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Lack of time on Quant. Think this is a good strategy?

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Lack of time on Quant. Think this is a good strategy?

by rreish » Wed Apr 28, 2010 5:34 pm
Hi everyone,

I am a naturally slow test taker, particularly in the quant section. That written, I'm pretty decent if I can get through all of the questions (Q47). I came up with a strategy I think might help me speed up and achieve a good score, but I wanted to get everyone's opinions before trying it out.

What if I purposely got the first question on quant wrong? I know a good portion of the front half of the test would be making up for that mistake, due to the test's adaptability, but I thought this might help me get ahead in regards to time. This would allow me to slowly build up to my typical score and be farther along in the test.

Thoughts?
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by money9111 » Wed Apr 28, 2010 6:54 pm
I don't agree with this strategy. Why don't you just try to shave 10 seconds off of the first 12 questions (or 2 minutes) instead of purposely getting the first one wrong? You know that the first question will be of average difficulty. This being said... you should be able to solve it fairly quickly. I don't think I've ever spent 2 minutes on the first question of any test and I haven't gotten a 47 in quant yet.
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by rreish » Wed Apr 28, 2010 7:36 pm
I always get to the 4th or 5th question, after getting the previous questions all correct, and stress out about the difficulty. I just thought this strategy might help ease my way into the test (and build up my confidence) if I get quite a few more right to start, besides the first question. Then I'd also have a few more minutes for the hard questions later on, rather than have to learn to shave off time.

I guess my post ultimately roots at the question:
Is it possible to receive the same percentage at ten questions into the exam if I:
A) get the first question wrong and then the next nine relatively easier questions right
OR
B) get the first four questions right then stay at a stagnant percentage, teetering back and forth by getting a few questions right and a few questions wrong?

If so, wouldn't option A provide me with a better position, considering the time spent answering set A would be shorter than that of set B?
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by Osirus@VeritasPrep » Thu Apr 29, 2010 7:16 am
I don't think your strategy is good. Odds are, you may not have as good of a handle of the difficult concepts as you should. Your focus should be to get a better handle on the material and memorize certain things that you should memorize. For instance, if you can memorize something like all of the prime numbers through 100, you won't have to waste 30 seconds attempting to figure it out. That's 30 seconds saved on that problem. If you memorize all of the properties for consecutive integers, that is probably 30 seconds saved on those problems. Just really analyze your results. Not just the questions you get wrong, but the questions that you spend too much time on. This should help. Good luck.
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by money9111 » Thu Apr 29, 2010 7:24 am
i think if you can get 9 questions in a row correct during any part of the quant section... that first question should not be a problem for you.
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