ykomada wrote:Hi all,

Took the Kaplan free practice test a few weeks ago with no study and was pleasantly surprised at my 600 score. No problem to raise that up. However, took the GMAT Prep practice test #1 after some hard-core studying and came out at 480. Very unhappy.

I think my major issue was timing (as well as a slight hangover from night before), as I had to guess on about the last 15 or so questions. Read the Princeton Review's "Math Workout for the GMAT" book which includes pacing/timing strategy but does anybody have other views? Would especially love to hear from those who have already taken the real GMAT itself.

Thanks so much

I would take some time to read through some of the posts in the Beat The GMAT Blog (https://beatthegmat.blocked) as well as do some searching through the 'GMAT Strategy' section of this forum--there have been lots of discussion on this topic.

In general, I think that pacing has to be mastered by practice. The way that I recommend people to master pacing is to do practice sets with a timer. Go through a set of 40 or so practice questions in one sitting and give yourself no more than 2 minutes per problem--if you run out of time, force yourself to make an educated guess. After a while, try to give yourself only 90 seconds per problem.

These drill usually help to get your pacing under control.

Also, know this:

You cannot answer everything given to you in 2 minutes per. No matter how good you get, the test can (and will) give you something harder.

You will have to pull the plug and move on sometimes. (Most people need to do this 5-7 times per section.)

If you don't do the above, you will run out of time and have to guess on a string of questions at the end.

If you guess on a string of questions at the end, your score will go down. A lot (depending upon how many questions we're talking about). The penalty is severe for a string of questions wrong in a row at the end (on the order of 3 percentile points per question if you leave them blank and close to 3 percentile points per question if you answer but get them wrong).

This is how the test works and you can't get around it. All you can do is work with it - so know that you will have to pull the plug sometimes and be prepared to do so!

If you don't do this, you absolutely will not maximize your score.

Thanks for the good follow up, Stacey.

I remember one of the hardest things I had to learn was to move on after two minutes working on a problem. There would be cases where I knew that with four minutes time I could have the problem solved--but forcing myself to guess in those situations was the only way that I could finish the test.

Be prepared for that--it does screw with you a little psychologically, emotionally.