Cum Time vs Target Cum Time

[rhea.gmat]

Hello Instructors,

I have been taking a few mocks and analyzing my mistakes. However, I get pressed for time when it comes to both sections. I may end up spending too much time on a particular question only to end up in panic mode and end up guessing on a few others
Wanted to understand more on how to review the Target Cumulative time against the Cumulative time I took for a particular question.
Is the target cumulative I should aim at? For RC passages it is really low say about 4 mins to read the passage and answer the first question which I think is quite a challange.
It would be great if you could throw some more light on this aspect of the test. - How to review time on the mocks and manage time on the GMAT

Thank You!

[StaceyKoprince]

Read this:
https://www.manhattangmat.com/blog/inde ... lly-tests/

And then this:
http://www.manhattangmat.com/blog/index ... nt-part-1/

And if you're still struggling:
http://www.manhattangmat.com/blog/index ... -to-do-it/

The cumulative time is meant to help you see whether you were moving (appropriately) steadily through the test but the one place that it doesn't work super well is RC. We can only enter one time for that readthrough + first question, but the time you should take varies - is it a shorter or longer passage? Is the question main idea or detail? Reading time should be about 2 to 3 minutes total* and questions should be about 1 to 2 minutes total depending on type. So don't pay quite as much attention to that.

*If you're looking at that and thinking "no way!" then you're probably reading too much / too carefully. Look through this:
https://www.manhattangmat.com/blog/inde ... rehension/

Also, note that these are showing the cumulative time based on averages, but obviously you're allowed to go somewhat faster and somewhat slower on different problems. The question is how fast is too fast and how slow is too slow?

In general, faster than about 45 seconds (for SC) or 1m (everything else) is likely to cause lots of careless mistakes. In general, more than about 30 seconds longer than the average is likely to be a waste of time. (See the time management article above for the question type averages.)

This is all explained in more detail in the time management article - go take a look and let me know if you have any questions!

[GayatriA6]

I don't understand what is cumm time and target cumm time?Can you pls explain.

[StaceyKoprince]

Cum stands for Cumulative

On our CAT problem list reports, there are columns titled Time, Cumulative Time, and Target Cumulative Time. The first shows how much time you spent on that question. The Cumulative Time shows how much time you've spend to that point on the test (all questions combined). The Target Cumulative Time shows approximately how much time you *should* have used to that point on the test (based on the average time per question allowed for the whole section).