question for the profesionals.

[resilient]

I have been studying for a while now and thought to take a www.kaptest. kaplan practice exam. First score was a 340 diagnostic with absolutely no studying. (cold walk in exam) AFter 4 months of studying I have a much greater grasp on all aspects and am much more comfortable. Hence I scored a 480. I then studied even more and fixed all recognized small problems and
errors. I now scored a 380 for some reason. I knew almost all information. However, my major problem is being slow. I had to guess and randomly pick d for all remaining 18 answers (interestingly common number) on both verbal and math. In fact i didnt even have time to answer the last 3 for my verbal they were entered as "no answer". Due to my physical health and I will be under the influence of pain killers. I will be having a double time for exam. ANy words of wisdom for the well studied yet frustrated gmat student?

[beatthegmat]

Did you have the double time during your first GMAT?

[resilient]

well the this exam was the first time i attempted to do the questions under a timed situation. Also I took the exam in normal time and not double time. what do you think the best way to attack this problem is? how did you succeed. thank you for the reply!?

[beatthegmat]

well the this exam was the first time i attempted to do the questions under a timed situation. Also I took the exam in normal time and not double time. what do you think the best way to attack this problem is? how did you succeed. thank you for the reply!?

The only way to master pacing is lots of practice. I would start by timing yourself to 2 minutes per question, then later closer to 90 seconds per question (this can very depending on sections).

The way that I mastered pacing was doing practice problem sets with OG and keeping a timer by my side. I would reset the timer whenever I started a new problem, until I was able to go through an entire set of 40 questions with a 90-second pace.

You can read more about how I approached this pacing by reading my GMAT blog, https://beatthegmat.blocked, and reading through the resource wiki, https://www.beatthegmat.com/wiki/

Good luck!

[resilient]

thank you so muc. should i still time myself weven though i am not totaly perfect on getting through the og books on untimed? thank you for your help

[Stacey Koprince]

Agree, definitely time yourself on every problem - but remember that that is not all of the time you will spend studying it. That's just the first 2 minutes you look at it. During that first 2 minutes, pretend it's the test and try to react in the way you'll have to on test day, but then you might spend another 5-15 minutes going over it afterwards.

Have you already gone through the process to get approved for extended time? It takes a long time and they are very strict - so, if you haven't, do two things: (1) start the paperwork right away and (2) study as though you won't get approved for extra time until you know for sure that you do get approved.

As far as taking practice tests double time, you can actually do that with our tests - we allow you to take it normal time or any timeframe that you want. If you buy one of our books, you also get access to the online tests or you can just buy access to the online tests alone (though that's actually more expensive than buying one book!). So that might be a good option for you to practice at the timing you will actually have on the test (again, assuming you are approved for double time).

Good luck!