sessions significantly improved my awareness of the importance of meaning in problem-solving, preventing me from relying solely on techniques as I had in previous attempts.
SC (Sentence Correction)
Since my SC materials were from the intensive course, I’m not sure how comprehensive the commonly mentioned five-booklet training materials are. However, the intensive course materials felt like a complete reference guide for me. When working through OG and PP1&2, I would refer to the materials whenever I encountered difficulties. Unknowingly, I found myself almost memorizing the page numbers for each grammar point. While looking up specific grammar rules, I would also end up reviewing other concepts.
When summarizing each question, I would look up the relevant grammar point and jot down any concepts I hadn’t considered during problem-solving below the question (recording the page number from the textbook). This allowed me to quickly identify areas needing more practice when reviewing. Because of this, after returning to GMAT prep, I could easily pinpoint areas to focus on by referring to my previous notes for any questions I found challenging in PP1+2.
RC (Reading Comprehension)
I mentioned Active Reading earlier. My approach to active reading didn’t involve constantly predicting the direction of the passage. I felt my brain couldn’t simultaneously map out the structure and predict the future content (though I could do so for passages with very obvious tones). Instead, I focused on meticulously outlining the passage’s structure. While reading, I would mentally note the main idea of each paragraph and the direction of each author’s argument. Specifically, I used the “Practical RC Problem-Solving Framework” structure that Dustin also shared online. While reading, I would first identify the passage’s context, topic, argument, and evaluation. After one read-through, I could grasp about 60-70% of the main idea. For any details that appeared in the questions, I would use the locating method to find the answer. Once I found the correct locating sentence, I was almost always correct.
Developing reading comprehension skills and the ability to analyze the flow of a passage is truly essential. Reading too slowly under time pressure will inevitably lead to panic during the actual exam. To maintain my reading fluency, I made sure to engage with GMAT passages daily, reading at least 1-2 articles to ensure a stable reading pace during the test.
In Dustin’s video sharing difficult RC passages, I learned how to read efficiently and select the correct answers under time constraints. I could typically read a short passage in 1-2 minutes and a long passage in 3-4 minutes, with question-solving time controlled within 1.5 minutes per question (ensuring at least 80% accuracy during practice). This meant that even with a long passage, I could finish it within 10 minutes. In the actual exam, I encountered a long passage of about 400 words with 18 minutes remaining. After finishing it, I believe I still had about 13 minutes left. This was largely thanks to the “question bank” (機經) that helped me improve my reading speed (not by memorizing answers, as I trust what I see more than what I remember). If you’re still struggling with RC, I highly recommend checking out Dustin’s problem-solving videos on YouTube; I found them very helpful.
CR (Critical Reasoning)
I believe CR was an area I hadn’t encountered before. Beyond the basic ability to understand the question, it’s crucial to grasp what the stem is describing, what the question is asking, what hints are provided in the stem, and where the answer might be heading. The question categorization in the A2 materials completely changed my perspective when I first heard it. Previously, I relied on intuition to determine which answer seemed more reasonable, but I often ended up contradicting the premise or missing the point of the question. Through training, I began to understand the logical thinking process of business schools. I learned to differentiate between questions involving cause-and-effect relationships versus inferences or means-to-an-end relationships, which were aspects I hadn’t considered during my preparation. I highly recommend adopting A2’s logical thinking framework and conducting a thorough analysis of each question during practice.
This approach allows you to understand why certain options are incorrect. At a more advanced level, you might even be able to predict the direction of the solution after reading the question (I haven’t reached this level yet, which might be why my score is 710).
Q (Quantitative)
Since I didn’t study with A2 for this section, I can’t comment extensively. The only thing I’ll mention is that the KH question bank was very useful. Even though the questions were updated the day before my exam, I still managed to practice many problems that I might not have figured out otherwise.
Conclusion
Preparing for the GMAT is a challenging journey. I constantly asked questions during the TA sessions with the A2 consultants after class. Fortunately, many classmates had already achieved their target scores and gone abroad before me. Having them as benchmarks motivated me to persevere throughout my preparation.
