pepeprepa wrote:I am wondering, do you check your method? I mean, you have the method, you solve it and you have your answer which is one of the A B C D E possibilities, is it necessary to check that you did not make any error?
For example, after 40" you sure at 90% to have the right answer of a DS question, would you take the time till 1'30 to be sure at 99% of your answer or do you stop after 40" to save time?
If you are asking whether I check my answers, yes, always, and often twice, but that's because I know I can afford to spend the time to do that. Whether it's a good idea to check your answers really depends on your abilities:
-do you make many careless mistakes?
-if you spent more time on a question, would you notice a careless mistake and be able to correct it?
-how important is time to you on the test? Can you finish the test with time to spare?
Some test-takers, when doing practice questions, dismiss their careless mistakes too quickly- I think many people look back at some questions that they got wrong and say 'oh, that was just a stupid error, I added the powers when I should have multiplied them' and move on. If you make a careless mistake on a practice question, you'll probably make the same careless mistake on a real GMAT question unless you learn to avoid that mistake.
If you can work out when you make careless mistakes, you can often train yourself to avoid them. Often people make careless mistakes in similar situations- some will consistently make mistakes with exponent rules, others with negative signs, others will misread questions, etc. Suppose you often make mistakes when using exponent laws, and you see an exponents question on the test. What you want to do is to slow down and check your work
while you are solving the question, not at the end of the question. If you do make a careless mistake early in your calculations, then complete the rest of the question, you'll have to redo the entire question if you only see the mistake at the end. It saves time in the long run to not make the mistake in the first place.
One of the great advantages of practicing with GMATPrep is that it helps you to determine whether time is an issue for you. If you can complete the test with time to spare, you can certainly afford to spend some time checking your answers during the test. If time is a major issue for you (and it is for most test-takers), but you are very careful with your work and rarely make careless mistakes, checking your work is likely to be counterproductive.
So whether you should check your work depends on how many mistakes you are likely to fix by checking your work, and how valuable extra time will be for you on the test- there's no universal advice I'd give to everyone about this.
