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Strategic Guessing

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BCCLSN
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Strategic Guessing [#permalink] New post   04 Jul 2015, 02:02
HI guys !

I have a question for you.

What if, during the gmat, we take note about the number of A,B,C,D, and E given and when we have to guess, since every answer has the same likelihood to be correct, we use one of the less picked answer?

Curious!

Thank you
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EMPOWERgmatRichC
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Re: Strategic Guessing [#permalink] New post   04 Jul 2015, 18:38
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Hi BCCLSN,

Keeping a 'running tab' of that information would NOT be a practical use of your time on Test Day. In situations in which you choose to 'guess', you should do your best to eliminate the answers that don't make sense, do some estimation, etc. and then take a guess.

GMAT assassins aren't born, they're made,
Rich
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IanStewart
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Re: Strategic Guessing [#permalink] New post   05 Jul 2015, 04:26
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If you flip a coin twice, and get Heads both times, it does not become more likely that you will get Tails on the next flip. Coinflips are independent - what happened in the past doesn't affect what happens in the future. To think otherwise is a well-known logical error, sometimes called the Gambler's Fallacy.

The same is true on your GMAT. If 'E' is the right answer to your first two questions, it does not become more likely that A-D will be right on the third question. Questions are independent, and if you're guessing randomly at a question in the middle of a test, each answer will have a 1/5 chance to be correct, no matter what happened earlier on the test.
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BCCLSN
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Re: Strategic Guessing [#permalink] New post   06 Jul 2015, 00:41
IanStewart wrote:
If you flip a coin twice, and get Heads both times, it does not become more likely that you will get Tails on the next flip. Coinflips are independent - what happened in the past doesn't affect what happens in the future. To think otherwise is a well-known logical error, sometimes called the Gambler's Fallacy.

The same is true on your GMAT. If 'E' is the right answer to your first two questions, it does not become more likely that A-D will be right on the third question. Questions are independent, and if you're guessing randomly at a question in the middle of a test, each answer will have a 1/5 chance to be correct, no matter what happened earlier on the test.



Yes, That's true, But I've heard that in the whole GMAT the answers are equally distributed so that every choice in the total exam has the same possibility to be right. That's where my reasoning comes from.

By the way, Thank you for your answers !
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Re: Strategic Guessing [#permalink]
06 Jul 2015, 00:41

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