Skipping questions in Verbal.

Question

I wanted to know is wise to skip questions in Verbal if they are taking too long to solve or are difficult.
As I am not able to solve 36 questions in 62 minutes. I barely make it to Question no.25 or 24.Also I manage to score V32 with my current method of trying to solve all questions without skipping. 
So would I have better score if I try to attempt more questions by skipping or quickly solving the more difficult questions.

GmatKnightTutor · Answer

This may sound a bit weird, but skipping questions is a technique to BOOST your performance not MAKE your performance. A score in the lower V30s may mean there are still some fundamental knowledge gaps.

If speed is an issue, one thing that may help is to regularly read articles from The Economist.

If speed is an issue, one thing that may help is to regularly read articles from The Economist.

bb · Answer

TRY

I would agree with the GmatTutorKnight that it is not a great situation to be in but why don't you try with a test and skip the questions and see how it works out for you. I can tell you though that it is not an indicator of anything good if you have to skip that many and basically can only go through only 2/3 of the questions in the allocated time. You need to get faster. See what you can speed up. I sped up my CR and SC's. I did all I could for RC but it was a time hog, so instead of skipping RC's, I sped up SC's and CRs.

RetaketheGMAT · Answer

Hi GMATisKing

You're definitely on the right track in focusing on process improvements to improve your verbal score.

But before you focus heavily on skipping lots of questions, you need to take a hard look at why you're falling behind in the verbal section.

I can guarantee that critical process improvements in SC and CR will improve your timing significantly.

If you want to understand your current process / in-test strategy shortcomings, we offer a FREE 90 minute Readiness Assessment that focuses precisely on that. You'll understand how much you can improve by better process and that will lower the bar in terms of how much you need do core verbal studying of things like grammar rules, logic training etc.

Let me know if you're interested. We'd love to help.

MartyTargetTestPrep · Answer

You could give skipping a shot, but don't skip randomly to keep up with the clock because, if you do, you may skip easy questions and thus take a score hit. So, guess on only questions that you are having trouble with.

That said, as bb and Arvind indicated, the best way to finish the verbal section on time is to have verbal skills such that you readily answer questions in the time allotted.

For some ideas on how to develop stronger GMAT verbal skills, see this post.  How to Score High on GMAT Verbal

Gmatisking · Answer

GmatTutorKnight   bb   RetaketheGMAT   MartyTargetTestPrep  
Thanks a lot for all the advice.

Just a quick update - Gave another mock in much more calm and composed manner and got a V38.
Attempted upto 30 questions without skipping any question.

Any tips on how to get the v 41 score?
Should i try to attemo all 36 questions or focus as much as possible on the 30/32 questions?

bb · Answer

This is useless. Your description of attempted upto 30 questions is vague and imprecise. This is the reason your verbal stinks - no attention to detail. 
If you want a high score, you have to be methodical, precise, and driven.

Gmatisking · Answer

Okay sorry.
What I meant is - I panicked a lot while giving the mock last week. I could barely focus on applying all the strategies that I have learned. 
I realized I was blindly trying to solve questions by using logic and the time pressure wasn't helping.
So I gave some only Verbal mocks to calm down my nerves and focus on applying strategy. And it did pay off. 
I managed to solve Questions in a much more time efficient manner and got a v38 and Q48 (700) on the official mocks. 
I solved 30 questions in Verbal comfortably. I felt a lot more confident giving this mock as I knew the mistakes I made last time.

So my question is what next? How do I achieve the v 41 score? 
Do you'll still think skipping difficult questions that are too time time consuming and focusing on solving all 36 Verbal questions is more important?
Also some additional info I started off with a score 480(q38, v19) score in 2019. And in my last mock I scored a 680(Q49, v32).
And got a 700 in my latest mock(Q48, v38).

MartyTargetTestPrep · Answer

You have made some nice progress by going from V19 to V38.

You could try guessing on the hardest verbal questions rather than answering the first 30 and guessing on the last 6. That approach might get you to V41 if you get all the questions you don't guess on correct.

At the same time, a better move would be to work on your verbal skills as discussed in the blog post I mentioned in my previous response. With more skill will come greater speed and a higher score.

GMATWhizTeam · Answer

Hi Gmatisking,

Skipping questions in the initial quarters might not be a good idea as GMAT is an adaptive test and getting a string of questions wrong in the initial quarters might affect your overall score. The right thing to do is to focus more on the questions in the initial quarters, make the algorithm serve you with difficult questions. This way, you will have a decent score.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f9dZN-MHK0I

Having said that, if you are running out of time, it probably means that you are not using the best strategy to solve the questions. GMAT is a time constrained test and the average time for a question is 2 minutes. This means, you need to use the best possible strategies to solve the questions.

So, I suggest you to analyze your approach of solving the questions. You can do this by analyzing the solutions of the questions. But before you do this, make sure that you are comfortable with the concepts of all the topics. I can help you in a much better way, if you can provide me a few more details such as:

your weak areas in Verbal 
 your current study strategy 
 your approach of solving questions for each module 
 the resources you are using right now

You can write back to me here or a better way is to get in touch over a call and discuss the same. You can use the link below to get in touch with me.

Click here to schedule a call

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