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Pacing Question - Theory given to me - Please read!

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chrisgmat
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Pacing Question - Theory given to me - Please read! [#permalink] New post   22 Nov 2010, 08:27
I took a GMAT prep course recently, the professor has been doing GMAT prep for over 10 years. He has this theory that to take your time doing each question if you think you will get it correct. That accuracy is much more important than speed. He claims to take your time with each question with out going over board and then guess at the end.

I have a hard time believing this. But he swears by it. And says any other theory being taught is done so with out any evidence supporting what they teach because the GMAT keeps there scoring a secret.

What do you guys think? Should I take say 2.30 mins on each question and then just randomly guess at the end, or take educated guesses, if by taking the extra time I am getting most of them correct?
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lagomez
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Re: Pacing Question - Theory given to me - Please read! [#permalink] New post   22 Nov 2010, 08:42
chrisgmat wrote:
I took a GMAT prep course recently, the professor has been doing GMAT prep for over 10 years. He has this theory that to take your time doing each question if you think you will get it correct. That accuracy is much more important than speed. He claims to take your time with each question with out going over board and then guess at the end.

I have a hard time believing this. But he swears by it. And says any other theory being taught is done so with out any evidence supporting what they teach because the GMAT keeps there scoring a secret.

What do you guys think? Should I take say 2.30 mins on each question and then just randomly guess at the end, or take educated guesses, if by taking the extra time I am getting most of them correct?


It depends. There are some questions that will take less than two minutes and some that take over. It depends on your overall time relative to the point on the exam. The rule of thumb is that if you are almost 100% certain you can get the answer correct then take a little extra time but if you think you are, let's say 50-50, after 2.5 minutes then guess and move on. I don't think the strategy you mentioned goes for every person and every question. Like I said, it depends where you are on the exam and the certainty that the question could be answered. No point of just guessing if you know .45 seconds will yield a correct answer.
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chrisgmat
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Re: Pacing Question - Theory given to me - Please read! [#permalink] New post   22 Nov 2010, 08:53
But lets say on average each question is taking me a little over 2 minutes. And because of that Im not going to finish the section and end up guessing on the last 5 to 10 questions
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HopefulOldie
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Re: Pacing Question - Theory given to me - Please read! [#permalink] New post   22 Nov 2010, 08:59
My 2 cents.

I have taken a few CAT's but ONLY this time did I see a drastic improvement especially in Quant. The only difference was that I used pacing.

Thanks to Ron Purewal's Quant Map I went from 45 Q to 49 Q .

Question Number Time Left

5 65
10 55
15 45
20 35
25 25
30 15
35 5

If I was lagging behind and If I could not answer a question in 10 secs or more, I would guess and move on.

I kindda agree with your prof, but restrict the time to MAX 2.5 mins / question ( applies to Q only ). I am still not too sure about V.
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lagomez
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Re: Pacing Question - Theory given to me - Please read! [#permalink] New post   22 Nov 2010, 09:56
chrisgmat wrote:
But lets say on average each question is taking me a little over 2 minutes. And because of that Im not going to finish the section and end up guessing on the last 5 to 10 questions


I would maybe guess at 2-4 questions. 5-10 will really drop your score.
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gmatclubot
Re: Pacing Question - Theory given to me - Please read! [#permalink]
22 Nov 2010, 09:56

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