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Advice regarding pace & timing? I'm moving too quickly!

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Advice regarding pace & timing? I'm moving too quickly!

by chmny3 » Fri Jun 12, 2009 8:31 pm
Hi there,

I am currently several weeks in to my GMAT studies & plan on taking the test in the middle of August.
On my first practic test (Manhattan GMAT CAT) I scored a 600 (wasn't even sure if I should be relieved or completely concerned, as my target is a 700)

I think I may have been overly paranoid about the time constraints, because I ended up finishing the quant section with nearly 25 minutes left. I realize there's a timer on the test, but I didn't want to "waste" time checking the clock. As a result, I ended up panicking on alot of questions I didn't "get" right away and guessed and moved on without giving myself a fair shot. I ended up spending 6 minutes on the last question because it was a harder one and I had so much time left!

On the verbal, I also ended with roughly 10 minutes left.

I'm wondering if anyone has some advice on this one? I currently time myself on OG problems and find that im either solving the questions way too quickly or going over 2:00. It doesn't seem to be helping my "feel" for the right pace.

Any insight would be much appreciated. I'm also curious to see if people actively check their time on the exam?

Thanks!
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by Osirus@VeritasPrep » Fri Jun 12, 2009 8:55 pm
The way I'm handling the timing thing is instead of timing myself as I take the exams and complete the problem sets, I am instead timing how long it takes me to complete them. So lets say I have a math problem set with 25 questions, I am timing how long it takes me to do those 25 questions and calculating to how many minutes per question I'm averaging. You don't need to spend 2 minutes or under on every question, you only need to average two minutes per question. If you spend 1 minute on a question and then 3 on another question that's the same as spending 2 minutes on each. Also, on the exam I have read that they should tell you when 5 minutes is remaining, so I think it would be best to just answer the questions at the rate that you normally answer them at and if you get the 5 minute notification go ahead and begin guessing on however many questions you have remaining. What should happen is that you would get a very high rate of problems right just by going at your pace and not missing simple things because of anxiety about pace and if you have to guess on the remaining 5 questions even you just play the percentages you should get 1 to 2 of those right. That should result in a better score than stressing about pace and allowing that to affect your mindset and quality of your work.
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