Timing Strategies on the GMAT

I have my gmat exam tomm and still can't complete the verbal on time,what to do......................

My biggest problem are long CR questions and some RC. They eat up significant amount of time just to read and understand what the question is actually asking.

yes, I feel the same. For sentence that has the whole thing underlined in CR is hard. I need to work on my recognition skills.

BB,

I just sent you a note about this! Thanks for explaining the strategy! I think this is an excellent idea. I keep comiing up short on my timing during my practice tests, I ususally 5-6 quanitiative questions left to guess on. Any tips on getting faster so I don't have to keep guessing? I have been practicing. Not sure how many problems to do a day? I take the test again on Jan. 15th. Thanks!
CCCMom

Hello cccmom,

The issue you describe below it quite common. Most likely, the underlying problem is too much time per problem (average) during the quant section.

There is no problems per day solution here. Revisit the test and determine what topics in quant (graphs, geo. algebra, trig, etc) are killing your average time per problem. Figure out why you spend more time on those problems when compared with different problem types.

Blindly doing problems may help, but it's apparent you have an issue with the average of 2 mins/problem. Targeting the specific issue will yield better results.

Best of luck,

With some more practice, I am able to be closer to 2min per question for most of the question. There are just some questions I am not able to get any idea within the 2 mins that I just had to skip. I just have to review those questions after the practice test session.

Also, this is great. I always try to follow this frame when I do practice test.

Willbase,
That is a great idea! It will give me some indicator of where I should be. Thanks for sharing!

bb, thank you!

I've almost finished MGMAT SC & PowerScore CR. Recently I had a practice with 1'45'' as up limit for each question. I did it really poor on score though I can do it much much better when I'm under no time pressure. I was trying to thinking why this happened and how should I improve this. This post thrown lights on me right on time! I wasn't re-phrasing the answers to SC nor CR. This is the critical point to score high pointed out in both MGMAT SC & PowerScore CR. It is not easy to do so for me currently, but I know I will. I must do more practice!

Kudos!

Hello friends

I am thinking about a strategy to score something in the middle 30s on verbal.
I guess the most time consuming in this section for me is RC, so I am thinking about this strategy:

RC --> read fast just to pick up the main idea, conclusion and author's tone
SC & CR --> the same as described in BB's post (although I am spending about 1,5min in SC, I know I should speed it up)

(by doing this, on one hand I would be certain of about half of the RC questions. On the other hand I would have more time to think about the other questions)

From your experience, do you think this is a good approach regarding my objective?

I plan to take the test on January 21-30, somewhere in between those days. I plan to register for a day that has a test time at 2 or 2:30pm since I am not a morning person and I tend to study during the day. This is a retake from a 590 that I made on a previous attempt. I have been reading CR, SC, and Word Translation books and practicing the GMAT Club Tests, along with the Official Guides, since October or so. I took a practice test a few days ago, but never finished it... I got a 44 in Math though. I missed about the last 8 questions in Math because I felt rushed... even though I knew I had about 2 minutes left for each question at about the 20 minute mark. It seems that when I feel panic about time then I seem to not read the question carefully. I think I had 3 questions left at the last 5 minutes, which definitely made me panic. I never finished the Verbal portion, though. I'd like to get any critique on how I could prepare for timing so I can be more confident when I take this test. Also, I've been reading the Great Gatsby in order to concentrate better in the RC section.

I think the best strategy in your case is to focus on taking full length tests and get comfortable working under a clock - it takes a while to get used to.

How do you think the best way for me to focus on this would be? I was thinking about taking one full length test a day until the day of just so I can get used to the timing of the test.

Yep. I would guess 5 more full length tests should do the trick and get you pretty comfortable with timing. Take one question at a time (don't worry about what you did or will have to do) and focus on it for a few mins - read it a few times if you have to. Also try experimenting or one time you may want to turn off the clock and see how you do and how far you get without timing - a lot of things to do a try

How effective do you think the GMAT Club Tests would be with practicing my timing? Currently, I've been attempting each problem within 2 minutes, then going back and learning my mistake, one problem at a time. Do you think it would be just as effective to practice each Quant set within the allotted time or practice with other GMAT Practice Tests? I just don't want to use a good practice test until the near end.

You probably want to use full length tests for timing purposes. Nothing wrong with using GMAT Club Tests, but I think a full length test with AWA works better

Amazing post!

thanks a lot!

Great Post, thanks for the advice!!!!!