No, it’s not a big problem.

We designed our program with the over-achiever students in mind. Therefore many of our students keep a busy extracurricular schedule. They are busy with sports tournaments, debate competitions, model United Nations, music recitals, theater performances, mock trials, orchestra, volunteer work, STEM or robotics competitions, summer programs, camps, traveling, school club events,…etc. 

Our training is designed to ensure students with a busy schedule do not have to compromise their high-level learning.

From our experience, we know that weekly in-person classes do not deliver the best results because many students have to miss at least 10-30% of these in-person classes due to their busy schedule that’s sometimes out of their control.

Those missed classes cannot be easily made up so there would be gaps in students’ learning.

In contrast, our video lessons provide great flexibility.

Students can watch the video lessons on their own time even if they have a busy week. And if their week becomes so busy they don’t even have time to watch the video lessons that week, the videos are always there and it’s easy for them to find time later to catch up and avoid a gap in their learning. This way, there’s less interruption with their learning.

We think this is one of the many reasons why our hybrid models produce even more effective results compared to our previous in-person classes.

No. Our program includes everything you need! No external materials are necessary. 

• A computer 

• Internet access (ideally high speed internet) 

• Adobe Acrobat Reader. Many of the handouts are in PDF format. You can download and install it from https://get.adobe.com/reader/otherversions/ 

• A Zoom account. 

• A printer or a PDF reader that has note-taking functions. We know a printer seems “old-school”. We teach a lot of strategic note-taking and annotation techniques that require students to write or make notes on the text.  

• A student email to sign into your account and access your library of courses. We also send students emails regularly with class and assignment reminders, etc. Gmail is usually a better choice than Hotmail because Hotmail isn’t as good at filtering emails and some of our emails get blocked. 

It depends on the student, but most students take around 1 to 3 hours a week to finish all the work required between the videos, homework, and cohort video conferences.  

For students who are weaker, or wish to see more significant improvement in a short amount of time, they may spend 2 to 4 hours a week, which usually empowers them to see impressive improvements in a few months. 

The simpler answer is: Our courses are usually a combination of expertly designed video lessons and weekly teacher-led video conferences for the student’s cohort. We place students in a small group of students (their cohort) that we think are suitable for the student’s level and learning goals.

It is a meticulously designed process that involves proprietary design different from most writing courses. We’ll be happy to explain more in detail when you schedule your Assessment Call with us.

Many of our students are intrinsically motivated and do not require much, if any, parental guidance to complete their assignments.  

However, since they are teenagers, some of them do benefit from parental support. We welcome as much involvement as parents wish.  

We keep track of students’ assignments and video lesson progress. If we find that the students are going through a tougher period where they are behind with their assignments, we would first contact the students to give them encouragements because we value teenagers’ sense of independent responsibility. But if we sense that the students might benefit from parental support, we might contact you and let you know it’s helpful to give your children support to keep them accountable.  

The students need to use their email to sign into their online portal. That is also where they have a library of all the courses they’ve been part of. It’s an easy way for the them quickly find an old video lesson from a course they previously took if they need a fast review. 

Many of our students have told us that even after they went to university, they still found our materials helpful and would review it from time to time, such as when they are working on a midterm paper or right before a final exam. So it’s great for them to be able to easily access their library of courses any time they need. It’s like having the best teacher in the world on command. 

Synthesis analysis is one of the most important things we teach and it is foundational in building students’ success in school, university, and future life. 

Synthesis analysis essays are required in pretty much all higher level English classes beyond 11th or even 10th grade.

Both IB and AP English classes require synthesis analysis where students need to analyze two or more literary texts in one essay.  

Synthesis analysis requires students to read two or more texts (in some AP classes, students need to analyze four texts at the same time) and write one essay that analyzes these multiple texts in a coherent way.

It requires acute analytical skills, highly effective information organization ability, and perceptive pattern recognition that requires students to be insightful big-picture thinkers. 

The synthesis analysis skill is critical because it builds the foundation for university research papers.

It is an essential skill for success in university. 

Almost every university major will require students to write research papers where students need to analyze multiple scholarly sources and formulate intelligent perspectives and arguments to convey through a research paper that can be hundreds to thousands of words long. 

We firmly believe this is also an excellent way to train a student’s mind to prepare for the future.  

In a world inundated by data and information, a person’s ability to examine multiple sources of information, identify key points that others may not be able to identify, find patterns in how various details fit together, draw cogent conclusions about the patterns, and create innovative ideas, conclusions, solutions, or inventions from these discoveries is what will set a person apart from the vast majority who just passively receive information. 

This is why synthesis analysis is a very important part of our training in most of our courses. 

No. Students cannot skip poetry analysis.

In our training, poetry analysis is not simply about poetry.  

We strategically designed poetry analysis as an integral part of critical thinking and analytical ability training.

We do not teach poetry the way other teachers/classes teach poetry.

They mainly read the poems and just discuss them, usually in general, unstructured ways.  

We take a more proactive and intentional approach: we teach it in a strategic and systematic way as a way to transfer critical analysis skills. 

This might be surprising and unconventional, but, we in fact are convinced poetry is one of the best ways to train critical analytical skills. 

This is because poetry’s language is the most condensed form of verbal expression.  

Poets pack the maximum amount of meaning in the fewest words.

Therefore, it can be much harder to understand than short stories, novels, news articles, or plays. 

Many teenagers can only identify the surface meaning (the literal level) of a text. It takes rigorous training to empower them to become much deeper thinkers and analytical observers.

Poetry, when taught strategically and systematically the way we do, provides an excellent arena for such rigorous training.  

Students need to move beyond the surface content of the words, and examine how the words are put together and how the poet develops information and messages. Through this process, students practice the many critical thinking and analytical thinking techniques we teach them. 

Under our guidance, students have to take the text apart, dig deep into the deeper multiple layers of meanings, pinpoint subtexts and rhetorical devices, and identify how different parts of the text come together to create cohesive and multilayered overall messages.  

We teach the rhetorical framework used in academic writing, which gives our students the ability to consider the context and subtexts of a text and how they achieve the intended objective.

In our advanced classes, we teach students how to utilize these rhetorical skills to achieve their own objectives in their written and verbal communication.

This is an indispensable skill necessary in all academic pursuits as well as all professional fields. 

Don't worry! We don’t expect students to learn all 256 techniques and we don’t want to give them that arbitrary pressure.   

When we check in with students at the end of the year, most students usually tell us that they retained on average 50% of the techniques we teach. Some slower learners retain less, maybe around 30%.  

But most of them retain up to 75% to 80% or more! 

But this is what’s important: Even if your child “only” retains 30%-50%,… 30%-50% of 250+ techniques is still around 70-130 techniques!! 

That’s 70-130 techniques for analysis, note-taking, outline, and writing that your child wouldn’t have had otherwise! 

That is still an impressive number. (And most students retain a lot more!) 

We like giving them as much as possible because every student responds to or resonates with different things, and nobody can predict what they are. So we’d rather give them a "buffet" of items so they have a lot more techniques available—the number of techniques they can absorb also increases when there are more abundant options. 

We firmly believe that children and teenagers have astonishing learning potential! 

But most are just not placed in an environment that gives them the opportunity to realize their highest learning potential.   

It is our objective to provide such a learning environment that they can’t find anywhere else. 

Have faith in your child’s learning ability. We do!  

And we will do whatever we can to help your child realize their best learning potential.

Like many of our students said, our training isn’t just simply teaching reading and writing.  

Our training transforms a student into a higher level thinker.  

It transforms the way students approach problem-solving and how they logically structure their thoughts. 

Since there are too many important frameworks, techniques, strategies, and concept in the Gold Level course that are the foundation for the Platinum Level Course, students would not be able to get nearly as much out of the Platinum Level course if they skipped the Gold Level course because there would be a lot of missing pieces. 

Students have to finish the Gold Level Course to be able to take the Platinum Level Course, even if the student is getting A+/over 90% in Honors English at school.   

We have made exceptions before for a couple of students who were getting over 90% in Honours or Advanced English classes at very academically rigorous private schools, and the students still could not follow the curriculum due to the missing foundation. So we now no longer make exceptions.  

More importantly, the Gold Level Course provides a lot more techniques and strategies. 

The Gold Level Course teaches over 250 techniques. The Platinum Level Courses teaches around 190 techniques. Many of the techniques in the Gold Level Course are necessary for students to understand and absorb the techniques taught in the Platinum Level Course.

These proprietary techniques are simply not taught by most (if any) other teachers or classes. So your child would in fact benefit a lot more from the Gold Level Course. 

If you want your child to be able to join the Platinum Level course by 10th or 11th grade, please prepare early and start with at least the Gold Level Course in 9th or 10th grade. 

Given that we have a reputation for helping high-achieving students and gifted students excel, we’ve had quite a few parents over the years who asked to have their gifted kids (younger than 13 or 8th grade) to join our course.

These parents would ensure us that at other education centers/tutoring classes, their child was reading at a high school level many years ahead of their age and would try to convince us they could handle our training.   

However, being able to read at a certain level is not the same as being able to do critical analysis and compose academic essays at the same level. 

Having interviewed or tested many of these wonderful young gifted students, our answer is that no matter how gifted a child is, their cognitive and emotional development as well as life experience are usually not at a place where they can astutely analyze the complexity required in higher level literature and write sophisticated academic essays about it.  

Higher level literature often requires the students to discern, explore, and convey analysis on mature and sophisticate thematic elements, such as the ambivalent emotions of a mother who struggles between love for her children and her lost sense of self, or the terror of existential struggles.

At a younger age, it can be difficult to analyze and structure well-formulated arguments for these sophisticated discussions.

 If they made their children take our course prematurely, it could cause discouragements, self-doubt, and fear of failure in these students. We could just take the parents’ money and tell them what they wanted to hear, but that would go against the core values of our school.  

The students’ enjoyment of the learning process is a plant we strive to nurture and protect so it can grow deep roots for the rest of our students’ lives. 

We asked these parents to get on our waitlist, and their children eventually enjoyed great success and intellectual growth without losing their love of learning when they finally joined our course at a later age. 

In the future, we do plan to develop courses suitable for younger students!  

Given that we highly value our students’ results, and our founder has an obsessive commitment to creating courses of ONLY the highest quality, it takes a tremendously consuming amount of energy and time for us to create each course.  

We refuse to compromise and produce many courses with low quality, so we aren’t able to crank out courses at a rushed pace.  

We deeply apologize to parents for this inconvenience. 

But we believe parents who choose us understand our commitment to exceptional quality and results. 

Please feel free to sign up for our newsletter if you wish to get notified when we release new courses!

No, it is not.

We actually have turned parents away if we feel like this course would not benefit them, because we understand how valuable a student’s time is, especially in high school, and would not wish to waste anyone’s time or money. 

Who this course is NOT for: 

A. If the student is too young (younger than 8th grade or 13)  

 Please see the previous question for our explanation. 

B. If the student is a new English learner 

If the student is still in ELL class (English Language Learning) or have only been living in an English-speaking country/school for a few years, they may still be working on basic grammar and vocabulary. These students may find our course too difficult and would not benefit as much from the course.  

Our courses do teach some grammar, but we teach advanced grammar in the context of complex sentences.  

Complex ideas are most effectively conveyed through complex sentences. There are teachers who prefer simpler sentences, but many teachers and professors prefer complex sentences and want to see students use a variation of different types of sentence structures (this is especially the case in IB curriculum).  

Once in university, students will need to write for a lot of professors who are accustomed to complex sentences since it is the norm in scholarly writing. If a student wishes to attend one of the top universities in the world, this is an essential skill.  

This is why complex sentences and advanced writing techniques that teach students how to optimize them is an important core of our writing training. 

At the earlier stages, we teach students how to effectively structure complex sentences. This is very difficult for many students, especially generation Z who are used to short and simple texts. 

In later stages, once students master complex sentences, we shift focus and teach students how to strategically structure complex sentences to achieve various rhetorical objectives. This is the key in making students stand out as future thought leaders with highly persuasive and compelling communication in their future work and life. 

If a student has only been learning the English language or has only been living in an English-speaking country for a few years, they may find this training too challenging. 

There are exceptions. We have accepted students who have only been living in an English-speaking country for a few years. The requirement is that we need to see that the student has a strong grasp of English grammar and vocabulary that’s on the same level or almost on the same level as a native English speaker, and the student displays a strong desire to put in the work to improve. Strong intrinsic motivation is key. Those students who may have a slightly weaker foundation but show strong intrinsic motivation to improve usually show the most astonishing improvements in the shortest amount of time, and we are always delighted to give those students this learning opportunity.  

C. If the student is not interested or motivated to take the course 

Once in a while, parents bring their child to us because they heard excellent reviews from friends about our training and want their child to benefit from the same results.

However, the student shows no interest in taking the course.

We would first talk to the student to see if there are reasons why they are not interested. If we can help shift that mentality, we would try to do so and help them develop intrinsic motivation. But if they still show no motivation, we would be honest with the parents and let them know that if the child has no intrinsic motivation, they won’t get good results.

D. Students who are just looking for someone to help them write their homework

This may seem obvious, but we still need to state it. Some students are looking for a tutor who can help them write their homework. 

In fact, from what we observe, when students work with a one-on-one private tutor, many of them end up using their classes on just helping students write their homework. It creates an illusion for the parents that their kids are doing well at school, because their children’s high grades are achieved through tutor-assisted assignments. 

Our course we would not be a good fit for these students looking for this.  

This does not align with our education philosophy.

For us, empowering students is extremely important and the core of our values.

It’s very important to us that our training is focused on giving our students the tools to equip them with higher level skills so they can become independent high performing critical thinkers and problem solvers for the rest of their lives.

Also, more and more teachers will use in-class essays to evaluate students as a way to prevent students from using artificial intelligence to cheat with their writing assignments.

Those students who rely on tutors to help them write their homework will show a dramatic difference in quality in their take-home essays and in-class essays.

In the Q&A sessions in our courses, it is common for our students to ask questions about school assignments they are working on, such as the direction of their analysis, the structuring of their outline, their argument approach, etc. We are always happy to provide some guidance and advice in those situations, but they remain the main driver of their learning and work. In the long run, students benefit a lot more this way.

When you view our student testimonials, you’ll see that quite a few of our students were already at the top of their class or in Honors English (or similar advanced English classes) before joining our program. Many of them were already getting over 90% before joining our course.

They have different motivations for choosing to take our courses.

Here are some of the most common reasons: 

1.  Their good grades are not necessarily based on writing skills, but on presentations, participation, or projects 

Some of them are getting top grades, but know that it’s not necessarily based on their essay writing ability.  

Especially in junior high (or elementary school), a lot of teachers grade students based on the "3 P's" (presentations, projects, and/or participation) or creative writing.

Hard-working students can get great grades based on those factors, but may not necessarily be a strong academic writer. The students know that their grades will be a lot more dependent on difficult literature and essays when they are Juniors or Seniors (11th or 12th grade), and need to improve their essay ability when they still have time. 

2.  They know reading materials and writing assignments will get much harder in higher grades, and want to prepare early 

Writing assignments and reading materials are a lot easier before Sophomore year (10th grade) compared to older grades.

Some of them are aware that getting A’s in younger grades does not mean they will automatically get A’s when they enter senior high, and want to prepare early.  

This is the case even if you are not planning to take AP or IB classes, and more so if you are. 

You can watch our student Edward’s testimonial video to hear his experience. Before joining our program, he was consistently getting mid 90’s in English classes between 8th to 10th grade, but thought “the content is so much easier” compared to senior classes.

He experienced a huge transition once he entered 11th grade, where a lot his friends’ grades saw a huge drop but he ended up with a 96% in IB English Literature High Level classes because of his training with us.

Our student Jeanette’s testimonial video also shares a similar observation. She was already getting 90% in IB English before joining our course, but had the foresight she needed to prepare early for senior classes when content gets much more challenging. 

It is very common for students to experience a dramatic drop in grades (a 10% drop or at least a full letter grade isn’t uncommon) either when they move from 7^th/8^th to 8^th/9^th grade, or from 9^th/10^th to 10^th/11^th grade. Overall, it’s always better to prepare early.

3. They are already getting great marks, but want to go to the next level 

Some of them are ambitious students wanting to get into the most competitive universities with single digit acceptance rate, and may wish to improve from, say, 89% or 91% to 95%+. 

4. They know this course will help them build skills that are essential for them to thrive in future work and life 

Some of them aren’t worried about grades, but want to improve their own abilities for personal intellectual growth.  

They know critical thinking and persuasive communication skills are some of the most important abilities in life, and want to start building them at a young age.

They know our program specializes in cognitive development and giving them the skills they need for long-term success in life, and that’s why they came to our training. 

If even one of these motivations resonates with you, please book an Assessment Call with us to explore how we can help your child grow and expand mentally. We'd love to help!

It depends on the situation. This is why we always review students’ writing assessment before they join our course, instead of just blindly accepting anyone willing to pay.

Once we’ve reviewed your child’s writing, we will be able to assess your child’s situation.  

If your child isn’t getting great grades, there are usually two types of situations: 

1.  There are many factors that cause a student to have weaker grades in English. Many are factors we can easily improve on! 

Example 1:

The student may have a lot of creative ideas but cannot organize them effectively, which causes the weaker grades.

In this situation, we know for sure we would be able to help the student improve with our training. 

Example 2:

The student has no problem understanding the literal level of a text, but has trouble going deeper with analysis, leading to superficial and vague essays that impact their grades.

This is also a situation where we know the student has the ability, but lacks tools and techniques. This is something we can easily help the student train. 

There are many other examples.

In these situations, we KNOW the students can improve with our training. 

We know for these students, they are getting lower marks only because they were just never taught analysis and writing techniques and strategies. These are easily fixed in our training! 

We would help you find a class that is the most suitable for the student’s situation and level. We usually would find a class that’s challenging enough to facilitate growth, but not so difficult that it becomes a discouraging learning experience.  

We find that often when the students did not start with great grades but are motivated to improve, they are the students who show the most astonishing and inspiring improvements!

We are here to help your child find their inner learning superhero! 

2.  If your child’s level really is too weak for any of our existing courses, we will spend some time during our Assessment Call to give you practical advice on the best way to help your child build up their skills (this is free of charge within our call).  

Usually when a student isn’t strong enough to take our course, it’s because a student has weaker technical skills in grammar and vocabulary.  

Analytical ability is something we can teach for the student to catch up relatively quickly once they learn our techniques. 

But weak grammar and vocabulary are hard to improve in a short amount of time. They take more time.  

We would give you guidance and advice on how to support your child to improve quickly, so they can join our course in the future.  

We would not accept tuition payment unless we know our course can truly benefit the student’s growth.

If we advise you to wait for a year or two, please don’t be discouraged! Every student learns at a different pace, and just need the right guidance. Together we will find the best arrangement for your child’s learning journey. 

Absolutely and we welcome you!  

We’ve had many university students go through our training.  

Our Platinum Level Course is already using university level materials, and trains students to write university level essay.

A lot of our students taking the Platinum Level course are younger ONLY because they are ambitious students wishing to write at university level before 11th or 12th grade so they can excel in AP English and IB English courses, both of which are university level courses. 

Our Platinum Level Course is actually based on the blueprint of a course we previously offered for a university writing class. We have refined and evolved the course for our high school students because many of our students need to write at college level by 11th grade because they are in the IB program or take AP English that count for college credits.  

We’ve had quite a few university students take the Gold Level course as well.

The Gold Level course provides rigorous training and teaches a LOT of analysis, outline, and essay techniques that lay the foundation for university level papers. 

Book an Assessment Call with us and let our experts find the best way to help you improve!

Please see Part B of the “Is the course suitable for all students?” question. 

If you are a student going to an International School like an American School or a British School, where all your classes are taught in English and follow an American/British/Canadian/Australian curriculum, and/or you have been preparing to attend university in the US, Canada, the UK, or Australia, then this course would be suitable for you.

We will most likely put you in a cohort with students in a similar situation where the video conference time zone works for you. 

Otherwise, this wouldn’t be a suitable class for you.  

We don’t teach English as a language. We teach literary analysis and academic writing.

This course would not be the best way for your to spend your time and money. You would benefit more from a language school. 

Guaranteed 60-Day Refund Policy  

Because we have 100% confidence in the high quality of our program that has stood the test of time, we provide a Guaranteed 60-day Refund Period so parents can enrol with full confidence and without worry.   

We want to ensure all students in our courses want to be there and are enjoying the benefits of the course, since that’s the only way they can get great results, so we have no problem issuing refunds to students who don’t feel like they are benefiting from the course.  

The refund is prorated, which means that we refund the tuition for the remaining weeks of the whole course based on the day you ask for the refund. This is because our course isn’t simply a video lesson course that’s completely automated. It involves a lot more work on our side that requires administrative and labor costs involved for the weeks the student has partaken.

We’re proud to say that very few students have asked for a refund because most students enjoy our program so much! That’s another reason why we confidently offer the Guaranteed 60-day Refund Policy. 

Yes, it’s very safe. Each order is processed through a secure, 256-bit encrypted payment processing gateway to ensure your privacy. We do not share your information with anyone. 

Many students choose IB or AP courses in high school to gain a competitive edge for university admissions and personal intellectual development (or both!).

Both IB and AP courses are considered university-level courses, and can be recognized with university-level credits in many universities.

Let’s take a look at their differences.

The IB (International Baccalaureate) Program

IB is short for The International Baccalaureate program. It was first developed in Europe (Geneva) in 1968 for children of globetrotting diplomats as a way to provide an internationally acceptable university admissions qualification. It is used by many private schools and public schools around the world. It is now used in more than 800 schools around the globe, from Singapore to Sweden.

It has a strong emphasis on the importance of critical thinking skills.

While many schools only implement the IB Diploma Programme for their senior high students (Gr. 11-12), some schools (usually private schools) choose to use the IB system all the way from Preschool to 12^th grade: The PYP (Primary Years Programme) is designed for Preschool to 5^th grade. The MYP (Middle Years Programme) is a five-year program from 6^th to 10^th grade. The Diploma Programme is for 11^th to 12^th grades.

The IB program is very structured and offers less flexibility than the AP program. For students interested in British universities like Oxford or Cambridge, IB is usually a better option than AP since it is widely recognized in Europe. But it is not a must! We’ve had previous students who did AP instead of IB and still got into Oxford!

IB English is one of its flagship subjects, and is thus known to be very academically challenging.

IB English has two versions: Higher Level (HL) and Standard Level (SL). HL is more difficult.

They explore a broad range of texts, from existential plays like Samuel Beckett’s Waiting for Godot to Russian novels like Dostoevsky’s Crime and Punishment.

Outside of the IB English class, the IB program also requires students to write an independent, self-directed 4,000-word extended essay (EE) between their junior and senior years (11^th and 12^th grade). It wants to train students to start writing college-level research paper by 11^th grade.

This is why if your child is in an IB school or plans to join the IB program, we highly recommend that they finish the Platinum Level course before 11^th grade (ideally in 10^th grade), because we teach in-depth organization and writing techniques for long papers in the Platinum Level course.

The AP (Advanced Placement) Program

AP is short for The Advanced Placement program.

In contrast to the international nature of the IB Program, AP is a US-based program run by the College Board, which is also responsible for the SAT exam. AP offers undergraduate university-level courses and examinations to high school students.

There are two types of AP English classes: AP English Language and AP English Literature.

The AP English Literature course and exam cover classical and modern English literature, from Virgil to Virginia Woolf. Like IB English, it can also cover foreign literature such as Henrik Ibsen or Albert Camus.

The AP English Language course is broader, with materials that go beyond literature. It focuses more on rhetorical analysis. Its exam has a synthesis prompt that requires you to write a synthesis argumentative essay using several sources.

Some students feel like AP Literature is harder because of the reading materials and exam questions. But fewer students pass the AP Language exam. So they are both challenging in different ways. Using the year 2022 as an example, only 16.9% of students got a 5 on AP English Literature, but only 10.4% of students got a 5 on AP English Language. For both exams, you need to plan and write three essays in two hours, which is 40 minutes per essay. 

This is why our students love our training on timed-writing, because it makes them very prepared for such exams.

Quite a few of our students take BOTH AP English Literature and AP English Language courses/exams.

Most of our students who trained with us for at least 2-3 years got a 5 on either exam—or BOTH!

If your child plans to take these courses in 11^th grade, we highly recommend that they finish the Platinum Level Course before 11^th grade, like those preparing for the IB curriculum. Both IB and AP English classes are college level and much harder than regular senior English classes. 

Additionally, there are many other AP courses that require students to write college-level essays:

AP Seminar, AP Research, AP World History, AP European History, AP US History, AP Human Geography, AP Government and Politics, etc.

This is why essay-writing ability is so crucial!

A large proportion of our students are either in the IB or the AP program, and we specialize in helping them get top grades in these challenging courses.

If your child is on a similar path, book a call with us, and we can explore how to help your child get excellent grades in these challenging classes like many of the students on our testimonial page!