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What to do if one falls behind by say, 10 minutes??

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What to do if one falls behind by say, 10 minutes??

by dp26389 » Thu Aug 07, 2014 9:11 am
Hi!
Consider this scenario:
I discover that by the end of the 12th question I am behind the expected time by 8-10 minutes.

What should I do?? calmly solve the next few questions (till maybe question 25) and then skip 5 questions, interspersing the guesses with correct answers?

OR

Skip 5 seemingly tough questions as soon as soon as I realize that I am behind time?
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by Brent@GMATPrepNow » Thu Aug 07, 2014 9:56 am
Of course, building your skills to the point where you can quickly answer all questions would be great. However, if you consistently fall behind, then you need to become fully aware of your weaknesses so that you can identify optimal guessing opportunities during the test (e.g., Assumption CR questions or VERY long SC sentences where the entire sentence is underlined).

I also suggest that you use a Milestone Chart to keep you on track. This and other tips are covered in our free GMAT time management video at https://www.gmatprepnow.com/module/gener ... es?id=1244

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by [email protected] » Thu Aug 07, 2014 11:13 am
Hi dp26389,

Are you falling behind in the Quant section, the Verbal section or both?

Severe pacing problems are usually the result of HOW you're approaching the questions in a given section. Rather than take it for granted that you will likely have a pacing problem and then just skip questions, you'd be better served by "fixing" whatever underlying issues are causing your pacing problem.

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by shrivats » Thu Aug 07, 2014 8:51 pm
dp26389,

The best solution is to try and speed up. Try as much as you can to answer all the questions.

Both the strategies you mentioned could be detrimental to your GMAT score.
if you decide to go on and skip 5 questions in the end or answer with guesses, chances are you may get several questions wrong consecutively and end up loosing quite a bit on your score.

if you decide to skip a few tough questions, you diminish your chance of good score. Getting the tough questions right boosts the score.
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by David@VeritasPrep » Thu Aug 07, 2014 9:30 pm
I assume you are speaking of the Quant section so that is the section I will address.

If this is a practice test, take note of how you fell behind so that you can avoid doing this on the real exam.

On the official exam the key is not to panic. You may not actually be behind. I once appeared to be behind by 6 minutes late in the exam only to find that the next six questions were all quick, mostly data sufficiency questions and suddenly I was not behind anymore even though I did nothing differently.

On the GMAT the past is past. I am going to assume that you are trying your best on the exam and not intentionally going slower than you can go. If you are doing your best then it makes no sense to tell yourself to speed up. This only results in many additional errors. Just keep doing your best and stick to the core strategies.

1) if you can get a question right calmly solve it.

2) if you are not making progress on a question then you may need to guess and move on.

If you have been doing your best and you are "behind" on the time, it may be because you have faced long questions and gotten many of them right. You might be in a great position to earn a high score! Do not panic. Just do the best you can for the remainder of the time.
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by dabral » Fri Aug 15, 2014 11:21 am
Unfortunately, there is no clean way out of this. The best strategy would be to let go three or four questions that seem hard and are on topics that you are not strong. Now, implementing this strategy will not be easy, because it will rely on how well you can recognize a hard question. The key would be to completely sacrifice the question and spend the least amount of time probing it. The questions you let go don't have to be in a sequence, just let them go as they show up.

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