Congo. Question on skipping

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Congo. Question on skipping

by pogotosh » Wed Jan 22, 2014 10:24 am
Hey,

Firstly congratulations on your brilliant score. Pretty Amazing. I had a question on one of the points you had mentioned. I thought skipping questions were not recommended as it might penalize your score. Isn't that why GMAT instructors generally recommend making an "educated guess"? So is skipping even an option? Or when you mean"Skip" are you merely implying that one should make an "educated guess" and move on rather than spend time trying to tackle an unsolvable question?

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by [email protected] » Wed Jan 22, 2014 2:15 pm
Hi pogotosh,

On the GMAT, you can't really "skip" a question, since you won't see the next question until you answer the one that you're on. What we're really talking about is taking an "educated guess" so that you can make sure to get to all of the questions. ANY question that you don't physically answer is marked as incorrect AND is penalized, so you have to be sure to get to every question. Learning how to keep proper pace is an essential part of scoring at the highest level on the GMAT.

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by David@VeritasPrep » Tue Jan 28, 2014 6:08 am
Knowing when to move on by taking an educated guess (or a not so educated guess in some cases) is an essential skill, especially on the Quant Section.

Rich is right that you cannot "skip" a question - except at the end of the test when you may not get to the questions at all. In order to see the next question you have to provide an answer to the current question.

Knowing when to move on is an important skill. If you are not making progress on a Quant question after 1 min to 90 seconds then it is time for you to move on to the next question. Here is an article that I wrote with some drills to help you to know when you have a strategy and when you do not. https://www.beatthegmat.com/mba/2012/04/ ... at-success

As for the last few questions and whether to hurry and guess or to leave them blank, GMAC did an experiment and found that if you are at the 50th percentile and above you are better to guess at every question than to leave any of them blank. Since I hope that you will all be in that range that is the best advice.
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by pogotosh » Tue Jan 28, 2014 1:49 pm
Thanks for your feedback guys. Did think that it is not possible to skip but I guess I had misunderstood.