loosing focus on difficult problems

[Eddie Gutia]

I am really not sure if this is this is the right question to ask here but I badly need some help. After some analysis, I have realized the main reason for a stagnant score on GMAT is my inability to concentrate specifically on difficult problems.

For e.g., When I practice Quant, I time myself for 2 minutes for each question. Sometimes, when the question is hard and I couldn't find the solution, I spend more than 2 minutes until I find the solution. However, in the process of doing so, I tend to loose focus and spend 40 min- 1 hour on the question mainly because I lost my focus than because I actually spent time researching the answer. The actual time spent on researching the answer would be around 10-20 min.

What suggestion do you offer me so I stay on track without loosing focus on such questions. Secondly, do you encourage trying to find the answers for difficult questions no matter how long it takes? I basically believe any problem can be solved if you have a full understanding of the concepts tested in the problem which is the reason why I steer away from peeking at the solutions. Is that a right approach?

Any kind of hep will be greatly, immensely appreciated.

Thanks,
Aditya

[StaceyKoprince]

I'm going to start here:

Secondly, do you encourage trying to find the answers for difficult questions no matter how long it takes?

Not while the clock is still ticking, no. While the clock is ticking, you are trying to practice the behavior that you want to exhibit on the test. You actually have to practice knowing how and when to make the call to cut yourself off, guess, and move on.

After you have done that, if you then want to keep trying to figure it out on your own before you look up the answer, go right ahead. This is a good idea, in fact, because if you can figure it out for yourself, you'll be more likely to remember the solution method in future.

But, as you noted, this could go on forever and you could eventually get bored or distracted. So do this: set a timer for 10 minutes. Try the problem again, do whatever you can thing of, look up anything you want...for the next 10 minutes.

Then, if you still don't know, look up the answer. NOT the solution, just the answer itself. Set the timer for another 5 minutes. Does knowing the answer help you at all? If not, when the timer dings, look up the solution. Read just far enough until you think, "Oh, I get it now!" or "Oh! I didn't realize that / think of that before! That's interesting..." Then try to finish the rest on your own, without the solution. (Set that timer again for another 5 minutes.)

Then, finally, read the full solution. :)

But wait! You're not done yet. Now you need to analyze that thing - and this might take you another 10 to 30 minutes. This is what you're trying to do when you analyze problems:
http://tinyurl.com/2ndlevelofgmat

Also, read this. Then tell me why I told you what I did at the beginning of my post:
http://tinyurl.com/executivereasoning

p.s. you don't have to cut yourself off right at 2m on quant. You just have to average 2 min for the set of questions. You want most questions to be in the 1m to 2.5m range (long enough that you don't make careless mistakes due to rushing, but not so long that you're just spinning your wheels when you don't know what to do). It's okay to have a few problems (out of 37) in the 2.5 to 3m range, but beyond 3m typically means that you don't really know how to do this one and you should have cut yourself off already.