GMAT 685 (PR97) Insights: How Dustin GMAT Helped Me Build a Strong Foundation and Reshape RC and DI Problem-Solving Strategies
Feb 2024 GMAT New Format 685(PR97) V81 Q89 DI82 (Dustin Finisher Class)
不確定自己現在幾分？
12 題免費測出分數區間 →
Exam Score
685 (Percentile 97%)
- Verbal: 81
- Quantitative: 89
- Data Insights: 82
Educational Background
National Chengchi University, Department of Risk Management and Insurance
Preparation Status
Full-time student preparing for the exam
Preparation Time
January 2023 – End of February 2024
Preparation Materials
- OG, OV
- GWD
- A2 Online Course Handouts
- Dustin Finisher Class Handouts
Finisher Class Features: Online Q&A and Foundational Skills
DUSTIN’s Finisher Class truly helped me a lot. When I encountered difficulties during my GMAT preparation, Dustin was able to provide appropriate advice and solutions based on my questions. This is the most unique aspect of this class, and what provides such help to students is DUSTIN’s online Q&A feature.
After enrolling in the Finisher Class, students can chat with DUSTIN in the chatroom on the course’s exclusive website. For any exam-related questions, DUSTIN will leverage his understanding of the GMAT exam to help analyze your weaknesses and, after identifying the problem, tell you how to improve that specific skill.
For questions about specific problems, the discussion forum allows students to help each other solve them. In this process, you can consider where other test-takers encounter difficulties, thereby identifying your own problem areas or practicing certain concepts. A few days after questions are posted, DUSTIN will comment with his insights, allowing students to compare their thoughts with his.
DUSTIN’s emphasis on foundational skills also significantly boosted my overall GMAT performance. Although I was initially surprised when a vocabulary test indicated I was only at a fifth-grade level abroad, I soon realized after starting to memorize vocabulary lists that I truly hadn’t seen many of those words before, so I quickly dedicated a lot of time each day to memorizing vocabulary.
In addition to vocabulary memorization, DUSTIN also required reading comprehension training, aiming for at least 180 words per minute. Through numerous article reading exercises and with the help of DUSTIN’s GPT bot, I successfully met this requirement. My understanding and speed in reading question stems across all sections significantly improved, and the number of options I used to choose incorrectly due to unfamiliar vocabulary also greatly decreased.
Preparation Tips for Each Section
CR (Critical Reasoning)
First, for CR, DUSTIN teaches you to thoroughly understand the logic of the question. After completely analyzing the logical chain, you consider whether the conclusion drawn from the preceding facts is reasonable. He also meticulously uses this method when recording solution videos, allowing you to gradually refine your problem-solving steps.
DUSTIN places a strong emphasis on foundational skills. Only after mastering the methods do you gradually work towards the ultimate goal of reducing your solving time. Once the main direction is clear, the course also includes error analysis of confusing options, showing you how the GMAT typically presents incorrect answers, which greatly helps improve accuracy.
RC (Reading Comprehension)
RC is where DUSTIN helped me the most. In the past, I knew I needed to grasp the main idea of a passage, but I never had a concrete method to do so. DUSTIN teaches you to first infer what the entire passage will be about from its opening paragraphs. For example, if it discusses a recent phenomenon observed by scientists, the passage might detail their findings, or it might suggest their findings are flawed, explaining where the error lies and what the correct understanding should be.
Once you have a few directions to anticipate, your reading speed will significantly increase. You shouldn’t spend a lot of time trying to understand every part of the passage; instead, you should differentiate between important and unimportant information. You can spend more time on important details, while unimportant information can be located in the text only if a question specifically asks about it. This is especially crucial for longer passages.
This exam strategy was incredibly valuable to me. In past exams, I could only complete about 27 Verbal questions because I would try my best to understand every single word in every reading passage. I understood them, but I also went significantly over time.
Q (Quantitative)
Quantitative was taught by KH. Although it’s a relatively straightforward subject, achieving a perfect score requires meticulousness and thorough preparation. KH’s compiled materials categorize all frequently tested GMAT question types and explain how to approach each type during class. Extensive practice with past questions also allows students to identify any concepts they haven’t fully grasped and quickly reinforce them when encountered. Ultimately, math became a key factor in my high score.
DI (Data Insights / IR)
IR (DI) is one of many people’s nightmares; the time is too short, and questions require too much time to understand and integrate information. In class, DUSTIN and KH teach you how to navigate these charts and graphs to maximize time saved during problem-solving.
Each question type has its most suitable problem-solving process, and these processes are the result of DUSTIN and KH’s personal experimentation and discussion. In the past, I often spent too much time on IR, especially on multi-chart analysis questions. I used to start by reading the passage, and going through the entire text could take over six minutes.
However, after learning DUSTIN’s method of starting with less text, my speed in reading question stems significantly increased. It might sound a bit unrealistic—can simply changing the order make such a big difference? But in actual practice, the sense of security gained from first understanding what the question is testing through charts and tables truly boosts comprehension of the passage. DUSTIN’s strategies for other question types were also helpful, and ultimately, my IR score was also key to my high overall score.
Secret Weapon: Applying ChatGPT
Another key aspect of the Finisher Class I participated in was the advent of ChatGPT. DUSTIN, drawing on past observations of student difficulties, developed many GPT bots during my preparation period to help students. If you ask DUSTIN a question, after analyzing it, he will typically provide a GPT bot to help you specifically improve that particular skill. There’s one for every question, and sometimes even two or three bots.
Students in my cohort were quite fortunate to have so many resources available for practice.
