Admitted to Rotterdam School of Management (RSM)! My Journey and Preparation Strategies from Struggling to Finish RC to Scoring 625 on the Actual Test

Admitted to Rotterdam School of Management (RSM)! GMAT Focus Edition 625 Prep Share

Educational Background: NCHU Marketing

English Proficiency: GSAT English Level 14, TOEIC Gold, IELTS 7.5

Preparation Period: 2024/05 – 2024/12

Study Materials & Courses: In-person Training Class, Dustin’s Terminator Course, OG, OV, GWD, Math for Working Professionals Practice Plan, OG DI, Ji Jing (Exam Bank), GMAT Official PP1 & 2

Exam Score: 625(81st) Q83(81st) V82(76th) DI78(70th)

Admitted School: Rotterdam School of Management (RSM)

I took the GMAT to apply to Rotterdam School of Management (RSM). Their admission threshold this year is 565 or above. When applying, you can submit other documents first and then supplement with your GMAT score.
Before taking the GMAT, all my other documents had already been reviewed, so I received an offer about a week after submitting my GMAT score!

Foreword

Many of my peers continued their studies in graduate school after graduation, but at the time, I didn’t have a clear direction on what subject I wanted to pursue, so I chose to work first. However, the idea of studying abroad remained in my heart.

GMAT scores are valid for five years. After researching online, I found that many test-takers need several attempts to achieve their desired scores, so I decided to prepare for this exam first to avoid not having a score when it’s time to apply.

After taking the exam, I was also glad I applied early, as it truly took me about 6 months to feel fully prepared before taking the test.

Why I Chose A2 GMAT

Some colleagues who returned from studying abroad told me that the GMAT is extremely difficult and that the GRE would be easier. However, after researching online, I found that the GMAT had changed to the Focus Edition, and it seemed that most universities still preferred the GMAT. Even if you take the GRE, some might require a verbal score above a certain threshold.

When I was looking for a prep school, I saw that many high-scorers attended A2GMAT. Plus, my friends who studied abroad also highly recommended the instructors, saying they taught really well, so I signed up directly!

Timeline

2024/05-2024/06: Followed the training class schedule, learning a little bit each week. Each week, I only did the exercises at the back of the handouts.

2024/07-2024/08: After the course ended, I started self-studying, beginning with OG exercises. I wrote almost every day, but I severely overran the time limit for CR and RC. For DI, I only completed the handout and online questions and didn’t practice any other problems, which made me very unfamiliar with DI!!After taking one official PP, I knew it would be impossible for me to score above 600 by the end of August, because I only completed 13 verbal questions in 45 minutes, so I decided to enroll in Dustin’s Terminator course.

2024/09-2024/10:During this period, I took the asynchronous online classes for the Terminator course, arranging my study time myself.

2024/11-2024-12: After completing the full course, I followed the study plan Dustin arranged for me, starting with OV, redoing OG exercises, and daily math assignments. During this period, I finished all OV and OG questions, completed GWD 1-20, and almost finished KH’s Math for Working Professionals questions and the Terminator daily assignments.

Subject-Specific Tips

CR

CR was truly a huge challenge for me at first. The prep school taught techniques to find answers for specific question types, and I could usually get them right using these techniques. However, my bottleneck was spending too much time on one question. Later, Dustin’s Terminator class taught me the method of drawing logical chains, which can be applied to both cause-and-effect and plan questions. I no longer needed to memorize specific approaches for cause-and-effect questions versus plan questions, which significantly increased my speed and accuracy.

RC

Previously, for IELTS, I had 60 minutes to complete three reading passages, and I could read each article at a leisurely pace. Compared to GMAT passages, they are simply on different levels!! For RC, I faced severe time pressure as well⋯

When I first joined the Terminator class, Dustin asked me to memorize vocabulary because the pre-class assessment indicated my vocabulary might be insufficient. After memorizing, I started reading some GPT-generated articles, focusing on unfamiliar topics like astronomy, physics, and social movements. Initially, I wasn’t sure if this would truly be effective, but after a few months, it indeed sped up my reading. I went from needing 10 minutes to read an article to 3-5 minutes, depending on its length. In the actual exam, my average response time for verbal was close to 2 minutes, which was a huge improvement compared to only completing 13 questions in 45 minutes previously.

Q

KH’s teaching style allows one to quickly grasp concepts for each unit, mainly by using the handouts to review key exam points. When practicing questions, I aimed for two minutes per question and did some math every day. Preparing for this subject was relatively easy, but I didn’t get all questions right in the actual exam; I was careless, unfortunately. Also, I think one advantage of the Terminator class is the extra weekly KH consultation time, which is like a private tutoring session where the instructor directly helps you solve problems online.

DI

After mastering Verbal techniques, DI became my biggest challenge. In the early stages of my prep, I didn’t focus much on this subject. It wasn’t until I took the official PP for DI for the first time and couldn’t even finish it, despite having practiced all the questions, that I started to panic. I had thought that if Verbal and Q were well-prepared, I wouldn’t need to worry too much about DI.

My way to strengthen this subject later was to buy and practice with OG DI. I feel that, apart from DS, for TPA, TA, and MSR question types, the difficulty of OG DI is considerably harder than the actual exam.

About the GMAT Exam Bank (Ji Jing)

The Ji Jing (Exam Bank) was quite useful for me, especially for the Quant section. I encountered about three questions from it, which made me feel quite confident throughout the entire exam! Although the Verbal section didn’t have any hits from the Ji Jing, those articles allowed me to practice reading, especially by exposing me to more topics I was unfamiliar with.

Conclusion and Advice

Keep up the good work, everyone! When I first started taking official PP1, I felt very frustrated and lacked confidence, even thinking about giving up the exam altogether. But thankfully, I persevered. A2GMAT truly provided many resources that I could utilize, such as the free monthly seminars Kory and KH hosted on various topics, which I also signed up for in those months. In the end, I successfully achieved my desired score, and I’m truly grateful for A2GMAT’s assistance.

A2GMAT is highly recommended for GMAT prep!

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