HELP! How to reduce time in Verbal section?

Question

Hello!!

I have been studying for a couple of months (since December) tentatively aiming to take the GMAT in May 2025. I am not a native English speaker (my mother tongue is Spanish) and I don't consider myself a reading person ... well, I read short daily news in Spanish and some in English about 3 times a week, and for my job I have to research and read some economic reports mostly in Spanish. For this reason, the verbal section is my weakest point and I have focused on improving my reading and following  GMATNinja  videos and techniques.

So far, my accuracy on each verbal set has improved quite a bit (about 80-85% on 25 GMAT-type questions and 70% on LSAT-type sets), but my average time ranges from 2:30 to almost 3 minutes (depending on the length of the passage or more complex vocabulary). I know many recommend getting the basics down before focusing on reducing time per question, but I'm a little concerned about being more efficient.

The following are my main findings after analyzing my error log in both RC and CR:

RC:  
 
  Main problem identified:  At the beginning I used to pause a lot and write a lot, it was a way to keep myself focused on the texts, especially the most dense and toughest ones. But this consumed too many minutes, so I had to start learning how to retain more mentally and writing less. Now I don't take so many notes, but I still try to jot down some short ideas by paragraphs, especially in the passages that have more than one argumentative position or compare theories, studies, etc. If I do not understand the text or it is too heavy to process, I continue reading, at least trying to identify the author's attitude. 
  Time metric:  My reading time per passage is between 3 minutes for short passages and 7-8 minutes for long passages. 
  Choice analysis:  I have been able to evaluate alternatives and mark the correct question in less than 30 seconds if the general idea of the text was very clear to me. But there are questions that have taken me up to 4 minutes to process the vocabulary or get to alternative E to be 100% sure that what I am choosing as an answer is correct.

CR:  
 
  Main problem identified:  Again, I found that I used to take a lot of notes and even for nothing (I do not read them). Now for CR I hardly take notes at all, I just write a short conclusion and a a little mark to know the type of question or highlight that it is an EXCEPT. 
  Time metric:  Average of 2:40 per question, harder and long ones take me almost 4:30 min to solve  
  Choice analysis:  I use around 1 min to read the text and the question carefully, but reading all the choices and evaluating them trying to be serious and diligent in every word takes me more than 1 minute. This added to the fact that 50% of the time I am left with two “good” alternatives, so at this moment I am already definitely flying in the time I am given to solve.

I feel a bit stuck in this time issue, I have identified my mistakes, I have corrected them, I follow a process and structural reasoning in all the questions; but I still can't reduce the reading time. So, I'm open to any recommendations you can give me to improve!

bb · Answer

Hi. Moving your question into a widely better sub forum where it’s going to get a little bit more notice.

bb · Answer

PS. So timing strategies for critical reasoning and comprehension will be drastically different. Do you mind separating a post a little bit more clearly as to which points referred to what? I see you talk about critical reasoning and then switch into reading comprehension and then move back-and-forth I think it would be easier for experts to help you if you had clearly separated questions/sections.

For example, you talk about taking notes but I’m not sure what section that refers to critical reasoning or reading comprehension?

For example, you talk about taking notes but I’m not sure what section that refers to critical reasoning or reading comprehension?

patronumbeagle · Answer

Thanks for the feedback, already edited!

AjiteshArun · Answer

Hi patronumbeagle,
 
Sounds good. Continue working on both GMAT and general reading skills.

Yes, it's a good idea to start working on time management early, so that we can identify and work on (or around) any issues before it's too late. However,  the best strategy is to do both .

Has your average time or time per passage come down since you started preparing, or are you not seeing any improvement? It may be a good idea to take a full-length official practice test sometime so that you can get a better idea about how much of an issue this is. Also, guess on questions if you notice that you're falling behind (hopefully you won't have to do this on the actual exam).

patronumbeagle · Answer

Hi AjiteshArun I took an official practice test (Order: Quants-Verbal-DI) and here are my results! Definitely time killed my score, from question 15 I started to get desperate because I knew I had many questions left but very little time (8 min), I chose to concentrate again on doing well the question I had in front of me and then I just chose to run in reading and guessing alternatives

, now I am more worried about how to overcome this problem. No exactly, my improvement is more related with how to tackle the question (CR: always find the conclusion, think in a structured way. RC: find the main idea per passage, link the passages and ask mentally why the author is trying to express) GMAT-Club-Forum-csw3xudr.png GMAT-Club-Forum-vfmq0cre.png

bb · Answer

It seems the root of your problem is the quantitative skills. I can see pretty clearly from this chart that you don’t know how to divide 45 by 23.

I would like to challenge your plan as well and ask why did you decide that the best approach was to do nothing in terms of time awareness until question 15 and then starting to panic after question 15?

patronumbeagle · Answer

So you mean just guessing the question when I feel stuck in order to maintain an average of 2 min per question?

bb · Answer

Yes. My suggestion for you would be to follow a strict fiscal policy with your time. This is the big picture.

As a subset of that, I would encourage you to create a plan for how you see yourself progressing through the verbal section in the ideal timing pace AND what will be your plan if you are falling behind.

You do not need to take a full test to make these decisions. Moreover, you do not want to be making any decisions on the test you want to come with a prepared strategy that you have practiced many times over in practice tests, so you execute with confidence rather than having to fumble and invent things. Believe me, there will be still fumbling 🤪 even with the best strategy but you want to have as little fumbling as possible.

Think about your plan as a budget where you have certain amount of time for each type of a question and start working with this budget to see where you can allocate minutes or seconds. That will decide how much time you can have for each question type and in this case, you’re the one who gets to decide so you get to be in control and you get to choose how your test goes.

AjiteshArun · Answer

Hi patronumbeagle,

This is useful information. Here are my thoughts:

1.  Implement a time management strategy. Nothing too complicated, just a couple of time markers. Check your time after (say) the 7th question and after the 15th question. Basically, we want to avoid getting into a situation where we have very little time towards the end.

It's important for you to understand why we want to do this. In most cases, we don't need to get all the really tough questions correct. However, getting easy questions wrong is more likely to hurt our score, so we do want high accuracy on easy questions. Now, if we get a few questions wrong, the difficulty level will probably drop. That's fine. But if we don't have any time left, we'll end up getting those (easy) questions wrong, and that could lead to a major score drop.

2.  Were questions 3 & 9 the first questions of long RC passages? If so, that's understandable. However, if they weren't, consider putting a hard stop in place. So if you see that you've taken more than 3-4 minutes on a question, just guess, mark the question for review, and move on.

It's good to see that you've improved your approach. If you feel there isn't too much scope for improvement there, continue working on your general reading skills. You should definitely not try to force yourself to read faster.

GmatKnightTutor · Answer

If you want to practice reading during your free time or gaps during the day (e.g. at work), articles from The Economist could be helpful to use. Even if you don't have enough time to read a full article in a single sitting, reading a paragraph here and there may start to add up. You could also search for the types of articles (e.g. science) you find more challenging than others.

3 RC tips

RetaketheGMAT · Answer

What bb is saying is absolutely true. The trap you're falling into is "letting the test run you, rather than you running the test".

If you ignore time for a big portion of the test and then suddenly start worrying about it, then you've basically set yourself up for failure. Maximising your score In any GMAT section is best achieved by:

-- Thinking holistically of the section -- not question by question. Remember your score is not based on a sum of right or wrong answers -- the algorithm looks more at the pattern of your performance and sets a final section score for that performance.

-- Recognising that no one question is worth blowing your whole section over. Little drifts in time for some questions is ok. But it need to be recoverable with faster performance on other questions (best case) or less ideally skipping a question or two

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HELP! How to reduce time in Verbal section?

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