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Help on Improving Quant Section- Timing?

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Help on Improving Quant Section- Timing?

by kap » Thu Apr 07, 2011 12:37 pm
I'm consistantly scoring low in the quant section. When I review my errors, most of the time I can solve the question, or easily understand it once the answer is presented to me. However, at the time of the test, I struggle. A lot of the questions I know I could solve in under 5 minutes, but under 2 is a real challenge for me.

I've found that I often set up the question correctly, and then struggle to finish it either because I'm running out of time or because I'm not sure of the next steps to bridge what I have started to a correct answer. Any advice on how to improve? I've been doing timed sets to answer questions under two minutes, I thought that was helping, but I've shown no improvement on any practice test thus far. I've actually just gotten worse...!
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by David@VeritasPrep » Thu Apr 07, 2011 1:26 pm
I am glad to here that you can do most of the problems in under 5 minutes. However on the GMAT you need to try not to take 3 minutes on any problem.

I would suggest that you do this...find a list of all of the different types of problems that you will face on the GMAT - everything from ratios and work/rate problems to right triangles to data sufficiency yes/no problems.

Once you have your list. Instead of randomly practicing everything with no improvement, why don't you concentrate on getting some of those question types to the level that you need them - high rate of accuracy under 2.5 to 3 minutes. Once you are confident in a particular question type move to the next. If you are unable to improve all of the question types to the level that you want by test day at least you will confidence and ability to do many of the types in the required time. If there are types of questions that still take five minutes or that you still get wrong quite often you may want to intentionally guess at those on test day.

Remember your goal is not to get every question right on test day. This does not happen for many people and does not sound like it will for you. Rather your goal is to get something like 25 - 30 right out of 37 and you will get a very good score. So if you have to skip question types that you are really bad at you can add that time to the questions you are good at and you will improve your score overall.
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by maus » Thu Apr 07, 2011 8:21 pm
Hi Kap,

I have the same problem as you! Lately I've been trying to really watch my time so I'll look at my stopwatch when I hit a snag and evalute the lapsed time. If its over 45 seconds I re-evaluate the possibility of me finishing in 2 minutes, and either start looking for an alternate method to solve, or take my best guestimate around 1m 30s.

It may seem like a time waster to consistently look at the clock,but I found that under that time crunch, I get used to forcing myself to move on. I used to get upset and dwell on the problem, but even after a couple days of this method, I find it easier to tear myself away from the problem.

I guess you can't really get emotional over a problem that's giving you trouble...I would definitely suggest investing in a stopwatch to get used to pacing! :) Good luck!

Maus
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by kap » Fri Apr 08, 2011 5:22 am
Thanks for the responses.

I actually used my stopwatch from the beginning and have used the stopwatch feature on manhattan gmat's website extensively to complete 5-problem to 10-problem sets of OG questions. This definitely helped my timing on the quant section- for the first time I didn't run out of time! However, it made my answers sloppy and my quant section dropped from a 44 to a 31!! Keeping my eye on the time paced me better but definitely reduced my accuracey. I think at this point it's just practice? Focusing on the questions I struggle with under timed conditions... I'm really hoping the drop is just along the lines of 'get worse before you get better' in the sense that I had to break old habbits, but now I'm on the right track to ultimately improving my score. Fingers crossed! Thoughts?
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by David@VeritasPrep » Fri Apr 08, 2011 5:56 am
Maybe I should restate what I was saying...

If you have a timing problem the answer is not going faster. Repeat, the answer is not going faster. I have never once counseled a student to go faster

As you can see from the results you got recently going faster can be deadly. Why? Because the GMAT is designed to force people who are going fast into answering the wrong question, making assumptions, miscalculating, etc.

I am talking about being more efficient and confident with various types of problems so that when you see these problems you will say, yes I can do this and do it efficiently. Also, as I mentioned most people cannot fully and completely address all 37 questions. Choices have to be made. If you keep working on the things that you are not good at and - say it takes 5 minutes to solve or you cannot get it right - and you only get this down to 3 1/2 minutes with a 50% chance of getting it right this is no good. Better to improve the areas you are already good at and strengthen these so you feel like you have some guaranteed question types that you are good at (still don't rush on these the point is to get them right after all).

Obviously you do not want to have to blindly guess at 10 or 15 questions, but if you did decide to "skip" about 3 questions because these are the questions you are not good at - then you put about 6 minutes in the bank to use for the remaining 34 questions. That means an extra 30 seconds for 12 questions. So this might be a better thought for timing - rather than speeding along and rushing through all 37 making all kinds of careless mistakes along the way.

One thing Maus is saying above is - if you do have to let go of questions that you cannot do within the time limit - do not regret or feel bad. As Maus says, after a while you will be better able to tear yourself away from a problem.

I will admit that after teaching the GMAT for 5+ years I am still ready to abandon a problem if it is just not happening. So this is not only a strategy for people who are not "good at math" or something. Verbal does not usually fall into the same pattern. The problem on Verbal is that people second guess and debate and are unwilling to move on, etc. But on the quant there really are problems that will take people 5 minutes to even complete so we have to be smart about this!! 5 minutes and the right answer is not victory it is defeat. Better 30 seconds and a guess than 5 minutes and the right answer.
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