glad you're asking this question, although the wording of the question seems to indicate that you underestimate the importance of timing on the exam. time management is at least as important as content - not only when it's performance time, but in ALL your exam preparation.
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for the QUANT section, you should shoot for an average of 2:00 per question. this doesn't mean that you should cut off all questions at two minutes each - that would be rather silly, since you'll usually have as many questions above the average as below it - but it does mean that you should be in guessing mode by 2:30-2:45, and that you should NEVER take more than three minutes to answer a quant question.
you should stick to the same restrictions when you're doing practice questions, too. don't keep hammering away at problems, trying to figure out alternate angles, when the time has run out; instead, analyze your approaches, find out why they didn't work out, and then study the problem with an eye to time-efficient openers that will allow you to complete similar problems more quickly the next time.
in order to complete quant questions within two minutes on average, you will have to get very god at flitting back and forth between one solution method and another. in particular, if your efforts at finding the "textbook method" to solve a problem are failing, you should IMMEDIATELY BAIL from the search, and consider alternate approaches (such as number plugging, estimation, and process of elimination). it is this sort of flexibility, along with knowledge of the actual content, that will allow you to step your gmat game up to the next level; students with imperfect knowledge of content but perfect tight time management regularly outscore students with flawless content knowledge but imperfect time management and/or a stubborn refusal to LET GO of problems that prove impregnable.
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on the VERBAL section, you should adjust your timing strategy to fit the different types of questions. here are some approximate suggestions:
SC: 0:45-1:30, based on the length of the original and the choices. you should only be in the 1:30 range if the sentence itself AND the answer choices are almost paragraph-length.
CR: 1:30-3:00. the low end is for passages that consist of a single statement followed by a conclusion; the high end is for long-winded passages on which you're asked to elucidate structure and/or long-winded answer choices that are supposed to mimic arguments, etc.
RC: 3 minutes to read short passages, 4 minutes to read long passages, 0:30-0:45 to answer questions about main idea and tone, 1:15-1:30 to answer questions about specific details in the passage.
if english is not your first language, then you should adjust the verbal section a bit so that you can have more time for sentence correction. this means that, ironically, you'll have slightly less time for the parts requiring you to read things - but second-language difficulties normally have a much bigger impact on SC than on the other two verbal sections.
Ron has been teaching various standardized tests for 20 years.
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Yves Saint-Laurent
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