Problem Solving

utkalnayak wrote:I am always struggling to do time management for hard PS questions, e.g. probability or involving numerous equation. I am spending about 4 sometimes 5 minutes, and I am not finding an easy way to reduce the time. Any body agrees with me? Do experts have advice on how to resolve this ?

Spend A LOT of time reviewing the various responses from the Experts on this site. They typically model the steps one should take when tackling math problems.

You should also get accustomed to recognizing when you're wasting time and making no progress so you can guess and move on to the next question.

Cheers,
Brent

Hi utkalnayak,

Pacing on individual questions can be tricky because when you're in the Quant section on Test Day, you have 3 goals at any given moment:

1) Get the current question correct, if possible.
2) Do so in an efficient way (without spending too much time on it).
3) Get through the entire section without having to rush through a bunch of questions at the end.

Some Test Takers *want* to spend 2 minutes on every question, but that's impractical since some questions can be solved in far less time than that and other questions are designed to take 3 minutes to solve (and that's if you KNOW what you're doing). As a general rule, once you pass the 3 minute mark, the question just isn't worth it (even if you get it correct, you end up sacrificing too much time to do so). Part of your training should be to get a "sense" of what 3 minutes "feels like" - you have the countdown timer as a reference, which IS valuable, but you're still required to keep track of your own time and make disciplined choices. Once you pass the 3-minute mark, you really should dump the question.

GMAT assassins aren't born, they're made,
Rich

utkalnayak wrote: Thank you Brent, so I see that I have invested quite some time (3 minutes plus) when I think I am spending too much time hence think about guessing, is that too late. What is a duration that you would suggest if I can not solve by, should I consider guessing ?

Don't get too locked into a specific time to complete each question.
Instead, you need to pay close attention to how things are PROGRESSING with a question.
If you've spent 3 minutes and you've been making progress AND you feel it won't take much longer to complete the question, then finish your work.
If, on the other hand, 1 minute has elapsed and you've made no progress AND you don't know where to start, then guess and use that extra time elsewhere.

I like to look at my timing in terms of 5-question blocks. To that end, I suggest that you use the following Milestone Charts to keep you on track:

These times are easily remembered so you can quickly jot them on your noteboard on test day.
This (and more) is covered in our free GMAT time management video at https://www.gmatprepnow.com/module/gener ... es?id=1244


IMPORTANT: Early on in your prep, there's a danger in focusing too much on timing. In my view, this focus has the potential to actually hinder your preparation. I feel so strongly about the whole timing issue that I wrote two articles about it:
- Making Friends with Time on the GMAT - Part I (https://www.beatthegmat.com/mba/2011/06/ ... mat-part-i)
- Making Friends with Time on the GMAT - Part II (https://www.beatthegmat.com/mba/2011/07/ ... at-part-ii)
Executive Summary: Use a timer, but only to get an idea of what 2 minutes feels like. Later on (once you've covered all of the content), you can start working on your speed.

Executive Summary of the Executive Summary: Content First - Speed Second

I hope that helps.

Cheers,
Brent