Bizarre timed test findings

fltingley wrote:Hey everyone,

For the past while, I have been taking my studying slow: learning concepts, reviewing errors, etc. I then started to answer questions legitimately, but without timing myself. After a while, I got a good feel as to where I was in terms of correct vs. incorrect.

The other night I began to do practice problems timed and found that I am doing better than I did with an infinite time limit.

Has anyone else encountered this? I figured timed questions cut out the second guess and over thinking, but am not sure.

Thoughts? Experiences?

I've heard some people report on this phenomenon before. For some people--perhaps yourself included--having too much time is bad because it allows you to over think your answers and become indecisive.

You just might be one of those people who work well under pressure. I think your suggestion makes a lot of sense that being timed reduces your second guessing and improves your overall performance.

This actually is true for most people on this test, but most people don't actually track the data to see this.

Here's the thing: every question is designed to be done in 2 minutes. If you can't do it in 2 minutes, then you don't know how to do the question in the way it is meant to be done. If you need 4 or 5 or 6 minutes, that's really just an indication that you don't REALLY know how to do this problem. And when you don't really know what you're doing, you're going to get more things wrong.

(And, in fact, researchers have done studies to show that the more time you spend on a question over about 3 minutes, the more likely you are to get it wrong.)

Anonymous wrote:Good feedback! Thanks!

My only regret is not starting the "timed practice" portion of my studying sooner. I probably had the concepts down a while ago, but was a little intimidated to begin putting myself on the clock.

I would recommend anyone who has put in 30-40 hours of conceptual studying to start timing your question taking. It's a whole new world out there.

Just to add to this comment. It's absolutely critical in my opinion to practice under timed conditions. It takes a while to get comfortable with the pace, but you must have this pace nailed during your actual exam.