Ever wonder what the right strategy is if you are running out at the end of a section? Should you guess? Should you leave the questions blank? Should you rush through and attempt all of the questions.
I provide one answer to that question in this article from the Veritas Prep Blog.
"Running out of Time at the End of the Test
There is a famous quote from Rudyard Kipling that goes something like: "If you can keep your head while those about you are losing theirs then you can outscore them on the GMAT." Okay he may not have been talking about the GMAT 100 years ago, but the sentiment is correct. Please read on:
So you are running out of time. This happens to most people, especially on the Quant section but on the verbal as well. What do you do if you have, for example, 12 minutes left and 10 questions to go on the Quant section? The short answer: spend the time needed to get as many right as you can and guess at the rest. Say, 2 minutes each on 6 questions and guess at four. Or perhaps you get some shorter questions and you can do 1:30 on 8 questions and only guess at the last 2.
The two things not to do are
*panic and spend 1 minute rushing through each question and likely miss most of them.
*panic and spend 4 minutes each on the next three questions and leave 7 of them blank.
In other words, "don't panic!"
The rest of the article is on the Veritas Prep Blog at https://www.veritasprep.com/blog/2012/12 ... -the-test/
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Running out of time at the end of a section?
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David@VeritasPrep
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the nona
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Thanks for the great article , DavidDavid@VeritasPrep wrote:Ever wonder what the right strategy is if you are running out at the end of a section? Should you guess? Should you leave the questions blank? Should you rush through and attempt all of the questions.
I provide one answer to that question in this article from the Veritas Prep Blog.
"Running out of Time at the End of the Test
There is a famous quote from Rudyard Kipling that goes something like: "If you can keep your head while those about you are losing theirs then you can outscore them on the GMAT." Okay he may not have been talking about the GMAT 100 years ago, but the sentiment is correct. Please read on:
So you are running out of time. This happens to most people, especially on the Quant section but on the verbal as well. What do you do if you have, for example, 12 minutes left and 10 questions to go on the Quant section? The short answer: spend the time needed to get as many right as you can and guess at the rest. Say, 2 minutes each on 6 questions and guess at four. Or perhaps you get some shorter questions and you can do 1:30 on 8 questions and only guess at the last 2.
The two things not to do are
*panic and spend 1 minute rushing through each question and likely miss most of them.
*panic and spend 4 minutes each on the next three questions and leave 7 of them blank.
In other words, "don't panic!"
The rest of the article is on the Veritas Prep Blog at https://www.veritasprep.com/blog/2012/12 ... -the-test/
So it is advisable to work on the questions we know and skip the ones we do not know even if we are running out of time .. but what if the time left is not sufficient to work on the problems we know ? Do you recommend finishing the test anyway or still working on the ones we can win even if we do not finish ? Thanks in advance-
David@VeritasPrep
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For verbal you need to answer each question, even if that means guessing. So make sure you leave time for that.
On quant, GMAC has done some analysis of this...if you are below average then it may actually be better to just get the ones you can and if you do not provide answers to some this might be better than guessing. However, if you are above average and certainly if you are over the 60th percentile on quant, you are better off providing an answer to all questions even if this means randomly guessing at the last few. Does that make sense?
On quant, GMAC has done some analysis of this...if you are below average then it may actually be better to just get the ones you can and if you do not provide answers to some this might be better than guessing. However, if you are above average and certainly if you are over the 60th percentile on quant, you are better off providing an answer to all questions even if this means randomly guessing at the last few. Does that make sense?
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the nona
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David , you are a blessing .. Thank youDavid@VeritasPrep wrote:For verbal you need to answer each question, even if that means guessing. So make sure you leave time for that.
On quant, GMAC has done some analysis of this...if you are below average then it may actually be better to just get the ones you can and if you do not provide answers to some this might be better than guessing. However, if you are above average and certainly if you are over the 60th percentile on quant, you are better off providing an answer to all questions even if this means randomly guessing at the last few. Does that make sense?
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lunarpower
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i received a private message about this thread.
whenever anyone asks me "what should i do if i get way behind on time?", i have one primary answer: well, DON'T get way behind on time.
in other words, what's most important here is not knowing how to deal with this situation if it happens, but, rather, making sure that you don't ever encounter it in the first place.
if you are running out of time at the end of either section, then, in 99.99% of cases, this means that you are spending too much time just staring at problems when you're stuck, or endlessly deliberating between answer choices when it's time to make a guess. remember, while the GMAT certainly contains lots of hard problems, it doesn't contain any long problems.
in other words, time management is not a matter of learning to work faster, more efficiently, or whatever. it's a matter of just making decisions, and getting the heck out of there and moving on to the next item.
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i guess what i'm saying is this: lots of people think that they need an "emergency plan" for what to do if time is running out, in much the same way that they'd have plans for the event of an earthquake, fire, etc.
see, that's the problem. having an earthquake plan makes sense, because earthquakes are completely beyond your control -- they just happen (are "acts of God", in insurance policies), so you need to be prepared.
on the other hand, time management is completely within your control: it's you who decides whether to sit there and stare at problems vs. moving on/guessing/making decisions. so, no sense in having a plan for running out of time; just don't run out of time in the first place.
whenever anyone asks me "what should i do if i get way behind on time?", i have one primary answer: well, DON'T get way behind on time.
in other words, what's most important here is not knowing how to deal with this situation if it happens, but, rather, making sure that you don't ever encounter it in the first place.
if you are running out of time at the end of either section, then, in 99.99% of cases, this means that you are spending too much time just staring at problems when you're stuck, or endlessly deliberating between answer choices when it's time to make a guess. remember, while the GMAT certainly contains lots of hard problems, it doesn't contain any long problems.
in other words, time management is not a matter of learning to work faster, more efficiently, or whatever. it's a matter of just making decisions, and getting the heck out of there and moving on to the next item.
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i guess what i'm saying is this: lots of people think that they need an "emergency plan" for what to do if time is running out, in much the same way that they'd have plans for the event of an earthquake, fire, etc.
see, that's the problem. having an earthquake plan makes sense, because earthquakes are completely beyond your control -- they just happen (are "acts of God", in insurance policies), so you need to be prepared.
on the other hand, time management is completely within your control: it's you who decides whether to sit there and stare at problems vs. moving on/guessing/making decisions. so, no sense in having a plan for running out of time; just don't run out of time in the first place.
Ron has been teaching various standardized tests for 20 years.
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David@VeritasPrep
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I do agree with Ron and I too focus most of my efforts on helping people to know how to answer the questions efficiently and when to move on. The ideal test taker does not run out of time, or make assumptions, or miss questions for that matter!
But people do run out of time - or feel like they are behind. They may not actually be behind because different types of questions take different amounts of time and it may be that the next several questions that they face take one minute each.
But, anyway, people do sometimes feel like they are running out of time and then they do all sorts of things. The point of the article that I wrote is that if you happen to have performed less than ideally and find yourself with less time than you would like at the end of the section, the best thing to do is to continue with your game plan and work through as many questions as you can in that time, rather than rushing and missing them all.
But people do run out of time - or feel like they are behind. They may not actually be behind because different types of questions take different amounts of time and it may be that the next several questions that they face take one minute each.
But, anyway, people do sometimes feel like they are running out of time and then they do all sorts of things. The point of the article that I wrote is that if you happen to have performed less than ideally and find yourself with less time than you would like at the end of the section, the best thing to do is to continue with your game plan and work through as many questions as you can in that time, rather than rushing and missing them all.
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lunarpower
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just clarifying here --David@VeritasPrep wrote:I do agree with Ron and I too focus most of my efforts on helping people to know how to answer the questions efficiently and when to move on. The ideal test taker does not run out of time, or make assumptions, or miss questions for that matter!
if "the ideal test taker" means "super-genius savant who can get all the questions correct", then, sure, the comment about missing questions (at the end there) holds.
on the other hand, i prefer to interpret "ideal test taker" as "a test taker, of plausible ability, who maximizes his or her score through intelligent strategic decisions" (not least because this definition, unlike the foregoing one, actually applies to real people taking the real test).
if "ideal test taker" has that meaning, then the statement above, about missing problems, is incorrect, and also pernicious - at worst, encouraging a perfectionist attitude that will definitely backfire.
instead, this sort of "ideal test taker" will get a significant number of problems wrong, because that's what adaptive testing is all about: if you are stuck, you guess, you psychologically let go of the problem, and then you move on to the next thing.
also, while the point about "making assumptions" is well-founded when it comes to the math section, it's not accurate in the verbal section, especially CR.
the vast majority of strengthening/weakening problems require extra assumptions that are nontrivial (even though they might be classified as "common sense").
for instance, in OG12 #109 / OG13 #110, you need to assume that people likely to be caught in the act will (a) anticipate punishment AND (b) change their behavior accordingly.
in OG13 #94, you need to assume that tall buildings are generally built on high-value land.
and so on.
this, yes.But, anyway, people do sometimes feel like they are running out of time and then they do all sorts of things. The point of the article that I wrote is that if you happen to have performed less than ideally and find yourself with less time than you would like at the end of the section, the best thing to do is to continue with your game plan and work through as many questions as you can in that time, rather than rushing and missing them all.
Ron has been teaching various standardized tests for 20 years.
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ngalinh
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Thumbs up!lunarpower wrote: i guess what i'm saying is this: lots of people think that they need an "emergency plan" for what to do if time is running out, in much the same way that they'd have plans for the event of an earthquake, fire, etc.
see, that's the problem.
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David@VeritasPrep
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Of course the point of the article is not to implement some sort of emergency plan, but just to do the best you can with the time you have and not to panic and do something different. I would not characterize this as a plan but more like something to keep in mind since people do run out of time and they do implement some strange behaviors - like giving each remaining question 45 seconds and missing them all.
Once you have survived the current test - and assuming that you do not get your desired score - you can change your tactics and not run out of time on the next exam.
Once you have survived the current test - and assuming that you do not get your desired score - you can change your tactics and not run out of time on the next exam.
