GMAT Strategy

GMAT students often think their problem is pacing. It almost never is.

Many GMAT students say some version of this: “I understand the material, but I just need to get faster.”

In my experience, that is usually not the real issue.

Pacing is usually a symptom. The deeper problem is that the student has not fully mastered the specific skills the question is testing.

For example, if someone takes 4 minutes on a rate-time-distance question, the issue may not be that they “read too slowly” or need to rush. The issue may be that they have not mastered how to set up the rate formula, convert units, organize the variables, or recognize whether the question is really testing average speed, relative speed, unit conversion, or another rate-based concept.

Once those skills improve, the same question that took 4 minutes may take 90 seconds.

The same thing happens in Verbal. If a student keeps rereading a Critical Reasoning question, the problem is often not reading speed. It’s usually that the student has not clearly identified the conclusion, the evidence, the gap in the argument, or what the correct answer needs to do. So, the student burns time debating answer choices without a clear standard.

That’s not really a pacing problem. That’s a skills problem.

To be clear, timing strategy matters. You need to know when to move on. You need to manage the section. You need to avoid letting 1 bad question wreck the next 5.

But many students try to fix timing too soon in their prep. They start doing timed sets before they’ve built enough mastery. They rush through questions they should be learning from. They treat every slow question as a speed issue instead of asking the better question:

Why was I slow?

Was I slow because I didn’t know the formula?

Because I didn’t recognize the question type?

Because I used an inefficient approach?

Because I got trapped by unnecessary information?

Because I didn’t understand the conclusion, assumption, or flaw?

Because I was trying to be perfect on a question I should have guessed on?

Those are all different problems. And each one requires a different fix.

The students who get genuinely faster are usually not just “moving faster.” They recognize more. They know what a question is testing. They know which paths are likely to work. They know which details matter. And they know when a question is becoming a bad investment.

So, if your timing is bad, I wouldn’t start by asking: “How do I speed up?” I would start by asking:

What skill gap is making me slow?

Fix that, and timing often improves naturally.