Important questions! Timing strategy and guessing

This topic has expert replies
Newbie | Next Rank: 10 Posts
Posts: 1
Joined: Tue Mar 08, 2011 11:14 am
Hi,
I've been doing pretty well in my official practice test. I am really curious about certain timing strategies.

For Quant, I've noticed that I seem to score much better (Q47 vs Q41) when I slow down and take my sweet time with each question. Of course, I dont finish the last 10 questions and usually get one random one right so I just guess the last 10 or so. In the end I get about 14-15 wrong overall and still get my Q47. Now, I would like to know, is this a good strategy or should I get some random ones wrong throughout the test and give myself more time at the end? I'm very confused about this. Please let me know.

For Verbal, I have 2 questions:
1. I sometimes manage to finish everything and other times I am amissing like 5 questions at the end. I would like to know if its better to miss random questions towards the end to give yourself more time and not guess in all of the last ones or if its better to do your best all along and just guess on the last few ones if you run out of time. Heard lots of different theories on this one so really would like a conclusive answer. By the way, I am getting between 39 and 41 in Verbal.

2. I have also considered just skipping the last RC and spending my time on SC and CR which I am generally quicker at and have decent accuracy. But also heard that skipping RC might drop your score dramatically. What should I do here?


Thanks for your feedback!!
-Gabgab
Source: — GMAT Strategy |

User avatar
Master | Next Rank: 500 Posts
Posts: 116
Joined: Sat Mar 20, 2010 9:34 pm
Thanked: 6 times
Followed by:1 members

by bkw » Thu Apr 07, 2011 12:47 am
gabgab wrote: 2. I have also considered just skipping the last RC and spending my time on SC and CR which I am generally quicker at and have decent accuracy. But also heard that skipping RC might drop your score dramatically. What should I do here?
I randomly guessed the last 3rd passage which was a long RC. It was devastating to my final score. So the best thing is of course to manage your speed.
Remember: If you random guess on practice CATs and get questions right that does not hurt your score significantly, it doesn't mean that it would happen on the real test. So, be prepared for the worst if you choose to random guess anything, especially near the end.

User avatar
GMAT Instructor
Posts: 509
Joined: Wed Apr 21, 2010 1:08 pm
Location: Irvine, CA
Thanked: 199 times
Followed by:85 members
GMAT Score:750

by tpr-becky » Thu Apr 07, 2011 7:03 am
you are certainly strong in comp if you are guessing on the last 10 and getting a 47 - I would however try to work within the time so you don't have to guess on so many at the end - this can have a very bad effect on your overall score on the real GMAT.

I also would guess on the last reading comp becuase as I understand it your score is not adjusted during RC and so missing 4 in a row will certainly hurt your verbal score badly.

However it is always good strategy to focus on what you do best on the test. Do you have any good strategies to help you speed up in either section? If you don't I would focus on learning those and get your time management under better control for a maxium score.

Best of Luck
Becky
Master GMAT Instructor
The Princeton Review
Irvine, CA

User avatar
GMAT Instructor
Posts: 2193
Joined: Mon Feb 22, 2010 6:30 pm
Location: Vermont and Boston, MA
Thanked: 1186 times
Followed by:512 members
GMAT Score:770

by David@VeritasPrep » Fri Apr 08, 2011 5:39 pm
GabGab -

You are right to take your "sweet time" as you say. Do not try to go fast -- as you have noticed this lowers your score.

The one thing I would suggest (since you really do not want to have to randomly guess the last 10) is to identify any questions throughout the section that do not start off well for you and perhaps move on from those. As you have seen you can miss lots of questions and still score well, but if you can eliminate some 4 to 5 minute questions in the middle you can get to the last 10 and move your score up a bit.

So don't change too much on the Quant - just that if you have to guess at last 10 you are taking about 3 minutes on average for the others, so maybe some questions are taking 4 to 5 minutes. You could probably get 2 different questions right in that time if they are better questions for you.

On Verbal -

Trust yourself and your technique especially on SC and CR. As you said, some times you get through all the questions so you can do this. On Verbal it is often the back -and -forth between two choices that takes all the time.
Veritas Prep | GMAT Instructor

Veritas Prep Reviews
Save $100 off any live Veritas Prep GMAT Course