August SAT – What We Did, and How…

So, your August SATs have been reported. Ours too.

Students who learnt mind2learn’s unified model in the 6 flying days in end of July have realized 120+ gains in their reports. These include one of my favorite students, the humorous Andy, who was stuck in 1100s since this spring but made an elegant 1370 in August.

On the other side, a few boys and girls followed me for a 3-week camp and took 160+ gains. The biggest individual leap comes from a senior girl from Xi’An— she made it from 1050 to 1320. Another stunning performance is made by a 1450-May senior by shooting an extraordinary 1570.
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Almost every one made 100+ gains except two quiet girls. One merely added 10, another 60. They are the ones who are taking all of my breath from now on. The model still have to be revised for students of them alike in order to strike 100+, and eventually claim 700s, in English. My goal is still that everyone who take the pain to learn my models must reach 700+ in 30 hours of learning.  Unabridged!
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​Cheers or chills you have wouldn’t take you far. The meaningful recap of experience would count into real learning. Here are ours too.
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1. Trust, learn and practice the unified models. Most of the discounts to the gains are due to doubts students experienced in the beginning of their course. The longer you doubt it, the more you resist in learning. Expect that it may take you 2 weeks before you become ready to make them your own mental models. Then, you will enjoy a true take-off in your learning curve. 
2. Study the Barron vocabs for three months. The minimum is 1/3 of the 3500 words for those of you who practice unified models. Or, it must be all of the 3500 for those who do not know the models. Yes, unified models are made to suite you without a majority of the SAT vocab. 
3. In the two weeks ahead of the test, institute a discipline in your prep. My suggestion to you are the following: first, take one mock test every other day and make sure to review the details (not only the correct answers) on the same day of the mock; second, retake the same mock test within 3 days of the initial day, and review. 
4. In the three days ahead of your test, spend 1-2 full day just on all the Section-2 that you have mocked. Retest on them, and review, and retest… until you are able to strike perfect in any one before you can deem it done. Each Section-2 question worth 9-10 points in your final report, while each in Section-1 worth just 7-8 points. It is wise to focus on the higher valued writing questions than reading.