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Stratergy for tough questions

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by vijshinde29 » Tue Mar 24, 2009 12:15 pm
Hi,

I have general stratergy question for all GMAT expert.

what's the best stratergy when you encounter tough questions on the test?

In my practice test,I lost signifanct time when I try to solve tough questions.So is it best approach to solve it say within 2-3 mts and guess if you can't solve within certain time ?

Any advice will be helpful I am taking my test on March 31.

Vijay
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by vijshinde29 » Tue Mar 24, 2009 12:51 pm
Stacy, Do you have any comments on my post?
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by VP_Jim » Tue Mar 24, 2009 3:52 pm
The strategy you described above is the one I recommend to most students. Usually, if you're going to get a problem right, you have a feeling from the very beginning that "I know how to do this." If you don't get that feeling from the outset or after a little trial and error, you're probably just going to end up guessing on that question, anyway, so it's better to guess now rather than three minutes from now!

I recommend a cut-off of somewhere between 2 and 3 minutes if you still have no idea how to do the problem. Obviously, if you're at 3 minutes but know you're about to get the right answer, stick with it the extra 30 seconds; but if you're still clueless, just guess, forget about it, and keep moving.
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by Bara » Tue Mar 24, 2009 6:52 pm
What I'd add at this point is by the time you take the test, you should be aware of your strengths and weaknesses well enough to know what you're able to accomplish. As Jim said, you should 'know' you're able to answer the question, even if you might feel a little put off at first.

We also subscribe to the time to answer questions with the 'chunking' method: instead of thinking about the timing of each question, figure out how many questions you're hoping to answer in 25-minute blocks, leaving the final questions for guessing, if need be.

Remember the most difficult questions are stacked with a lot of rules and are somewhat 'hybrid.' If they take more than the 2 - 3 minutes, that is fine: you should have done a bunch of the earlier questions in less time so by the time you get up to the later questions, you'd have some extra time saved up. Just be sure to put an answer down for all the questions.

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by Bara » Tue Mar 24, 2009 6:52 pm
What I'd add at this point is by the time you take the test, you should be aware of your strengths and weaknesses well enough to know what you're able to accomplish. As Jim said, you should 'know' you're able to answer the question, even if you might feel a little put off at first.

We also subscribe to the time to answer questions with the 'chunking' method: instead of thinking about the timing of each question, figure out how many questions you're hoping to answer in 25-minute blocks, leaving the final questions for guessing, if need be.

Remember the most difficult questions are stacked with a lot of rules and are somewhat 'hybrid.' If they take more than the 2 - 3 minutes, that is fine: you should have done a bunch of the earlier questions in less time so by the time you get up to the later questions, you'd have some extra time saved up. Just be sure to put an answer down for all the questions.

Good Luck!
Bara Sapir, MA, CHt, CNLP
Founder/CEO City Test Prep
Maximize your Score, Minimize your Stress!
GMAT Badass and Test Anxiety Relief Expert
SPEEDREADING: https://citytestprep.com/mindflow-workshops/
ANXIETY RELIEF: https://citytestprep.com/mindfulness-therapy/
BOOK: https://tinyurl.com/TPNYSC
TV: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=McA4aqCNS-c
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Re: Stratergy for tough questions

by pJackson79 » Thu Mar 26, 2009 12:01 am
vijshinde29 wrote:Hi,

I have general stratergy question for all GMAT expert.

what's the best stratergy when you encounter tough questions on the test?

In my practice test,I lost signifanct time when I try to solve tough questions.So is it best approach to solve it say within 2-3 mts and guess if you can't solve within certain time ?

Any advice will be helpful I am taking my test on March 31.

Vijay

For what it is worth, I thought I would share a strategy a friend of mine had. He preceded that he would give up quickly and guess on 3 math problems if he worked on them for about 30 seconds and knew he was getting nowhere. On the test, he did this--threw away 4 math questions--and got a 760 (his verbal was 99%, so that helped). I have a tendency to never give up on a problem and it really causes a lot of problems in my time management.
Last edited by pJackson79 on Tue Mar 31, 2009 4:22 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: Stratergy for tough questions

by VP_Jim » Thu Mar 26, 2009 7:14 am
I agree with this strategy, too. I've had students do this with good results. If you're going to end up running out time, you might as well choose the questions you guess on rather than make them the last few questions by default. Don't do it for more than 3 or 4 questions, and don't make them all in a row, and doing this will probably help you more than it would hurt you if you usually run out of time on quant.
pJackson79 wrote:
vijshinde29 wrote:Hi,

I have general stratergy question for all GMAT expert.

what's the best stratergy when you encounter tough questions on the test?

In my practice test,I lost signifanct time when I try to solve tough questions.So is it best approach to solve it say within 2-3 mts and guess if you can't solve within certain time ?

Any advice will be helpful I am taking my test on March 31.

Vijay

For what it is worth, I thought I would share a strategy a friend of mine had. He preceded that he would give up quickly and guess on 3 math problems if he worked on them for about 30 seconds and knew he was getting nowhere. On the test, he did this--threw away 4 math questions--and got a 760 (his verbal was 99%, so that helped). I have a tendency to never give up on a problem and it really causes a lot of problems in my time management.
Jim S. | GMAT Instructor | Veritas Prep
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