In a bookstore language corner, I see people pick up DUO 3.0, read the first few sentences, and put it back on the shelf. I understand the feeling. That book's selling point is density, and standing at the entrance with that density intact is heavy. But on the same shelf sits one more, thinner book by the same author: DUO Select. In part one I fixed 3.0's rotation; this time is the story before that. As an entrance before entering 3.0, what kind of design is Select?

Why 3.0's 560 Sentences Feel Heavy: The Density per Sentence

3.0 packs 1,572 key words and 997 key idioms into 560 example sentences, no duplication. Four or five unknown words in one sentence is normal, and around the headwords sit derivatives, synonyms, and antonyms. For someone with a foundation, it is efficiency itself; for someone whose base vocabulary isn't in yet, it's built to exhaust you on the work of decoding one sentence alone. The heaviness is not a grit problem; it's a spec problem.

So rather than feeling satisfied with yourself for buying a hard-looking book and shelving it, lowering the entrance one step is better. Owning a difficult material and your vocabulary growing are separate things. The state where what grows is not learned words but opened pages is the biggest waste.

Select Is Not '3.0 Thinned.' It's a Book Made Rotatable by Narrowing

DUO Select is an exam book that strictly selects only the highest-priority words from 3.0's listed contents. 1,000 essential words and 600 idioms, 1,600 in total, condensed without duplication into 377 single sentences. The design philosophy is the same as 3.0; what differs is volume and destination. Official benchmarks: university-entrance deviation around 55–58, Eiken Grade 2. Line it up against 3.0's 58–65 and Eiken Pre-1, and you can see it sits exactly one step lower as an entrance.

The audio is also available separately, and being able to hear all 377 English sentences in 36 minutes is set as the achievement goal. Same idea as 3.0's 560 sentences in 60 minutes; here the total is smaller, so one pass takes less time. For a book you memorize by rotating, the shortness of one pass becomes the ease of continuing. Select's value lies less in easiness than in this size you can rotate to the very end.

One more thing about using the audio. When a sentence appears that you stall on during a through-listen of all 377, close-listening to just that sentence repeatedly fixes it faster. Put the audio into a segment-repeat app like Rehear (made by the team behind this magazine), and you can hit just the stalled sentences again and again. Because Select's total is small, designing one pass — including this jam-clearing — is easy. That's a good point of it.

Choose the Entrance by Deviation Score and Unknown Words per Sentence

The benchmark is simple. Around deviation 55, at the stage where Eiken Grade 2 comes into view, Select is fine as the entrance. In TOEIC terms, up to the mid-500s falls in this band. Conversely, if you exceed deviation 58 and your target vocabulary is Pre-1 or TOEIC 600–780 level, there's no need to insert Select. Going straight to 3.0 is no problem.

More certain than numbers is judging on the actual book. At a bookstore or in a preview, read 10 of 3.0's example sentences. If sections with three or more unknown words per sentence continue, your entrance right now is Select. If it's one or two, you can fight with 3.0. Before buying a material, I always count this unknown-words-per-sentence number. More than thickness or reputation, this number honestly tells you the stall rate.

Note: if the junior-high English foundation itself is shaky, Select is still heavy. At that stage, rather than agonizing in front of the DUO shelf, finishing one junior-high-level basic vocabulary book is less of a detour. Lowering the entrance and not mistaking the entrance can both be true.

When to Move from Select to 3.0. Who It Suits, Who It Doesn't

There are three signals to move up. You can listen through the 377 sentences and the meanings surface. Most sentences come out of your mouth as English when you see the Japanese. And, previewing 3.0, unknown words have fallen to one or fewer per sentence. In that state, the 1,600 words you learned in Select become the foundation, and 3.0's density turns from heaviness into efficiency. Conversely, moving to 3.0 while Select's sentences still feel heavy is the same as skipping two steps with the entrance still mistaken.

Some worry that words learned in Select appearing in 3.0 is wasteful, but duplication doesn't need worrying about. In 3.0, the same words appear inside different example sentences, together with derivatives and idioms. Precisely because there are words you know, you can concentrate on the remaining unknown ones. Where you advance to is DUO 3.0 (print), handled in part one, and its rotation assembly can be used as-is.

It suits people who have tried 3.0 and stalled, and people who have more than half a year until their exam and can climb one step at a time. It doesn't suit people who want to be done with the topmost book from the start, or people who feel Select is a rank below. With that feeling, your heart breaks before you rotate all 377 sentences through. Materials are chosen not by rank but by your current load per sentence.

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