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Is it right that the first questions are more important ?

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Re: Is it right that the first questions are more important

by beatthegmat » Wed Feb 28, 2007 5:04 pm
jan82_tr wrote:Is it right that the first question are more important ?
are they the first questions of verbal and quant. parts ? and how imporant are they relatively to other questions ?
are they first 10 questions ?

i would appreciate it if you guys can help me figure this out..
Stacey might have more to say about this one--but it's a myth that the first questions are more important than the rest on the GMAT.

I used to buy into this myth myself, but I recently attended a MGMAT free workshop and was presented with pretty good evidence that the first few questions really aren't more signficant.
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by Stacey Koprince » Mon Mar 05, 2007 11:07 pm
Yes, it is a myth that you should spend more time on the early questions. The full evidence to refute the myth is too long for me to present on the forum, but I'll give you the most important piece.

If you do not finish the questions in a section, the computer will mark every remaining question wrong. This is a HUGE penalty for not finishing the test. If you spend more time on earlier questions, that time has to come from the questions later in the section, so you're less likely to finish.

Further, spending extra time on a really hard question does not actually increase your chance of getting the question right. Every question on the test is designed such that someone can do it in two minutes - maybe not you, but someone. Spending four minutes on a question designed to be done in two minutes is an indication that you don't really know how to do the question. Spending more time on a question you don't know how to do is a waste of time.

AND, that extra time that you spend is also costing you other questions later on the test, because you will either run out of time (and any that you don't finish will be marked wrong) or you will rush at the end to try to finish and make mistakes on questions that you really do know how to do.

I strongly encourage people to attend one of our free workshops (we also hold them online, if you don't live in a city in which we hold classes). We go into great detail on this topic.
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by mbaprocrastinator » Fri Mar 23, 2007 12:05 pm
I tend to agree with Stacey's comment regarding the initial questions being important.

Here's my take on this: If the first question was of medium level difficulty where the program assumes that everyone is at the same level; a person who answers the first question right will get a question that is more difficult (relative to the first one) and if s/he get's it wrong then the level of difficulty is less (relative to the first question). So going with this reasoning if a test taker spends a big chunk of the testing time on the first few questions (and get's them right), the questions that follow are only going to be harder to answer (according to the claim made by the test administrators). This will leave you with lesser time to complete the section. And as Stacey pointed out if you leave a section incomplete, all the incomplete questions are marked wrong.

Therefore IMHO, its best to allocate equal time to answer each and every question. Its okay to guess if you are unable to get the answer, just make sure that the guess is an intelligent guess. I know its easy to preach but difficult to follow, and here's where practice plays an important role. The more you practice the better you get.

Good luck! I will need lots of it too, come May :)
Cheers!
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Re: Is it right that the first questions are more important

by aim-wsc » Fri Mar 23, 2007 12:54 pm
beatthegmat wrote: Stacey might have more to say about this one--but it's a myth that the first questions are more important than the rest on the GMAT.

I used to buy into this myth myself, but I recently attended a MGMAT free workshop and was presented with pretty good evidence that the first few questions really aren't more signficant.
I dont want to scare newbies here but just in case you want to do ^research^ on how GMAT works
Check this thread

https://www.beatthegmat.com/viewtopic.php?t=808

AND DO CHECK ALL THE LINKS I HAVE PROVIDED THERE IN THAT THREAD. ESP MY POST #10. THERE.
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