Timing on Quant Question

Question

Hi everyone,

Two questions:

1. Sometimes I come across a situation on the exam where I approach the question incorrectly at first and then right before my time is up I understand what to do. Do you guys recommend sacrificing some time to go back and do the question correctly? Or is my best bet to guess and move on? 
 
2. What is the best strategy for managing time on the actual exam? I know there's a table that gives you a benchmark once you reach a certain question number. Would you recommend just memorizing that?

Thanks!

DisciplinedPrep · Answer

You should focus on completing any Quant question within 2 min, irrespective of difficulty level. For super easy questions, make sure you work carefully and do the calculation of pad. A few questions may take up to 3 min but train yourself not to exceed 3 min on any question. Yes, you should move on after spending 3 min on questions. A few questions involve complex calculation and are therefore tactfully kept in certain places to throw your timing off balance. That said, I would advise you to check the time after every 10 questions. If your timing is a complete mess, you can check after every 5 min.
10 questions complete ----- 42 min left
20 questions complete ----- 22 min left
30 questions complete ----- 2 min left

EMPOWERgmatRichC · Answer

Hi andi1,

From what you describe, it sounds like you might not be consistently taking the proper notes - nor looking for the 'clues' in each prompt that can tip you to the most efficient way to answer each question. Those are skills that you CAN develop though, but you have to train in the proper ways. Before I can offer you the specific advice that you’re looking for, it would help if you could provide a bit more information on how you've been studying and your goals:

Studies:
1) How long have you studied?
2) What study materials have you used so far?
3) How have you scored on EACH of your CATs (including the Quant and Verbal Scaled Scores for EACH)?

Goals:
4) What is your goal score?
5) When are you planning to take the GMAT?
6) When are you planning to apply to Business School?
7) What Schools are you planning to apply to?

GMAT assassins aren't born, they're made,
Rich

IanStewart · Answer

In general, if you are 100% certain you will get a right answer, it's almost always advantageous to get that right answer, provided you won't spend more than 3m30s or so to get there. You can see why that's true - if, say, you're looking at a medium-level question, and your choices are:

1. spend 3m30s on the medium question, then guess at the next question
2. guess at the medium question, then solve the next question correctly

on an adaptive test, in situation #1 you're normally getting a medium question right, then getting a hard question wrong (because the test will adapt to a harder problem when you get a question right), while in situaton #2 you're normally getting a medium question wrong, and getting an easy question right. You'd prefer the first situation, because wrong answers on hard questions don't hurt you much at all.

So right answers are very valuable, and it's worthwhile investing time to get them. But all of the above applies only if two things are true:

- you are absolutely certain investing more time will get a right answer
- you are disciplined enough to move on quickly from questions when you can't see how to get to an answer

If you can't be certain more time will lead to a right answer, you almost always should be cutting your losses and moving ahead with as educated a guess as you can make.

Your second question really asks for a breakdown of optimal pacing strategy. I've posted about that in detail before, so you might find more information with a forum search, but it's a question that requires a long answer so I can't reply fully here.

andi1 · Answer

Hi EMPOWERgmatRichC,

Thanks for the reply.

So I just took the GMAT today and I got a 410. Pretty disappointing. I've been studying since Dec-18 using the Manhattan and GMAT OG books. I read all the Manhattan books and I did a substantial portion of the OG problems. I understand the basic material in the MGMAT books but its just when I'm presented with a different situation in the OG books is when I get confused. I don't remember my official GMAT score breakdown but these were my results on GMAT Prep:

Exam 1: 370 Q12 V21
Exam 2: 450 Q29 V23

Honestly, I'm just aiming for a 550. I really don't know what to do anymore. I'm thinking of doing a MGMAT CAT or Veritas CAT once a week and then from there figure out what questions I did wrong, why I got it wrong, and focus on those wrong answers for the week. I'm not going to schedule my next exam until I break the 550 mark on the practice tests. What do you think? Can you point me to any discussions that might help me out?

Thanks Rich!

ScottTargetTestPrep · Answer

Hi andi1,

I see that you initially asked some questions regarding timing; however, I also see that you’ve provided some more information on your situation with the GMAT, so I’ll focus on your second post.

Regarding your study plan, I do not think it’s a good idea to take a CAT each week, as you probably won’t gain much from doing so. Remember, GMAT practice tests serve two main purposes: to provide diagnostic information and to get you accustomed to the test-taking experience. In other words, by taking a practice test, you can get a sense of what types of GMAT questions you are comfortable answering, arrive at a reasonable estimation of how you would score on the GMAT at that point in time, and practice taking the GMAT and handling its various challenges, such as time pressure and the varying difficulty of the questions presented. Can practice tests be valuable tools for learning and continued score improvement? Yes, of course, if they are used properly and at optimal times in your preparation. However, you should not use practice tests as primary learning vehicles because they don’t really provide the kind of practice that you need to increase your score.

Here is what we know: currently you are at Q29/V23, and although you do not need a 700 on the GMAT, you lack the fundamental GMAT quant and verbal skills you need for a 550, right? Thus, the best path forward is to follow a linear and structured study plan that allows you to individually learn each GMAT quant and verbal topic and practice each topic until you’ve gained mastery. By studying in such a way, you’ll ensure that you methodically improve your GMAT skills and subsequently fill in knowledge gaps. Let me expand on this idea further.

If you are learning about Number Properties, you should develop as much conceptual knowledge about Number Properties as possible. In other words, your goal will be to completely understand properties of factorials, perfect squares, quadratic patterns, LCM, GCF, units digit patterns, divisibility, and remainders, to name a few concepts. After carefully reviewing the conceptual underpinnings of how to answer Number Properties questions, practice by answering 50 or more questions just from Number Properties. When you do dozens of questions of the same type one after the other, you learn just what it takes to get questions of that type correct consistently. If you aren't getting close to 90 percent of questions of a certain type correct, go back and seek to better understand how that type of question works, and then do more questions of that type until you get to around at least 90 percent accuracy in your training. If you get 100 percent of some sets correct, even better. Number Properties is just one example; follow this process for all quant topics.

When you are working on learning to answer questions of a particular type, start off taking your time, and then seek to speed up as you get more comfortable answering questions of that type. As you do such practice, do a thorough analysis of each question that you don't get right. If you got a remainder question wrong, ask yourself why. Did you make a careless mistake? Did you not properly apply the remainder formula? Was there a concept you did not understand in the question? By carefully analyzing your mistakes, you will be able to efficiently fix your weaknesses and in turn improve your GMAT quant skills. 
Each time you strengthen your understanding of a topic and your skill in answering questions of a particular type, you increase your odds of hitting your score goal. You know that there are types of questions that you are happy to see, types that you would rather not see, and types that you take a long time to answer correctly. Learn to more effectively answer the types of questions that you would rather not see, and make them into your favorite types. Learn to correctly answer in two minutes or less questions that you currently take five minutes to answer. By finding, say, a dozen weaker quant areas and turning them into strong areas, you will make great progress toward hitting your quant score goal. If a dozen areas turn out not to be enough, strengthen some more areas.

Follow a similar routine for verbal. For example, let’s say you start by learning about Critical Reasoning. Your first goal is to fully master the individual topics: Strengthen the Argument, Weaken The Argument, Resolve the Paradox, etc. As you learn about each question type, do focused practice, so that you can track your skill in answering each type. If, for example, you get a weakening question wrong, ask yourself why. Did you make a careless mistake? Did you not recognize the specific question type? Were you doing too much analysis in your head? Did you skip over a keyword in an answer choice? You must thoroughly analyze your mistakes and seek to turn weaknesses into strengths by focusing on the question types you dread seeing and the questions you take a long time to answer correctly.

When practicing Reading Comprehension, you need to develop a reading strategy that is both efficient and thorough. Reading too fast and not understanding what you have read are equally as harmful as reading too slow and using up too much time. When attacking Reading Comprehension passages, you must have one clear goal in mind: to understand the context of what you are reading. However, you must do so efficiently, so you need to avoid getting bogged down in the details of each paragraph and instead focus on understanding the main point of each paragraph. That being said, do not fall into the trap of thinking that you can just read the intro and the conclusion and thereby comprehend the main idea of a paragraph. As you read a paragraph, consider how the context of the paragraph relates to previous paragraphs, so you can continue developing your overall understanding of the passage. Furthermore, as you practice Reading Comprehension, focus on the exact types of questions with which you struggle: Find the Main Idea, Inference, Author’s Tone, etc. As with Critical Reasoning, analyze your incorrect Reading Comprehension answers to better determine why you tend to get a particular question type wrong, and then improve upon your weaknesses. Keep in mind that GMAT Reading Comprehension passages are not meant to be easy to read. So, to better prepare yourself to analyze such passages, read magazines with similar content and style, such as The Economist, Scientific American, and Smithsonian. 
 
Sentence Correction is a bit of a different animal compared to Reading Comprehension and Critical Reasoning. There are three aspects to getting correct answers to GMAT Sentence Correction questions: what you know, such as grammar rules, what you see, such as violations of grammar rules and the logic of sentence structure, and what you do, such as carefully considering each answer choice in the context of the non-underlined portion of the sentence. To drive up your Sentence Correction score, you likely will have to work on all three of those aspects. 
Regarding what you know, first and foremost, you MUST know your grammar rules. Let's be clear, though: GMAT Sentence Correction is not really a test of knowledge of grammar rules. The reason for learning the grammar rules is so that you can determine what sentences convey and whether sentences are well-constructed. In fact, in many cases, incorrect answers to Sentence Correction questions are grammatically flawless. Thus, often your task is to use your knowledge of grammar rules to determine which answer choice creates the most logical sentence meaning and structure.
 
This determination of whether sentences are well-constructed and logical is the second aspect of finding correct answers to Sentence Correction questions, what you see. To develop this skill, you probably have to slow way down. You won't develop this skill by spending less than two minutes per question. For a while, anyway, you have to spend time with each question, maybe even ten or fifteen minutes on one question sometimes, analyzing every answer choice until you see the details that you have to see in order to choose the correct answer. As you go through the answer choices, consider the meaning conveyed by each version of the sentence. Does the meaning make sense? Even if you can tell what the version is SUPPOSED to convey, does the version really convey that meaning? Is there a verb to go with the subject? Do all pronouns clearly refer to nouns? By slowing way down and looking for these details, you learn to see what you have to see in order to clearly understand which answer to a Sentence Correction question is correct.
 
There is only one correct answer to any Sentence Correction question, there are clear reasons why that choice is correct and the others are not, and none of those reasons are that the correct version simply "sounds right." In fact, the correct version often sounds a little off at first. That correct answers may sound a little off is not surprising. If the correct answers were always the ones that sounded right, then most people most of the time would get Sentence Correction questions correct, without really knowing why the wrong answers were wrong and the correct answers were correct. So, you have to go beyond choosing what "sounds right" and learn to clearly see the logical reasons why one choice is better than all of the others.
 
As for the third aspect of getting Sentence Correction questions correct, what you do, the main thing you have to do is be very careful. You have to make sure that you are truly considering the structures of sentences and the meanings conveyed rather than allowing yourself to be tricked into choosing trap answers that sound right but don't convey logical meanings. You also have to make sure that you put some real energy into finding the correct answers. Finding the correct answer to a Sentence Correction question may take bouncing from choice to choice until you start to see the differences that make all choices wrong except for one. Often, when you first look at the choices, only one or two seem obviously incorrect. Getting the right answers takes a certain work ethic. You have to take the time to see the differences between answers and to figure out the precise reasons that one choice is correct.
 
To improve what you do when you answer Sentence Correction questions, seek to become aware of how you are going about answering them. Are you being careful and looking for logic and details, or are you quickly eliminating choices that sound a little off, and then choosing the best of the rest? If you choose an incorrect answer, consider what you did to arrive at that answer and what you could do differently to arrive at correct answers more consistently. Furthermore, see how many questions you can get correct in a row as you practice. If you break your streak by missing one, consider what you could do differently to extend your streak.

As with your Critical Reasoning and Reading Comprehension regimens, after learning a particular Sentence Correction topic, engage in focused practice with 30 questions or more that involve that topic. As your skills improve, you w(ill want to practice with questions that test you on skills from multiple Sentence Correction topics.

In order to follow the path described above, you may need some new quant and verbal materials, so take a look at the GMAT Club reviews for the  best quant  and  verbal courses . You also may find it helpful to read the following article about  The Phases of Preparing for the GMAT .

Feel free to reach out with any further questions. Good luck!

EMPOWERgmatRichC · Answer

Hi andi1,

I'm sorry to hear that Test Day did not turn out better, but this Official Score is in the range of your 2 practice CAT Scores, so this result isn't too surprising. The good news is that a 550 is a relatively modest Score Goal - and the GMAT is a consistent, predictable Exam, so you CAN train to score at a higher level. In addition, to hit that Score, you do NOT need to correctly answer ANY questions that you think are too hard or too weird, but you have to keep the little mistakes to a minimum (and with a 410, you likely made a lot of little mistakes). In simple terms, one of the areas that you will need to work on is the ability to quickly assess that a question is too difficult and then quickly 'dump' it. Much of this comes down to proper note-taking, labeling your work, doing the necessary calculations on your pad (and NEVER "in your head"), etc. All of that having been said, since you've likely been performing in the low-400s for some time, it will likely take at least another 2 months of consistent, guided study for you to get to the point that you can consistently score 550+.

1) How long ago did you take that 2nd practice CAT (the 450)? Do you still have access to it (and your notes from that CAT)?
2) Going forward, how many hours do you think you can consistently study each week?

GMAT assassins aren't born, they're made,
Rich

andi1 · Answer

Hi Rich,

Thanks for the reply. Yes, I still have all my notes related to the CAT. I can study 2 hours per day Monday through Friday and around 4 hours a day Saturday and Sunday.

Andi

EMPOWERgmatRichC · Answer

Hi andi1,

You do not need to study 7 days a week to hit your Score Goal, but it's nice to know that you have that amount of available study time (and you'll certainly use much of it). For this next phase of your studies, we need to first analyze a bit more about how you 'respond' to the Test.

"Review" is an exceptionally important part of the GMAT training process; your ability to define WHY you're getting questions wrong is essential to defining the areas that you need to work on (and the specific things that you need to 'fix'). As such, I'd like to know a bit more about that last CAT you took. While a full Mistake Tracker would provide a lot more information, there are some basic questions that you should be able to answer (and the more EXACT you can be with your answers, the better):

After reviewing each section of that CAT, how many questions did you get wrong....
1) Because of a silly/little mistake?
2) Because there was some math/verbal that you just could not remember how to do?
3) Because the question was too hard?
4) Because you were low on time and had to guess?
5) How many Verbal questions did you 'narrow down to 2 choices' but still get wrong?

GMAT assassins aren't born, they're made,
Rich

andi1 · Answer

Hi Rich, comments below. Thanks again.

Quant: 15 questions wrong in Quant. It’s important to note that for the easy/medium Quant questions that I should’ve known, I did go back after the exam to determine the correct way to solve the problem. After I reviewed the problem I fully understood what was going on. It was just when I first encountered the problem for the first time that I had issues determining how to solve the problem.

Verbal: 16 questions wrong in Verbal. I’m really good with CR. I think my main issues are with RC and SC. For RC, I’ve tried multiple strategies. I’m getting better at taking notes (i.e.: writing down the thesis, how each paragraph relates to each other). I just have issues when the article given is very hard to comprehend (i.e. a science article). For SC, I know all the main grammar topics for the GMAT but sometimes I rely too much on my ear. When I first read the underlined part I do look for issues and then if I don’t find anything, I look at the answer choices and attempt to narrow down.

1) Because of a silly/little mistake?

5 Quant questions incorrect. 
- Misread or misinterpreted the question

2) Because there was some math/verbal that you just could not remember how to do?
 I know all the basic material. There are some topics that I skipped altogether because they don’t show up that often from what I understand (i.e. probability, number properties). There are some topics that I could use some brushing up on: overlapping sets, RTD questions, SC, RC.

3) Because the question was too hard?
 10 Quant questions incorrect. 
- Didn't understand what the question was asking
- Didn’t know how to properly translate the equation from English wording to Mathematical equations. 
2 questions wrong in verbal SC
- Sometimes I did the SC in my head instead of narrowing down on my paper.

4) Because you were low on time and had to guess?
 6 questions wrong in verbal RC. Some of the passages were difficult to understand. If I had a RC question that required me to go back to the passage, sometimes I would have difficulty finding the information or selecting the right answer. I would feel overwhelmed.

5) How many Verbal questions did you 'narrow down to 2 choices' but still get wrong?

2 questions wrong in verbal CR
6 questions wrong in verbal SC
- Misinterpreted answer choice – CR. 
- Going by ear OR what looks better – SC.

EMPOWERgmatRichC · Answer

Hi andi1,

I've sent you a PM with some additional suggestions.

GMAT assassins aren't born, they're made,
Rich

andi1 · Answer

Thanks Scott for the advice! I'll incorporate this into my new study plan. I'll definitely check out your site!

One last question. I've read about the importance of doing mixed problem sets. When do you recommend doing this? Should I start doing mixed sets after mastering a few topics/subject areas?

Thanks!
Andi

ScottTargetTestPrep · Answer

Great question. As mentioned above, first you want to individually learn each topic, and then practice each topic until you’ve gained mastery. Once you have done that, engage in mixed problem sets.

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