Verbal timing strategy .. 41 questions .. 75 minutes.

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aru4912: Newbie | Next Rank: 10 Posts; Posts: 7; Joined: Thu Jul 27, 2006 10:56 am

Verbal timing strategy .. 41 questions .. 75 minutes.

by aru4912 » Sun Sep 07, 2008 1:53 pm

Folks,
I am staring this thread to arrive at the best possible timing strategy for the verbal section. 41 questions .. 75 minutes. Below is the strategy that I have been using for a while but wanted to learn better time management capabilities for the V section.

1st 16 questions - > 30 min.
Next 14 questions -> 27 min.
Last 11 questions - > 18 min.

I somehow manage the time for the 1st 16 Qs but unable to manage for the next 14qs and hence the last 11.

Any advice would help folks.

Thanks.

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Source: Beat The GMAT — Verbal Reasoning | Sun Sep 07, 2008 1:53 pm

mlane25269: Master | Next Rank: 500 Posts; Posts: 151; Joined: Fri Jun 13, 2008 7:31 am; Thanked: 1 times

by mlane25269 » Mon Sep 08, 2008 7:49 am

Hi aru4912,

Reading Comprehension is always the most time-consuming part of the GMAT verbal section. If you can improve your reading speed you might be able to better manage your time you spend on this section.

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aru4912: Newbie | Next Rank: 10 Posts; Posts: 7; Joined: Thu Jul 27, 2006 10:56 am

by aru4912 » Mon Sep 08, 2008 1:03 pm

mlane25269 wrote:Hi aru4912,

Reading Comprehension is always the most time-consuming part of the GMAT verbal section. If you can improve your reading speed you might be able to better manage your time you spend on this section.

Thanks for your views mlane25269. I am infact working on RC speed .. min 3. minutes per passage and 1 min. / question. I spend approx. 2min/Q for RC.

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emrahercan: Senior | Next Rank: 100 Posts; Posts: 92; Joined: Wed Jun 11, 2008 2:24 pm; Location: Fresno, CA; Thanked: 3 times

by emrahercan » Mon Sep 08, 2008 7:46 pm

I was reading one of debriefs and learned this great technique:

On the verbal section, I put these numbers of my paper:

5 67
10 58
15 49
20 40
25 31
30 22
35 13
40 4

However - CAT is like a war game. The better you get, the tougher GMAT gets..as a result: It takes more time to solve the questions

GOOD NEWS: This is not a linear test. You still can miss 25 % of the questions ( if they are 650-750 Questions ) and get a perfect score.

BAD NEWS: Verbal section is the last 75 minutes of this marathon. And especially to the end...you feel more uncomfortable and you start to loose your focus and even worse than these two..you start to panic. ( Not to mention that you start to think of your final score ) It takes time to have a good stamina and stay focused.

I also put L for the Long RC and S for the short RC passages on my paper so I keep track of how many I had and how many I will have more. This will affect your timing strategy. If ytu get two RC back to back and you are in the 15th question and when you look at your chart you see:

15 49

and the actual time is 45..there is no need to panic. You spent time on RC and you will get back to your ideal pacing with CR and SC.

I also believe that SC are like time donors. If you know your grammar and solve them under 60 seconds...14 SC questions will give you around 7 EXTRA minutes to buy more RC and CR time.

Well this is my verbal timing strategy in a nut shell. Hope it gives you an idea. And if you have some strategies, I will be happy to learn!

Best!

GMAT DELIGHT

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aru4912: Newbie | Next Rank: 10 Posts; Posts: 7; Joined: Thu Jul 27, 2006 10:56 am

by aru4912 » Mon Sep 08, 2008 8:10 pm

emrahercan wrote:I was reading one of debriefs and learned this great technique:

On the verbal section, I put these numbers of my paper:

5 67
10 58
15 49
20 40
25 31
30 22
35 13
40 4

However - CAT is like a war game. The better you get, the tougher GMAT gets..as a result: It takes more time to solve the questions

GOOD NEWS: This is not a linear test. You still can miss 25 % of the questions ( if they are 650-750 Questions ) and get a perfect score.

BAD NEWS: Verbal section is the last 75 minutes of this marathon. And especially to the end...you feel more uncomfortable and you start to loose your focus and even worse than these two..you start to panic. ( Not to mention that you start to think of your final score ) It takes time to have a good stamina and stay focused.

I also put L for the Long RC and S for the short RC passages on my paper so I keep track of how many I had and how many I will have more. This will affect your timing strategy. If ytu get two RC back to back and you are in the 15th question and when you look at your chart you see:

15 49

and the actual time is 45..there is no need to panic. You spent time on RC and you will get back to your ideal pacing with CR and SC.

I also believe that SC are like time donors. If you know your grammar and solve them under 60 seconds...14 SC questions will give you around 7 EXTRA minutes to buy more RC and CR time.

Well this is my verbal timing strategy in a nut shell. Hope it gives you an idea. And if you have some strategies, I will be happy to learn!

Best!

Thanks for sharing your strategy and your thoughts emrahercan. You are absolutely right - today I took a GMAT prep and got 3 RCs in the 1st 20 questions .. I unnecessarily panicked and scored just 34 in V (I marked couple of CRs incorrect as they were OG11 repeats). But still I could have done better today -- I had 10 min.s for the last 4 questions which is a lott of time by my terms ..

And I have just followed the strategy that I have put in my original post .. but I had these timings only in my mind ... now will try to use put these into the paper and see .. God bless us !!

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nittinj: Senior | Next Rank: 100 Posts; Posts: 62; Joined: Fri Aug 15, 2008 11:10 am; Thanked: 2 times

by nittinj » Mon Sep 29, 2008 7:10 pm

Great technique frns....but As everyone says work on weakness...however i feel tht breaking the 41 questions in several small pieces for reassessing ur strategy itself will consume ur time and will affect ur concentration

i feel breaking in 4 parts is sufficient (my personal opinion and startegy)

5 - 67 mins ( less thn 2 mins/que as first 2-3 will be of medium difficulty)
15 - 48 mins (as u answer correctly difficulty increases)
25- 28 mins (again 2 mi/ques)
35 - 10 mins ( keep 10 minutes for last 6 questions, coz i feel randomly guessing 40th n 41st wont make significant difference)

rgds