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Princeton Review Pacing Recommendation

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Manbehindthecurtain
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Princeton Review Pacing Recommendation [#permalink] New post   01 Feb 2008, 11:44
To try to improve my quant score (39), I went out and bought a PR GMAT book for the quant section. Apparently, they recommend a focus on time in the beginning with up to 3 minutes per question with a very high accuracy goal, and then subsequently decreased time and lower accuracy goals in the later questions.

My Kaplan class never really addressed this, and I have seen more posts that claim the GMAT is accurate even at the end of the test in adjusting your overall score, so this leads me to two questions.

1) Have you had success with the above mentioned PR strategy?
2) Does the GMAT tend to change your score less in the later portions of the test, do you think it can can accurately adjust even through the end?
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eschn3am
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Re: Princeton Review Pacing Recommendation [#permalink] New post   01 Feb 2008, 11:49
The theory is that the first 10 questions make bigger swings in your test score than any other questions. The good folks over at GMAC maintain that you can't "trick" the test by doing better on the first 10 than you normally would because over the course of the 37 questions your true ability will be revealed.

Personally, I don't buy into any of these "strategies". I think you should do the best you can on each and every question. There's no point screwing yourself over by blowing 30 minutes on the first 10 questions.
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Re: Princeton Review Pacing Recommendation [#permalink] New post   02 Feb 2008, 07:38
I agree with eschn3am. The strategy of spending more time on first 10 questions will "trick" GMAC into giving you a higher score. Having said that I did make a conscious effort to double check first couple of questions in the exams. Not because they ware tough or more important than later question. I personally have trouble answering first two to three questions. Maybe nervousness or excitement. So usually take couple of minutes to cool down and focus. Practice on CAT's and find what best works for you.
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Re: Princeton Review Pacing Recommendation [#permalink] New post   03 Feb 2008, 19:42
I agree the only way you benefit from this strategy is this should be the easiest 10 questions on the test so double checking to make sure you get the easy ones right isn't a bad strategy but 3 mins is way to much for each of the first 10.

As for the Pacing method I'm not sure what it says in your book but I have the PR Manual for the Gmat (this is the book they teach the classroom course out of)

Here is the break down

1-10 11-20 21-30 31-37
Under 35 30 25 15 5
35-42 30 20 15 10
42+ 25 20 20 10


I personally don't use a strict pacing method but I try to check my time to make sure I'm not getting to far outside of these numbers. I still believe you need to do problems as fast as you can mistake free, the real trick to pacing is practice, practice, practice! Full length CAT exams will help you get this down before game day.
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Re: Princeton Review Pacing Recommendation [#permalink]
03 Feb 2008, 19:42
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