Timing strategy; firing up slowly.

Question

the cumulative timing in my gmat CATs shows that I get slow on the start of each section and then speed up to the average time i'm supposed to spend per question and even catch up on the target cumulative time. I also noticed that my performance almost always improved with the improvement in timing. This happens in both quant and verbal in like manner. It's surprising cos i thought i would do better in the early parts since i spent more time on them. Ofcourse I didnt know i was spending more time on them during the test itself unless i look at them time. and I get harder questions as i progress from the start.

I'm begining to conclude that i was just being sluggish with the initial questions because my mind was getting fired up or somehting like that but then it should be different with verbal since 8 minutes break shouldnt make a fired-up-GMAT-mind to go off or to need to get fired up again after just 8 minutes rest. 
Can someone give me an insight/suggestion into the issue here and a probable solution because it will help me to balance out my timing and perharps have enough time to attend to the long RCs that show up at the end. And RCs need at least up to 4 minutes to answer the first question. 
Your input will be met with kudos.

BrentGMATPrepNow · Answer

Hey Nez,

I suggest that you manage your time in batches of 5 questions. To that end, you can use the following Milestone Charts to keep you on track:

These times are easily remembered so you can quickly jot them on your noteboard on test day.

This (and more) is covered in our free GMAT time management video at https://www.gmatprepnow.com/module/general-gmat-strategies?id=1244

Also, early in one's studies, it's a good idea to use a stopwatch to help get an idea of what 2 minutes feels like. This tip and others can be found in these articles on "making friends with time on the GMAT"
https://www.gmatprepnow.com/articles/mak ... %93-part-i
https://www.gmatprepnow.com/articles/mak ... 93-part-ii

Cheers,
Brent

AjiteshArun · Answer

Plenty of people like to take a little more time on the first few questions. As long as you ensure that it is, in fact, just a  little  more time, you should be fine. Also, while you should be ready to face a long RC at the end, there is no reason to think that there will always be a long RC at the end. To help "balance" this out, you could consider tracking your time over a larger "block" of questions (I like 10).

dabral · Answer

I am no longer active on this forum.

Ekland · Answer

thanks Brent
the video link seems the most useful.
if i skip pre-chosen topic(s) during the exam, the number of questions on such topics might singnificantly be large enough to harm my score. Does the GMATprep tests give you a good idea of how most topics are represented in the actual exam in terms of their proportion to all questions?

Victz · Answer

Hey  BrentGMATPrepNow , thanks for sharing! The articles' links are broken:

BrentGMATPrepNow · Answer

Thanks for the heads up!
I have altered the links in my original post.

Cheers, 
Brent

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Timing strategy; firing up slowly.

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