Can't finish the Quant Section (Taking too much time) ADVISE NEEDED.

Search for a topic timing strategies on the gmat and stop taking a long time to solve the questions.

Saying that you can solve every question but need extra time does not really mean much. Your goal is to answer as many questions correctly as you can, not to answer every question correctly until you’re out of time. Running out of time is a bad idea most of the time.

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Hi Sailormarine,

I’m glad you reached out, and I’m happy to help. Timing on the GMAT, as in life, improves as your knowledge, understanding, and skills improve. Timing does not improve simply by “trying to go faster.” In fact, when people try to force speed before they’re ready to go faster, they tend to end up making a significant number of preventable mistakes. Sometimes these mistakes badly erode people’s test scores. In addition, when people rush learning -- a common pathology of those trying to force speed -- they actually never end up developing the speed they seek. One of the great paradoxes of learning is that to develop speed, a student must slow down to ensure that he or she masters the material. Consider the following examples, which hopefully will bring you some more clarity:

Imagine your goal were to run a mile in four minutes, a difficult feat even for professional athletes. So, you get yourself a running coach. You show up on the field and ask, “Coach, how do I get faster?” The coach responds, “Well, just run faster.” So, you try your best to “run faster,” but you can't; you’re running a 12-minute mile. Out of breath, you come back to the coach and say, “Coach, I stink. How do I get faster?” Again, he says, “Just run faster.” So, you try again, but this time you fall and skin your knees. You keep trying to run faster. On the tenth attempt, you pull your hamstring, falling to the ground in pain. Over your next four months of recovery, you ponder why you couldn't run faster.

That situation would be insane, right? No qualified running coach would ever provide you with that advice, because the coach would understand that no one gets faster merely by trying to run faster. Instead, the coach would set you up on a linear, comprehensive plan to make you a BETTER runner. He may have you run progressively longer distances at relatively slow speeds. He may have you run up and down the stairs at the football stadium. He may have you run up and down hills. He even may have you engage in strength training, yoga, or Pilates to make you a more fit athlete. After all of that training, he finally would bring you back on the field and time you running the mile. At that point, he’d coach you on how to push yourself through the pain of sprinting and help you to understand what a four-minute-mile pace feels like. He now could help you with those things because you would be in the necessary shape to be receptive to them. So, you begin your run, and BOOM! You run a 6-minute mile. What happened? Well, you became a better runner. You became a fitter athlete. You became stronger. Although you’re not yet at the four-minute-mile mark, your training has yielded considerable improvements.

Now imagine your goal were to play a complicated song on the piano. The tempo at which a pianist plays greatly impacts the way a song sounds. To make songs sound the way they should, often a pianist must play at a fast pace. But your experience with the piano is limited. Can you imagine trying to play the complicated song at full speed right at the outset? Doing so wouldn't be possible. Instead, you first need to master many aspects of the piano -- without really trying to get faster. In fact, you need to proceed slowly at first, sometimes very slowly. As you master the piano, you find that you’re able to play your song at progressively faster tempos. With time and dedicated, proper practice, you’re able to recreate the sound you seek. If in the early days of practicing you had tried to force speed instead of mastering your technique, you never would have become truly accomplished at playing the song.

The process of getting faster at solving GMAT questions is quite analogous to the process of improving one’s running speed or ability to play the piano at the proper tempo! To get faster, you must get better. As you further develop your GMAT skills, you will get faster at a) recognizing what a problem is asking and b) executing the necessary steps to quickly attack the problem.

The key takeaway is that once your GMAT knowledge improves, better timing will follow. In fact, a great way to know how well you have mastered a particular topic is to be cognizant of your reaction time when seeing a particular question. For example, consider the following simple question with which many students who are beginning their prep struggle:

14! is equal to which of the following?

(A) 87,178,291,200
(B) 88,180,293,207
(C) 89,181,294,209
(D) 90,000,000,003
(E) 91,114,114,114

Upon seeing this question, what is the first thing that comes to mind? Grabbing a calculator to add up the values in the expression? Or are you able to quickly recognize that using the “5 x 2 pair rule” will allow you to efficiently attack the problem? (See the solution below.)

Solution:

14! = 14 × 13 × 12 × 11 × 10 × 9 × 8 × 7 × 6 × 5 × 4 × 3 × 2 × 1.

Notice that there is at least one (5 × 2) pair contained in the product of these numbers. It follows that the units digit must be a zero. The only number with zero as the units digit is 87,178,291,200.

Answer: A

Although this is just one example of many, you see that you must have many tools in your toolbox to efficiently attack each GMAT quant question that comes your way. As you gain these skills, you will get faster.

Lastly, you may find it helpful to read this article about How to Get Faster at Solving GMAT Questions

Hi sailormarine,

Many Test Takers face pacing issues in the Quant section, the Verbal section or both - so you're not alone. However, it's important to remember that pacing problems do NOT exist on their own - they're the results of OTHER problems. Most GMAT questions can be approached in more than one way - and it's possible that "your way" is the "long way"; by extension, to fix this issue, you'll need to learn and practice other approaches (and/or make some fundamental changes to how you take notes and organize your work).

Before I can offer you any additional advice for your studies, it would help if you could provide a bit more information on how you've been studying and your goals:

Studies:
1) How many hours do you typically study each week?
2) What study materials have you used so far?
3) On what dates did you take EACH of your CATs/mocks and how did you score on EACH (including the Quant and Verbal Scaled Scores for EACH)?

Goals:
4) What is your goal score?
5) When are you planning to take the GMAT?
6) When are you planning to apply to Business School?
7) What Schools are you planning to apply to?

GMAT assassins aren't born, they're made,
Rich

sailormarine
Thanks or posting the topic. I resonate the same problem as you are facing. Have been preparing for six months now and see a little improvement which is of no use.

Though personally i have observed what helps me but it might be helpful or you.
One way to improve is to solve as many type of questions as possible. Also, I noticed that if i sit for a test after a while, normally i am left short for more time and if i give another test within 2-3 days to that test i get better. So all n all it seems a break n tests hampers my momentum.

On the contrary i must say that the more frequently i give tests the more the fatigue. Hence a balance is a must or mind relaxation.

Hi Scott,

Thankyou so much for a detailed reply and trust me it helps! I could relate to what is going wrong with my strategy. Your analogies are as amazing as they could get. I did manage to recognize the 5*2 pair and could eventually solve the question but I feel I struggle with some topics where I need to brush up my skills. This post will definitely help me and several others.

Thanks,
Sailormarine

EMPOWERgmatRichC

Hi Rich,

Hope you're doing well. kindly find the requested replies.

Studies:
1) How many hours do you typically study each week? - 4-5 hours per day
2) What study materials have you used so far? OG and Classroom Lectures along with questions on GMAT Club
3) On what dates did you take EACH of your CATs/mocks and how did you score on EACH (including the Quant and Verbal Scaled Scores for EACH)? I can finish the verbal section and get 20ish correct out of 36 but on Quant I am 60-65% done and run out of time. These tests are on Jamboree Portal which are not adaptive

Goals:
4) What is your goal score? 680-710
5) When are you planning to take the GMAT? I have booked the test for 28th Sep
6) When are you planning to apply to Business School? I'm planning to apply to R1 which starts in Nov this year. I can't afford to lose another year.
7) What Schools are you planning to apply to? Canadian and Singaporean Schools (McGill, Schulich, NUS, NTU etc)

I'm sorry I couldn't add the attachments/links since GMATClub doesn't allow new users to post the same until 5 posts are submitted. Anyway, thankyou for your suggestions. I will check videos of GMATQuantum.
Thanks!

Hi sailormarine,

To properly define what you need to work on, we need an accurate assessment of your current skills, strengths and weaknesses - measured under realistic conditions that will match up with what you will face when you take the Official GMAT.

From your last post, it's not clear whether you have taken any FULL-LENGTH CATs or not. If you have not taken any yet, then you really should take one soon (perhaps this weekend) and make sure to make it as realistic as possible (so take the FULL CAT - with the Essay and IR sections, take it away from your home, at the same time of day as when you think you'll take the Official GMAT, etc.). Any of the Official CATs or the CATs from Kaplan, MGMAT or Veritas would be fine. Once you have that Score, you should post back here and we can discuss the results and how best to proceed.

GMAT assassins aren't born, they're made,
Rich

Glad I could help!