Time Suckers and Efficiency on the GMAT
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Kalyan is a GMAT instructor for Knewton. Learn more about the company's GMAT course or read Knewton articles on BTG. |
Consider two GMAT test-takers. Both have an identical overall number of questions correct, but Test-taker 1 never managed to string more than 3 correct answers together, whereas Test-taker 2 managed to get her last eight questions correct. As should be obvious, Test-taker 2 is quite likely to do substantially better than Test-taker 1. You absolutely can get more than a few questions wrong and still get an excellent score on the GMAT, and getting strings of correct answers can be much more important than your overall tally of correct responses.
What is not quite so obvious is how the pursuit of these strings of correct answers can lead some test-takers to focus on certainty to such an extent that it is to their detriment. It stands to reason that if you spend more than half of the time available to you on the first half of the test, you are necessarily under greater time pressure during the possibly more important second half. Many test-takers are in precisely this predicament because they attempt to get every single question correct with absolute certainty until they are forced to realize that this is simply not a viable strategy. Since this moment of clarity usually arrives too late, chances are that their performance on the second half has already been compromised before they have even begun to work on it.
Every time I take the GMAT, I am reminded of how mean this test is to people who like certainty. You will encounter questions best termed “time-suckers” at regular intervals on the Quantitative section. These are questions that are designed to take a long time if solved the conventional way, and will typically greet you after you get a string of questions correct. An individual who does not pick an answer until he is 100% certain that it is the correct answer is going to spend an inordinately long time solving these time-suckers. In doing so, he might jeopardize the rest of his section, or potentially place himself under the kind of time pressure that will reduce his accuracy on everything that follows. In some respects, this individual is actually worse off than someone who looks at the question and does not have a clue as to how he should approach it, since such a test taker is more likely to guess and move on.
In other words, such a question is much more likely to derail you if you do know how to solve it than if you haven’t the foggiest idea how to begin. How’s that for a paradox?
To be clear, I am not advocating that you bail every time you see a potentially time consuming question. In some cases, spending up to four minutes on a question might well be a good idea. What I am suggesting is that you carefully evaluate your approach in the context of how you are doing on pacing up to that point. If you’re already pressed for time and are only in the middle of the section, then you may be better served by adopting an approach that will lead you to an answer with 80-90% confidence relatively quickly (e.g. establishing sufficiency by testing cases), than by spending twice as long to arrive at an answer with 100% confidence.
Working through the section efficiently can also significantly reduce the number of instances on which you are confronted with such conflicts between getting a single question correct and having enough time to work through the rest of the section at a comfortable pace. Efficiency is an often underemphasized part of GMAT prep. Most students spend far too much time grappling with long-forgotten concepts and understanding how to get commonly tested types of questions correct, and far too little time thinking about how best to get these questions correct. Assuming you have done the necessary groundwork, and have adequately mastered the concepts, you should not settle for just getting a question correct. If a question that could have taken you 30 seconds ended up taking two full minutes, you should be kicking yourself, since those 90 seconds could have been better spent elsewhere (e.g. on that time-sucker you guessed on, but would have been able to solve with an additional minute).
This can be a difficult switch to make, particularly when just a few weeks ago, you were breathing deep sighs of relief every time you correctly answered one of these questions. For many people who put in dedicated study time, gains can be quite dramatic and, in some cases, very rapid. The challenge for these individuals is to ensure that they do not stagnate and settle into lazy habits. This is particularly true of people who are taking a prep course. Your classes will typically proceed at the pace most appropriate for the needs of the students on-average, or in some cases, the pace most accessible to the slowest students. Just because your instructor gives you a full two minutes to solve a problem doesn’t mean you should feel compelled to mull over it until you have two seconds left. You should always attempt to get the question correct in the shortest amount of time possible, even if that means twiddling your thumbs while waiting for everyone else to catch up.
Remember, however, that on test day, doing as well as you can on the test is your primary objective, and getting as many individual questions correct as possible is a secondary objective. If a focus on efficiency is destroying your accuracy while allowing you to finish 30 minutes ahead of time, then the equilibrium between accuracy and efficiency has shifted too far and you’re not achieving either objective.
2 comments
A on January 23rd, 2012 at 9:02 am
I do have a question about this. I will be doing a retake of the exam, which is unfortunately my fourth time. It is embarrassing to admit, but my test anxiety has completely destroyed my confidence and accuracy. How much study time do you recommend? I suppose I was interested in how to format my plan?
Kalyan Dudala on January 24th, 2012 at 8:35 pm
That is unfortunately a predicament that a lot of people find themselves in, which is why we recommend that you spend as much time as it takes to master the concepts without worrying about pacing. Once your fundamentals are in place, you can then move on to advanced strategies, alternate methods, and efficient techniques. How long it takes to get to this point varies depending on the test-taker and how much time he/she is able to devote to practice. In your case, I'd recommend spending no less than a month solidifying your knowledge of commonly tested concepts. In addition, try and put off registering for your next attempt until you're certain of doing better. Your GMATPrep scores will be a reliable indicator of where you currently stand. Hope this helps!