priyanka nath wrote:
HI all!
Solving GMAT CLUB TIMED questions is making me nervous and I end up staring the question and hence more time is wasted in understanding,thinking about a strategy and when i start solving it its already past 2 mins.
however when i redo the question without the timer, i get it correct as i had known the concept but the timer made me nervous.
Eventually GMAT is a timed test so how to go about it,how many non timed questions should I solve so that i don't get nervous while solving times questions.
THANX
Good question,
priyanka nath. I am an advocate of building understanding first, then integrating the timer later. If you spend quality time studying what makes
incorrect answers miss the mark, particularly in the Verbal portion of the exam, then you will grow more confident in tackling those types of answer choices, and you will start to see the timer in a different way when you reintegrate it. When I go through a set of, say, ten questions, I may spend three or four minutes on a single question if I feel I need to dedicate such time to sorting out two subtle answers, but what I look for at the end of the set is my total time spent. If I average a decent enough time on a per-question basis, then I just tell myself it was no big deal to stick with one or two questions for a longer period. Maybe by doing so, I am setting myself up for success on the next question that may be similar.
I can speak from experience that taking the time to understand where you may go awry pays dividends down the road. I used to be relatively poor at CR questions, and, as typically happens in such a case, I would tend to take longer puzzling through the answer choices. Now, however, I look forward to CR questions and can often answer them in under a minute and a half, confident of my selection. If you take on enough questions from a comprehension-building approach, you will develop useful insights and techniques that will become second nature. That number (of X questions) differs for each person, depending on particular strengths or weaknesses. Just keep your head down and work on figuring out what makes those questions and answer choices tick. And if you have any questions about anything, just reach out on the forum. The community is here to help you succeed.
Good luck with your studies.
- Andrew
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