Random Guessing Last Few Questions in Each Section? Running out of tim

Question

Hi Experts -   MartyMurray  @mcelroytutorin  GMATCoachBen   AjiteshArun   vv65   Maheshkv   carcass   gmatophobia  @ educationaisle

I need help regarding time management strategy.

-My target scoe is 605-625 with Quant being my strength.

Issue - I cannot get my time per question down to 2 min mark.

If I rush through the process - my accuracy is all over the place.

If I go at my pace my accuracy is decent but I end up running out of time for 3-4 questions in each of the 3 section ( Q, V , DI) and end up marking them randomly.

How will these strategies work -

1) I take my time on each question and try to get maximum accuracy - and end up random marking last 3-4 questions. 
Pro - Don't have to worry about thinking what to skip 
Cons - Mistakes are clubbed together

2) I time box each section and then solve however many question I can solve within the timebox and then randomly mark and move on to catchup on time. Ex. First 4 questions I take X time. I take my time to solve the first 3 question and marks the 4th randomly <2 secs. Do this for all quarters.

Pros - Mistakes will be spread out 
Cons - I will end up marking easy question as they are blind guess and loose lot of points.

Issue is I cannot identify difficulty of a question especially on verbal and IR part of DI to skip difficult questions smartly.

Someone who have done a lot of if-then analysis or seen a lot of score reports can help.

Also where can i see others score reports on the forum @ bb ?

vv65 · Answer

mips221 
Let's see what the experts say. For the GMAT Focus, I have not yet looked at score reports or if-then analysis.

But here are some thoughts:

First, frequent time checks (every four questions?) and strict time-boxing can take too much time and break the flow of working through questions.

Second, strict adherence to "take my time on each question and try to get maximum accuracy" can be ruinous. You should make an educated guess and move on from any question that is taking too long or making your head spin. (Perhaps this is part of your method, but you haven't mentioned it.)

You do not need to judge the question's difficulty in general. You do need to recognise that 'I am struggling here and other questions are waiting.'

I know people who scored 45+ in classic GMAT verbal despite running out of time for the last three or four questions. Can this happen in the GMAT Focus? Most unlikely

Posted from my mobile device

bb · Answer

I feel this is an old strategy from the Classic GMAT where the first few questions were a lot more important than the last few and that would work to some extent but it had a big assumption - it only worked if you answered many of the initial questions correctly. That was a big ask.

With GMAT Focus, the sequence of questions does not matter really because you can now skip up to 3 questions by changing answers. I feel a much better option would be to SKIP the hardest questions (the trick is to identify them quickly) and then address them at the end using the change answer option. I have made some  suggestions how to do that in this topic .

mips221 · Answer

Hi  bb  ,

Verbal timing is not working out for me.

I am not able to decipher the complexity of a question and quickly drop it.

It takes me the 2 min time get the difficulty by reading through the question.

And I need more than average time to solve per question.

Both these shortcomings are rekking my verbal section.

Were you able to do the if-then analysis for verbal where you were planning to miss every 4th or 5th question.

I plan to divide the test in into blocks of 5 question - take as much time to solve the first 4 and skip the 5th one in 1 sec. But one issue is I will be missing E-M questions as the algo doesnt increase in difficulty linearly?

What do you recommend?

ScottTargetTestPrep · Answer

Here are a couple of articles about answering quant questions faster: 
-  How to Get Faster at GMAT Quant Questions 
-  Timing Strategies For a Higher GMAT Quant Score 
Note: The articles were written when the GMAT Classic test was offered, but the strategies still apply.

Also, since answering quant questions faster often leads to silly mistakes, check out this article:
-  Improving Your Accuracy on the GMAT

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