Office Workers: Bidding Farewell to Sluggish GMAT Progress, The Last Mile from 650 to 700

May 2022 GMAT 700 V34 Q51 Experience (Training Evening Class + Dustin Finisher)

Exam Scores and Background

• First Attempt (2021/08/23): 590 (Q47 V25), IR:3
• Second Attempt (2021/11/12): 610 (Q49 V26), IR:8
• Third Attempt (2022/02/10): 650 (Q50 V27), AWA:5.0, IR:7
• Fourth Attempt (2022/05/16): 700 (Q51 V34), AWA:5.0, IR:6
• Educational Background: National Chengchi University, Department of International Business (GSAT English Level 14, JCEE English 90, TOEIC 900)
• Preparation Time: 2021/06 – 2022/05 (11 months, working professional)
• Study Materials: Dustin Verbal Finisher, A2 GMAT Training Class Handouts, KH Math Snake, OG/OV, GWD, PP1-2, Dustin Youtube & Blog, Jijing

Foreword

During university, I basically had no intention of pursuing a master’s degree. Although I had heard about the difficulty of the GMAT, I thought I would never have to deal with it in my life. Looking back, I deeply regret that. When I decided to study abroad, knowing my English proficiency wasn’t great, I was already prepared to take a prep course. I had heard that most of my classmates and seniors who scored high were from A2, so I didn’t hesitate long before signing up.

First Attempt

I attended the training class in July and August 2021. The course ended around early August, but before the exam, I don’t know where I got the confidence to register for the late August test. At that time, I had barely finished one pass of the OG. After the exam, I bravely took my score to A2 for a consultation, and as expected, I got a stern talking-to. They also clearly pointed out the fundamental issue that my reading comprehension was insufficient.

Second Attempt

When preparing for my second attempt, I basically just continued working through OV and PP1-2 questions. Looking back now, I was only focused on quantity, neglecting the importance of reviewing and summarizing. To meet my daily target number of questions, I often did superficial reviews. This issue was also directly identified during my A2 consultation after the second attempt. Furthermore, my RC and CR percentiles hadn’t improved at all compared to my first attempt. A2 explicitly stated that if my RC percentile and reading ability didn’t improve to a certain level, no amount of retesting or consulting would lead to progress.

Third Attempt

During the preceding period, I also consulted with Kory and realized I wasn’t familiar enough with the class handouts. So, while preparing for my third attempt, I started re-listening to the audio recordings and dedicated more time to reviewing the handouts. I indeed found many frequently tested concepts clearly written in the handouts, but because I had spent too little time reviewing them before, I couldn’t apply them when solving problems. Although my overall score improved slightly after the third attempt, seeing my crucial Verbal score inch up by only one point per attempt in the first three tries, and with my RC still not meeting A2’s standard, I decided to enroll in the Finisher course and give it another shot.

Fourth Attempt

During the preparation for my fourth attempt, I strictly followed the Finisher’s study plan. Every day, in addition to Verbal questions, the essential practice was fundamental reading comprehension training. Honestly, during the actual Verbal exam, I felt like I wasn’t doing very well; I submitted many answers with some uncertainty. However, since I managed my pace reasonably well, I still had time to think for the last nine questions. This is probably why I was able to reach my target score in the end.

Preparation Tips for Each Section

SC (Sentence Correction)

In the early stages of GMAT preparation, I found SC to be the most directionless and painful section to study. Although I knew I should try to identify all the test points in a question during review, I often wasn’t sure if my analysis was correct, or even what I had gotten wrong. However, as I reviewed the training class handouts more and more times, I became more adept at solving SC questions. Sometimes, even if I didn’t know the exact test point while solving, I could still somewhat rely on my intuition to choose the correct answer. It’s really true, as A2 said, that you must review the SC handouts every week, especially the content in books A and B, which might be enough to help you solve more than half of the questions.

With the Finisher course, the emphasis for SC problem-solving shifted more towards understanding the semantic context. The first step in solving a question is always to read the entire sentence once to grasp its main point; only then can you determine the best way to phrase it. Furthermore, during the Finisher course, I gained a better understanding of the importance of building a solid foundation early on. This is because, in addition to semantic problem-solving, being able to identify grammatical errors and idiomatic mistakes—which are guaranteed wrong answers—can significantly improve both accuracy and speed. So, while the Finisher and training class might have slightly different approaches to SC problem-solving, I believe the underlying fundamental skills are essential to develop.

CR (Critical Reasoning)

CR was originally the section I felt most comfortable preparing for, because unlike SC, where I might not even know why I was wrong, with CR, I could usually understand the logic of the correct answer after spending some time thinking. But this feeling was completely contrary to my actual exam results. In my first and second attempts, my CR scores were only around the 30th percentile. Looking back, I think part of the problem, besides insufficient reading ability leading to frequent time overruns, was that in my early reviews, I usually only focused on the logic of the current question without considering common vertical summaries. This aspect significantly improved after I later intensified my review of Kory’s compiled vertical summaries; I could distinctly feel a better grasp of the correct answers when solving problems.

In the Finisher course, besides reading questions faster due to improved reading ability, Dustin emphasized a crucial step: you must anticipate several possible directions before looking at the options. I used to feel like I wanted to rush into the options to find the answer immediately after reading the passage. However, the five options often contain more words than the question itself, and each option can lead in a different direction, making it easy to get sidetracked or lose track of the original passage’s intent. After realizing this, I started to calm down and think about the possible directions for the answer after reading the question. The benefits of this approach are not only that you’re less likely to be led astray by the options, but also that you can quickly eliminate obviously incorrect choices. This way, even if you need to go through a second round of elimination, your overall accuracy will still be higher.

RC (Reading Comprehension)

For me, RC was probably the most challenging section of the GMAT. By my third attempt, I had read almost all available passages, and I felt my accuracy was decent when practicing. However, the results showed that my RC percentile hadn’t improved at all from my first to my third attempt. I finally realized that what I thought was understanding the passages before actually had significant room for improvement in comprehension.

Furthermore, Active Reading, which A2, Kory, and Dustin all strongly emphasize, is incredibly important. Often, when reading passages under time pressure, I would just quickly read through them literally, without considering the structure, logical relationships, or purpose of the writing. This not only prevented me from grasping the main point of each argument in the passage but also made it difficult to locate information when answering questions. Ultimately, I would rely solely on memory, which often led to falling into the traps of confusing answer choices.

Q (Quantitative)

For the Quant section, I found KH’s Math Snake and the ‘Jijing’ (exam memory questions) to be the most helpful. The daily workload for Math Snake wasn’t overwhelming, and the quality of the questions was very high. I even encountered some ‘Jijing’ questions from Math Snake in the actual exam. I had already finished all the Math Snake questions by January, and then I went back and did a second round. So, this set of questions offers extremely high value for money.

I also greatly admire KH’s question bank for the ‘Jijing’. I recall that before my third attempt, due to the Chinese New Year, there were no reports from mainland test centers, so the question changes were only confirmed a few days before the exam. However, KH’s question bank immediately provided hundreds of ‘Jijing’ questions to practice. In both my third and fourth actual exams, I indeed encountered at least five ‘Jijing’ questions, which helped me score 50 and 51.

AWA & IR

For AWA, my preparation basically involved watching A2’s quick tutorial video once to get a general idea of how to write it. The video also provided various strategies for the actual exam. So, I just needed to review the sample essays in the handouts and practice 1-2 essays myself to ensure I wouldn’t get a terrible score. For IR, I didn’t prepare much, but I think that in addition to reading ability, having a slight ability to quickly analyze charts and graphs should be sufficient.

Exam Strategy

I believe exam anxiety is inevitable. In my first attempt, I was probably out of sorts for the first three Verbal questions. However, up until my third attempt, I still chose to start with Verbal. For my fourth and final attempt, I switched to starting with Quant, as I felt my Quant was quite stable and I wanted to ease myself into the exam. This might vary from person to person and is just for reference.

Regarding choosing the exam time, for both my third and fourth attempts, I only registered for the 8 AM exam. For someone not used to waking up early, this might seem daunting. However, after slightly adjusting my body clock, I found that compared to often feeling mentally drained after studying until past 10 PM after work, studying in the morning was more efficient. This was also a benefit of adjusting my schedule for the exam.

Conclusion

Having prepared for the GMAT for nearly a year, I truly gained a lot of resources from A2 GMAT. I’m also very grateful for the teaching, consultations, and more from A2, Kory, Dustin, and KH. Looking back, if I had heeded the various advice from consultations earlier, I might have achieved a 700 score faster. As everyone says, this exam isn’t about spending more time studying to necessarily get a high score; building a strong foundation, establishing correct concepts, and preparing in the right way are what lead to the desired outcome.

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