On Bookmarking Early

Question

In GMAT Focus, can I bookmark within the first 5 questions? Since the GMAT FE is adaptive, if I bookmark Questions 2 and 4 by clicking a "wrong" answer and return after Question 21 to change them to "correct," won't my intentional wrong choices negatively affect the difficulty/grading of Questions 3, 5, 6, and 7?

ParamjitDasGMAT · Answer

A very good question! I have touched upon this issue in my own debrief recently as well. The short answer (based on multiple ESR analyses of my students) is that if you manage to get everything correct on review, the algorithm seems to give you the full 90 marks.

The “adjustment” is made when you get something incorrect despite using the Review feature. In such a case, the algorithm could give you a score as low as, say Q80-83 for getting just 1 incorrect in Quant (because if you got initial couple of questions incorrect, either deliberately or otherwise, you probably wouldn’t have seen  any difficult questions in that section). There are a few ESRs not too dissimilar to this.

In general, I always advise against gambling this way and wondering about any possible low sectional scores during the test - this will almost certainly impact your performance in the other sections. The aim should be to try getting everything correct and avoid having to rely on the review feature as much as possible.

AjiteshArun · Answer

Hi Ram26,

To add to Param's post, you can bookmark any question and as many questions as you want (but you can make only 3 changes at most). But yes, I don't recommend using it unless you're under time pressure or not sure about your answer.

hr1212 · Answer

My view is that if a question feels unusually difficult and, after about a minute, you sense it could take more than two minutes to solve, it is often better to mark it for review and move on. That is usually the smarter play unless you can clearly see a quick path to the answer. The GMAT algorithm can sometimes throw a very tough question early in the section, and if you overspend time there, you may end up rushing or guessing later questions, which can hurt your score more.

This is not something to do randomly or on every tough question. It is a judgment call you make when you feel the clock starting to slip and need to think about the best return on your time. If time allows, quickly read and assess the question, then decide whether it is worth solving right away or better to guess and return later if you have time. The goal is to stay in control of your pacing rather than letting one tough question dictate the rest of your section.

bb · Answer

I think it is worth approaching the test one question at a time and only go back to a particular question if you have time left at the end. Probably not the best thing to be tricky based on what we know about the algorithm.

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