abee0502 wrote:
Hello everyone,
I've been studying for GMAT for a few months already. A couple of days ago, I decided to go for a practice test since I was kind of satisfied with the accuracy during my study from both the verbal section and the quant section. But the practice test was a DISASTER. The moment I clicked on the "START BUTTON", my brain went completely blank. First, I got an RC passage and I had to re-read the passage several times which never happened to me before. On the verbal section, I left almost 10 questions unfinished and the accuracy was very horrible. Due to the poor performance in the verbal section, I rushed through the quant section and ended up ruining the entire practice test.
Does anyone have a similar experience? Could anyone give some advice on how to manage time and anxiety?
Thanks,
Abe
Hi Abe,
Time management is one of the most important skills for competitive exams that most students struggle with. There is a significant penalty for failing to complete any section of the GMAT exam, so it is also important to develop pacing skills. Once you hone your time management skills strategically, you will be confident about not missing out on any questions on the test day.
Talking about anxiety, anxiety could be one of the major reasons. However, you have to stay test-ready and keep yourself calm on the exam day to focus. You get that confidence when you are all prepared and you have this thought in mind that no matter what you can tackle all the problems coming your way.
Let me share my 2 cents from my experience of scoring 740 on GMAT and helping many students reach their target score. Taking extra time to solve questions is a symptom and not the disease itself. Let me elaborate.
The possible reason for struggling with time management :There are 2 things that you do while solving questions - 1. You think about how to solve the question and 2. You solve the question. It's the first point that eats up unnecessary time. Now how do you tackle Point 1.
Talking about the reason behind struggling with time management, you are likely taking more time to solve RC questions. The reason for this might be you are taking too long to read a passage or you might be going back and forth to the passage for every question. This happens when you don’t use the right reading strategies. Students often read the passage from a detail perspective and stuff themselves with the details. And once they come across an inferential question or a main point question, they cannot answer it and they read the passage again to find the answer. This would often lead to the wastage of time.
Most people think the best solution is by solving additional questions. It does help but sadly is not the most effective solution because by just practising more questions you end repeating the same mistakes. The better solution is to learn the right logical methods to solve questions and then master these methods with additional practice.
Now before suggesting you the right methods, I would like to understand how you approach questions at present and then accordingly I can suggest you what's the way out. You can always write back to me here or the better way would be to connect over a call and have a discussion. You can schedule a free consultation call using the below link.
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13 Nov 2021, 09:42
