{"id":3404,"date":"2010-06-17T10:15:34","date_gmt":"2010-06-17T18:15:34","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/gmatclub.com\/blog\/?p=3404"},"modified":"2010-07-24T22:02:14","modified_gmt":"2010-07-25T06:02:14","slug":"veritas-prep-gmat-tips-gmat-pacing-the-jeff-bezos-way","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/gmatclub.com\/blog\/veritas-prep-gmat-tips-gmat-pacing-the-jeff-bezos-way\/","title":{"rendered":"Veritas Prep GMAT Tips: GMAT Pacing The Jeff Bezos Way"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignnone size-full wp-image-3405\" src=\"https:\/\/gmatclub.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2010\/06\/Veritas-New-Logo2.jpg\" alt=\"Veritas New Logo\" width=\"260\" height=\"40\" \/><\/p>\n<p>Brian Galvin is the Director of Academic Programs at Veritas Prep, where he oversees all of the company\u2019s <a href=\"https:\/\/www.veritasprep.com\/s\/gmat\/gmat-prep-course-overview\/\">GMAT preparation courses<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>What would possess someone to leave a sought-after hedge fund job at D.E. Shaw, nearly on a whim, to take a flier on e-commerce in its infant stages?\u00a0 For Amazon.com founder Jeff Bezos, it was a strategy he calls his \u201cregret-minimization framework.\u201d\u00a0 As he (quickly) analyzed his options, he knewthat he would be far more likely to regret having not taken the risk on Amazon than to regret having given up his job in search of his dream.\u00a0 With his goal to minimize his regret, Bezos struck out on his own and created one of the world\u2019s most successful businesses.<\/p>\n<p>Bezos\u2019 \u201cregret-minimization framework\u201d can also be applied to the way that you take the GMAT (after all, in your quest to go to business school why would you not want to emulate one of the business world\u2019s finest?!).\u00a0 People are often conflicted on how to pace themselves on the exam, and there is quite a bit of poor information in circulation regarding this strategy. Do you spend an extra 50% on each of the first 10 questions because \u201cthey count more\u201d? (Note: they don\u2019t, and GMAC has said so).\u00a0 Do you cut yourself off after two minutes so that you can get to every question?\u00a0 Do you guess early, hedging that the unscored, experimental questions won\u2019t be among the last 3-4 questions?\u00a0 (Note: This is actually kind of a smart bet, but far from a foolproof \u201cstrategy\u201d.)<\/p>\n<p>When pacing yourself on the GMAT \u2013 and, please, please on multiple practice tests beforehand so that you can develop an internal clock for it! \u2013 consider Bezos\u2019 regret-minimization framework as a guide.\u00a0 Ask yourself which regrets you could live with and which would drive you crazy, and you\u2019ll likely come up with the following pacing principles:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Spend the extra 5-10 seconds per question in the early going to make sure that didn\u2019t miss anything or make a silly mistake.\u00a0 You\u2019re sure to regret having an extra 5-6 minutes at the end of the test with no chance to check your work; you\u2019re less likely to regret having to guess once or twice at the end to compensate for having been careful, particularly if that extra pause helped you fix a mistake.<\/li>\n<li>If you are a little over the average pace that you should keep for that question, but can see a direct path to the correct answer if you invest another 30 seconds, do it.\u00a0 You\u2019re much more likely to regret having guessed too early if you save time on the next few questions and end up back on track knowing that you missed a question based on haste.<\/li>\n<li>That said, if you\u2019re on the verge of spending an extra minute or more than you should on a question, cut your losses and move on. You\u2019re quite likely to regret having spent so much of your allotted time for the next question on the previous one, particularly if that time loss compounds on you and begins to create speed\/carelessness errors<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>(NOTE: a good rule of thumb is to take an extra 30 seconds or so on those questions that require it, knowing that you\u2019ll probably make it up on other questions, but don\u2019t take anything more than 45-60 seconds extra on any problems\u2026you should practice to have a pretty good internal clock to let you know when it\u2019s time to make that decision)<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Take at least a handful of practice tests before you take the actual GMAT.\u00a0 You\u2019re much more likely to regret having a limited understanding of what a comfortable GMAT pace feels like than you are to regret not having taken the extra time.\u00a0 The GMAT is an important \u2013 and expensive \u2013 test, so be sure to invest the necessary time up front to have an innate feel for how to pace yourself on test day.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>As Bezos knew when he made his decision, the regret-minimization doesn\u2019t guarantee that you\u2019ll be free of regret, but it helps you make decisions that you can live with.\u00a0 Ideally, you\u2019ll be quick and accurate enough on test day that a pacing strategy does not really matter, but for most of us it pays to think about pacing ahead of time.\u00a0 Regardless of your strategy, be sure to practice it using practice tests so that you know how to react on test day; believe me, you won\u2019t regret it.<\/p>\n<p>Read more GMAT advice on the Veritas Prep <a href=\"https:\/\/blog.veritasprep.com\/\">blog<\/a>. Ready to sign up for a <a href=\"https:\/\/www.veritasprep.com\/s\/gmat\/gmat-prep-course-overview\/\">GMAT course<\/a>? Enroll through GMAT Club and save up to $180 (use discount code GMATC10)!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Brian Galvin is the Director of Academic Programs at Veritas Prep, where he oversees all of the company\u2019s GMAT preparation courses. What would possess someone to leave a sought-after hedge&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":101,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9,1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3404","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-gmat","category-uncategorized","entry"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/gmatclub.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3404","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/gmatclub.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/gmatclub.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gmatclub.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/101"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gmatclub.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3404"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/gmatclub.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3404\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3869,"href":"https:\/\/gmatclub.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3404\/revisions\/3869"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/gmatclub.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3404"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gmatclub.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3404"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gmatclub.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3404"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}