Need help with my timing

[arjun_r81]

I took my third manhattan GMAT to end up with a score of 630 (44Q 32V). I got timed out on the last question on quant. I was able to get 20 out of the 27 questions, almost all of which where in the 700-800 range. But after question 28, it is a whole different story. I did not have time to even comprehend the questions, especially the ones on word transalations. I somehow manage to fall into the trap of solving every question, even the hard ones, during the early stage of the section and screwing up my time. The story for the verbal section is similar if not worse.
The clock counting down doesnt help either. It is funny that I am saying this, but everytime I look at the clock during the session I cant quite figure out what the heck it reads!! Can someone help me figure out my timing problem? My original approach was do every problem as fast as I can!! But I guess that doesnt work here.

I also have a problem of "warming up" at the beginning of the each section. Unlike other people, I dont feel exhausted at the end of the verbal section but rather I feel that I didnt even get started!! I guess I have starting problem. Do I need to do practice a few problems before i start the every test? would that help?

My test is scheduled for Aug 19th 10 AM. Getting below 700 is not an option for me. Please advise. I badly need some pep talk. Thanks in advance.....



MGMAT

[StaceyKoprince]

You're not alone! Lots of people struggle with these problems.

On timing, here are the guidelines you should be following:
SC - about 60-75 sec; max of 90 sec
CR - about 2m; max of 2.5m
RC - about 2.5m (short) to 3.5m (long) to read; about 1 min for general purpose questions; about 1.5 to 2 for everything else

DO NOT go beyond the max times listed. You WILL have to guess on this test. Your only choice is on which problems you guess. Make no choice, and you will have to guess on a string of questions at the end. That's never a good choice, because there are *severe* penalties for getting a string of questions wrong in a row. FYI - most people guess on 4 to 7 questions in each section.

Your best choice is to identify the hardest questions as you see them throughout the section and make guesses on those questions. ("hardest" = hardest for you, which means anything you can't do within the timing guidelines) Ideally, you also make educated guesses, not random guesses. Educated guess = identify some wrong answers and cross them off before making a guess.

I think you would benefit from a timing exercise: learning about how long one minute is without looking at a watch or stopwatch. If you don't have one already, buy yourself a stopwatch with lap timing capability. When you go to do a set of problems, start the stopwatch but turn it over so you can't see the time. Every time you think one minute has gone by, push the lap button. When you're done, see how good you were - and whether you tend to over or underestimate. Get yourself to the point where you're within 15 seconds either way on a regular basis (that is, you can generally predict between 45 sec and 1min 15 sec).

Now, how do you use that when doing problems? If you're not on track by one minute, make an educated guess and move on. (The general idea is that if you're not on track by the halfway mark, you're unlikely to figure out what's holding you back AND have time to do the whole problem in the 1 min you have left.)

* For SC, 1min is well beyond the half-way mark (we're supposed to average about 1m20s here), but you can almost always eliminate at least some choices on SC in that timeframe. Once you've got that "I'm around the 1min mark and I'm struggling" feeling, go through any remaining choices ONCE more. Pick one. Move on.

On your "warming up" issue - yes, you should definitely do some warm up problems before the test. Technically, you are not allowed to look at test material on the breaks, so you'll have to do the warm up before the entire test starts. Pick some VERY easy questions (think page 1 of the OG) and do NOT look at the answers. What you're doing is the physical equivalent of jogging around the track before the big game. You don't want to try anything fancy and injure yourself (read: lower your confidence).

One last thing: if you can fix the timing problem, you're probably already at the 700 level (if it is also as severe for verbal!). If you do not fix the timing problem, you almost certainly will not get a 700. So fix that timing problem. :)

[arjun_r81]

That is a gem of a response. Thanks for taking the trouble to write it. I will try to develop "time awareness" as your write up suggests. Thanks for "dumbing it down" for me. I will follow your advice religiously and work on my timing. I also have to get used to the clock counting down from 75 to 0 as opposed to the clock ticking up from 0 to 75. As I had said in my original query, I spend 10 seconds to figure where I need to be in terms of time on the clock for that particular question. The whole thing also happens to be a big distraction. By allocating time linearly, I get the two tables below. The time gap that I chose is 15 minutes. Anything lesser than that will surely drive me nuts.

Verbal
Time left Qns Finished
75 0
60 8
45 16
30 24
15 33
0 41

Quant
Time left Qns Finished
75 0
60 7
45 15
30 22
15 30
0 37

But is this the timing chart that you recommend or should more time be allocated towards the front end?

From your response, I gather that it is better to be wrong once every 5 questions than to have a streak of 9 questions wrong in the end. So do you suggest that I stick to the timing chart shown above no matter what?

Thanks for your advice. I atleast see some light at the end of tunnel.

[StaceyKoprince]

Don't allocate more time towards the beginning - it's a myth that the earlier questions are worth more. It is absolutely the case that it's better to have scattered wrong answers than a bunch wrong in a row (anywhere, but especially at the end, because at the end, you don't have any more questions to do that could help raise your score).

I like your timing grid. You can have some flexibility - it's okay to be about 2 min off on quant. So, eg, if you're at 45m and you're on question 14 instead of 15, that's totally fine. If you're more off than that, you should make a fairly quick (but still educated, if possible) guess on the next question you see where you think, "Ugh, this one's really hard."

Verbal is a bit trickier, because it depends where the passages are - obviously you need some extra time to do the passages. Your current timing guidelines assume the passages are evenly placed - one starts in the first 10, one starts in the 2nd 10, and so on. If that's the case, the timing is fine, but if you notice that one came sooner than you would have expected, then you should expect to be a few minutes behind on your timing. Conversely, if one hasn't come by the time you would expect, then you should expect to be a few minutes ahead on your timing.

[arjun_r81]

I took two tests treating your advice as the law. I took the Powerprep (the old software) and scored 770(51Q 41V). Yes, here I saw some repeat questions in verbal from the OG11. But it was atleast a decent representation of my Quant as I havent prepared much for quant. I heard that Powerprep was easy and it was.

I also took my fourth MGMAT CAT, which I finished a few minutes back, and scored 740(50Q 41V). I feel very relieved. I just followed your advice!! that's all.

The questions I got wrong in Quant :2,7,8,11,17,18,23,26,32,36
The questions I got wrong in Verbal :2,3,6,18,19,23,24,27,28,34,36,39

Pretty evenly distributed...I would say...

This is how I followed your advice.

1) I did OG11 verbal with a timer (http://www.online-stopwatch.com/) - noted the time next to every question. - Yeah that took around two full weeks to do, including reading through the explanations....

2) I stuck to the grid, as you said you liked it!!. I was behind on verbal most of the time. Questions 2 and 3, I switched for right to wrong. That gives me more evidence to prove that more time I take to do a problem higher is the chance of me screwing it up. But I find it easier to make up time on verbal than on quant...Less of an ego problem for me in verbal and it is easier to make an educated guess in Verbal.

3) I also did the "warming up" part as you had suggested....helped me there...

Thanks Ma'am. Yes, this was the first time I completed the two sections!! I feel I atleast have a chance of scoring a 700+ now. I will let you know whether this was one week of freak show or whether I have actually improved.

Thanks

[StaceyKoprince]

Excellent! Timing is a HUGE issue on this test - I feel like that's the unspoken third thing that's being tested here: quant, verbal, and time management.

Keep it up - let us know how it goes!

[arjun_r81]

Thanks for the advice and the encouragement.

I took the GMAT Prep 1 today, exactly one month to my exam date,and scored 730(49Q 40V).
Questions wrong in Quant : 2,10,17,20,22,26,29,30,35,36,37
Questions wrong in Verbal: 6,13,19,21,22,27,40,41.

QUANT: I could have done better in Quant as realized, in my brief review, I had made a bunch of silly mistakes. But as time was a factor, I cannot say I could have avoided them entirely. I have not done OG math yet. That will be in the top of my to-do list.
8 of my mistakes were in DS. That is a red flag right there.

VERBAL: Verbal went OK - Was ahead on time... finished 2 minutes early. In the end that looks funny as I got the last two questions wrong. Mistakes were scattered with one mistake in RC. That is strange because that is where I usually screw up the Manhattan CATs. The passages from the GMAT prep were straight forward and very rarely did I see two choices with one hard to eliminate. But I also have a feeling that I am writing down too much on my scratch paper for the RC. I cannot manage to skim over the details as that approach has not worked for me. I try to follow the instruction of MGMAT RC strategy guide, but I write down more than necessary. Yes....that costs time.( say 3 1/2 to 4 minutes instead of 3 minutes)
Any advice is appreciated.

What I did this week:
1:Reviewed my previous MGMAT test
2: Did four chapters from word transalations MGMAT guide.
3: Did Kaplan GMAT 800 RC - had score rate of 65%!! - For some questions I felt that all the answer choices were wrong. But it was decent practice.
4: Did OG-verbal review - SC+CR+RC. Did two sets of 45 questions each....75 minutes each. The problem I find with this approach is all RC passages in OG verbal have 7 to 9 questions. - So in "45 question set", I am able to fit only 3 passages instead of 4. But still this approach gives me a sense of timing.

I will have a hard time reviewing the GMAT prep test performance this week as I dont see GMAT-prep software provide explanations for any of the questions. I dont want to go through any of the forums to find explanations as I dont want to see any questions that I may encounter in my next prep exam. Any suggestions for me on how to review my exam??

Thanks again.....

[StaceyKoprince]

8 of my mistakes were in DS. That is a red flag right there.

But what is the red flag? That doesn't mean you're bad at DS. Maybe you're rushing on DS because you're spending too much time on PS. (I see this all the time when I review my students' results. They tell me they're bad at DS and I can tell they're not - they're just making more mistakes because they're trying to do DS more quickly to make up for extra time spend on PS.)

And, yes, you'll always make some careless mistakes. Ideally, we just want to try to minimize the chances to make careless mistakes. Go back and figure out exactly WHY you made any careless errors. Then figure out what habit you need to either implement or change in order to minimize the chances of making that same kind of mistake in future.

Re: RC, when you're done with a passage and questions, go back and see how much of the detail you really needed to use. Prove to yourself that there's a lot of detail "left on the table" - that is, you didn't need to use it to answer the 3-4 questions you were given. (Note: if you're doing this with OG, you have to limit the number of questions you do to 3 or 4. Obviously if you do all of the 7+ questions that can come with a passage, then you'll pretty much use everything.)

If you can prove to yourself that the detail doesn't matter UNLESS AND UNTIL you get a question about that detail, maybe it will help you to skim more.

Also note: from now on, when doing OG RC passages, do NOT answer all of the questions for the passage. Only answer 3 or 4. You're giving yourself an advantage on the later questions that you'll never have on the real test (you've learned a lot already from the earlier questions when you get to 5+). Instead, pick 3 or 4 random questions, and then save that passage to do again in a few weeks (with 3 or 4 new questions).

For reviewing GMATPrep, you can use the search function on the forums for specific problems. That way you can look up explanations for the ones you did see without also viewing problems you haven't seen yet.

[StaceyKoprince]

8 of my mistakes were in DS. That is a red flag right there.

But what is the red flag? That doesn't mean you're bad at DS. Maybe you're rushing on DS because you're spending too much time on PS. (I see this all the time when I review my students' results. They tell me they're bad at DS and I can tell they're not - they're just making more mistakes because they're trying to do DS more quickly to make up for extra time spend on PS.)

And, yes, you'll always make some careless mistakes. Ideally, we just want to try to minimize the chances to make careless mistakes. Go back and figure out exactly WHY you made any careless errors. Then figure out what habit you need to either implement or change in order to minimize the chances of making that same kind of mistake in future.

Re: RC, when you're done with a passage and questions, go back and see how much of the detail you really needed to use. Prove to yourself that there's a lot of detail "left on the table" - that is, you didn't need to use it to answer the 3-4 questions you were given. (Note: if you're doing this with OG, you have to limit the number of questions you do to 3 or 4. Obviously if you do all of the 7+ questions that can come with a passage, then you'll pretty much use everything.)

If you can prove to yourself that the detail doesn't matter UNLESS AND UNTIL you get a question about that detail, maybe it will help you to skim more.

Also note: from now on, when doing OG RC passages, do NOT answer all of the questions for the passage. Only answer 3 or 4. You're giving yourself an advantage on the later questions that you'll never have on the real test (you've learned a lot already from the earlier questions when you get to 5+). Instead, pick 3 or 4 random questions, and then save that passage to do again in a few weeks (with 3 or 4 new questions).

For reviewing GMATPrep, you can use the search function on the forums for specific problems. That way you can look up explanations for the ones you did see without also viewing problems you haven't seen yet.

[arjun_r81]

Thanks for the advice again.

After a couple of weeks of decent performances, I screwed this one up. I took my fifth MGMAT to scored 690 (47Q,37V).

Questions wrong in Quant : 4,5,7,13,16,25,26,28,29,30,31,35,37 (6 wrong in DS, 6 wrong in PS)
Questions wrong in Verbal: 3,4,12,15,17,18,21,26,27,33,34,35,37,41 (5 wrong in SC, 5 in CR and 4 in RC)

To top that, I got the last problem right but I forgot to press confirm on the last question on Quant assuming the system will accept the answer. I am not sure how much that would have cost me.

Quant: I had a flurry of wrong answers from 26 to 31!! That should have costed me dearly...Easy questions - silly mistakes. I was surprised to see there were only around 9 700 level questions on the whole test. I am not sure why that happened.

Verbal: I screwed up my time by taking too long on my first 15 questions.(not intentionally - just dozed off!!) - I took 45 minutes for the first 21 and 30 minutes for the remaining 20. Although I had made the same number of mistakes on either section, I made too many in each!!. Unlike Quant, verbal had more 700-800 level. Out of the first 20 questions, 17 were in 700-800 level.

All in all a mediocre performance. But I am glad I screwed up three weeks before the exam. That gives me time to fix my mistakes and motivates me better. I will spend the next few days investigating the crimes committed!! If you see any pattern from what I have mentioned above, please let me know.

What I did this week:
1:GMAT Prep Review : Thanks for the advice on how to search for a particular question in this form. I also tried googling the stimulus within quotes along with the work Manhattan. It usually took me straight to the discussion. It usually takes me three hours per section for review.
2: Went through the chapters on probability and permution/combination in word trans-MGMAT. Did probability problems from high school and my early engineering curriculum. I also did problems on coordinate geometry and quadratic equations. on hindsight, the time could have been better spent on other stuff. Things I ended up learning will probably out of scope in the GMAT.
3: Did OG-verbal review - SC+CR+RC. Did two sets of 45 questions each....75 minutes each. But this time I did only 3-4 questions per RC as suggested by you and saving the rest for later. Also went through the explanations. I averaged 8 mistakes for every 45 questions.
4: Did the last 50 problems in both DS and PS from OG11.

Any advice is appreciated.

I hope I have better results to report next week.

Thanks again!!

[StaceyKoprince]

You're still within range of your goal score, so that's good. On practice tests, a 730 and a 690 are actually within one standard deviation of each other.

"Timing out" on the last question would have cost you a little bit, but I'm not sure whether it would have been enough to bump you to a 700 - possibly.

Take some time to figure out WHY you made the mistakes you made on that string of wrong answers in quant (and, actually, figure this out for any careless mistakes made anywhere on the test). Then figure out what habits you need to either make or break to avoid making similar careless mistakes in the future. In particular, if you notice that you made the same kind of mistake more than once, you really need to figure out what you can do differently next time to reduce the chances of repeating that mistake. (Sometimes, it's as simple as knowing that you tend to make a mistake on a certain kind of thing, so you can double-check your work.)

FYI - It's possible that you may have started to "use up" the 700+ questions in the MGMAT database. Your quant scores have generally been very high and, in some categories, you may have used the available questions. If the algorithm, for example, wants to give you a circles question, and you've already seen all of the 700+ circles questions, then it will give you a 600-700 circles question because it is not permitted to give you a question you've seen before (until your 7th test).

In general, it sounds like you're doing what you should be doing. Keep up the good work!

[arjun_r81]

Thanks again for the advice.
I finished MGMAT CAT 6 and scored 770(51Q, 44V).

Questions wrong in Quant : 3,6,9,21,25
Questions wrong in Verbal: 4,6,11,16,24,33,36,40.

I had issues with timing on the Verbal Section and the quant scores seem a little skewed as the test did not have a lot of 700-800 level questions(only 5 to be precise) and the rest were 600-700 level questions. As you had said in your last reply, I might have exhausted the 700 level bank. So I would not read too much into the Quant score. But Verbal was more satistying as this was my best score so far. Overall it was a surprise. My last three test scores in MGMAT 740 (50Q,41V) 690(47Q, 37 V) and this one 770 (51Q,44V). Shows a 80 point range.......

I also signed up GMAT focus(bundle of three). I took my first GMAT focus yesterday and scored (47-51). To me, that is a very wide range and does not indicate much. I made 4 mistakes in 24 question as shown in the table below. There were 12 PS and 12 DS questions. As you can see my timing per question is all over the place. Any opinion on that?
(secs)
Qn Status Timing Type
1 Right 145 PS
2 Right 47 PS
3 Right 146 PS
4 Right 50 PS
5 Wrong 214 DS
6 Right 232 DS
7 Right 87 DS
8 Right 105 DS
9 Right 153 PS
10 Right 52 PS
11 Right 159 DS
12 Wrong 165 PS
13 Right 143 DS
14 Wrong 99 DS
15 Wrong 114 DS
16 Right 61 DS
17 Right 103 PS
18 Right 86 PS
19 Right 94 PS
20 Right 69 DS
21 Right 22 PS
22 Right 188 PS
23 Right 66 DS
24 Right 58 DS
Total 44.3 min.


I have a question about resetting these MGMAT tests. I have 18 days to my test date. I have one GMAT prep left and two GMAT focus tests to take. I can only take tests on the weekends!! Is it worth resetting my MGMAT tests?(by far the best material I have seen) .

Also, When should I take my last test (how many days before my actual exams)?

What I did this week:
1:MGMAT Test 5 Review
2: Did OG-verbal review - SC+CR+RC. Did two sets of 45 questions each....75 minutes each. Finished the RC sections in both OG11 and VR. So I am out of material for RC? Any recommendations?? I went the Manhattan's review of OG12 and I have to say it was overwhelming....Do you see an upside to buying OG12 this late in the game?
3. Created a list as I read the explanations of the questions,writing down take aways (from OG11 and VR.)
4: Did another 50 problems in both DS and PS from OG11.
5 : Did GMAT Focus 1.

At this point I have to decide between going for new material and consolidating what I have alredy learnt. If you have any advice for me, keeping in mind my test is in two weeks, please let me know. Any advice is appreciated.

Although I did my essays for every test, I didn't really prepare for it. If you can give me some pointers on writing the essays..... I do not want a 6, 4.5 to 5 would do for me. I also want to finish my second essay a few minutes early... If you can give some bare minimum things that I should base my template on....
Thanks again.

[StaceyKoprince]

Given where you're already scoring and that you have two weeks left, it's time to consolidate. Solidify everything and don't worry too much about new stuff. Do try to learn if you come across something you haven't seen before or aren't sure about, but don't seek out a bunch of new stuff.

Ideally, take the last test 7 days before. You can go as close as 5 days before, but no closer than that. With 18 days to go, I'd say do 2 more tests - one at about the T-14 mark, and one at about T-7. One can be your final GMATPrep and one can be an MGMAT test - maybe do the MGMAT one first, so that you can use the data to help figure out what to review.

If you really feel like you want some fresh RC practice material, you can get OG12 - it's not that expensive - but given that you're going to work more on consolidating things at this point, I would think that you can re-use material you haven't done in a while. At this point, your review should be more about WHY the right answer is right (and the wrong answers wrong), not simply what the right answer is.

For the Argument essay:
Para 1: summarize the argument's conclusion and state the the author's reasoning is partially valid but also seriously flawed. State two of the flaws.

Para 2: Describe one of the two flaws. Give enough detail that the reader understands what the flaw is and how it undermines the author's conclusion. Suggest how the author could fix the flaw.

Para 3: Ditto for the other flaw.

Para 4: summarize everything your main points, using new words / different language

For the Issue essay:

Para 1: summarize the issue at hand and acknowledge that there are merits to both "sides" of the argument. State your own position / thesis (basically, pick a side). State two examples you're going to use to support your thesis. These examples need to be real things that have actually happened, in history, to you, to someone you know, etc.

Para 2: State your first example, give enough detail so that the reader understands the example, and explain why this example supports your thesis.

Para 3: Ditto for your other example.

Para 4: summarize your main points (thesis + examples, while acknowledging there are multiple valid points of view), using new words / different language

Oops, and I forgot to add: on your GMAT Focus test, 2 of the 6 on which you went over 150 seconds were wrong. On the questions on which you mostly kept to the timing guidelines, your percentages were a lot better. Really think about whether it's worth it to spend extra time when you're tempted to do so.

[arjun_r81]

Thanks again for the advice. The template given by you works great. Thats all I needed. Special thanks for that.

Did my second GMAT prep and scored 720(50Q,38V). 6 mistakes in Quant and 10 mistakes in Verbal. For the verbal section, I did not concentrate well as I saw one RC passage from OG. That kind of put me off. With 10 days to go, I need to consolidate my verbal score, which seems to be all over the place.

I have a couple of questions regarding timing.

What do you do when you are ahead on time? Note that this does not always happen to me but it did today. I reacted by slowing down which eventually hurt the momentum and the "interest", if you will....I was on question 10 by when my clock read 60. On hindsight, it seemed like a bad decision as I got questions 2 and 3 wrong in verbal. I finished Quant on a rush and this carried over to verbal....

In Quant, my timing apparently depends on the type of problem. I am usually good at algebra, probability, functions, modulus problems etc. but I am also not good at numerical calculations/word trans. Is it a good strategy to allocate time based on weaknesses/strengths? (This is often the end result).

I also took my GMAT focus 2 yesterday with 4 mistakes in 20 questions.(47-51)
The chart and split was almost identical to my performance last time. All your comments are noted. I still have to work on my timing on DS problems. I am mostly under minute and half for PS.

My 720 is a 50 point score dip from last time mostly attributable to my lack lustre verbal...I hope I dont have to postpone my exam with this result. If I get 720, I will be satisfied. But the std deviation +/- 30 points worries me. If you were me, will you postpone the test?

I have decided to use Manhattan Tests as practice as I wanted to do GMAT prep software to get used to that BLUE screen and the instructions.

What I did this week is similar to what I did the previous week.....in addition, I did Math problems from this forum and BTG.

I will probably give my repeat GMAT prep on thursday....(my test is on next wednesay-Aug19th.

Misc questions.

PAPER/PEN: I have MGMAT's laminated sheets and pen. It will take a couple of days to arrive. But I want to know what kind of pen is provided in the exam. Anything i can buy from office depot?? I already practise my exams with legal paper....

BREAKS : Does 8 minutes reflect the max time that one can take off at the end of a section before returning to his/her computer?

MONITORS: What kind of monitors....?adjustable height? I take my tests on a 19" monitor.

CUBICLE: Do you get your own cubicle or is it like a classroom? If it is like a classroom(free for all), I will get easily distracted.

Marking ABCDE: I mark ABCDE at the top with vertical line seperating them for the length of the page. Then I mark the losers with X till I eliminate everything but what I think is right....Does the laminated paper have vertical lines (line engineering paper?)

Sorry for the flood questions. Better to be safe than sorry.

Again a special thanks for the essay templates.

Thanks

[StaceyKoprince]

If you're too fast, you do have to slow down, but you have to think about why you were too fast so that you know how to slow down. Were you too fast on everything? On only certain types of questions?

Mostly, slowing yourself down means making yourself be a bit more methodical. Did you actually articulate a specific reason why each wrong answer is wrong? (You only need one reason for each, but you do need to articulate specifically whatever that one reason is! If you can't, then maybe that answer isn't wrong after all...) If it's RC or CR, do you have the proof for the right answer? For RC, that often means: I can put my finger on a specific set of words in the passage and those words prove the right answer. For CR, that often means: I can insert this right answer into the argument and it will clearly and cleanly serve whatever purpose the question said (eg, strengthen, weaken). When we speed up, these details are typically the details that we use - really telling ourselves why something's wrong or right - and that's what you have to make yourself start doing again.

In terms of allocating quant time based on strengths and weaknesses, to some extent yet - but you should allocate a bit more time (seconds, not minutes) to strengths and a bit less time to weaknesses. If something is a weakness, an extra 15 seconds is not going to help much. If something is a strength, then an extra 15 seconds on a harder one could actually pay off. And if something is a strength and not a harder one, I still want to spend 1.5 to 2m to MAKE SURE I get that thing right. If I finish a quant question and think I've spent less than 1min, I do it again, from the beginning. Lots of times I'm fine, but I also find lots of mistakes that way...

I think you're in a good position for the test so, at this point, I wouldn't postpone if I were you. Just be careful not to burn yourself out as you get up to Test Day.

The pen is a "wet erase" pen (meaning, you need liquid of some sort to erase it). It's basically a normal-sized pen, not a marker or anything, but I don't know enough detail to tell you "go buy this brand of pen from Office Depot" - sorry I can't be of more help there.

The break is the maximum time before the test will begin again on its own, whether you are sitting at the computer or not. You can come back earlier and an administrator at the site will start the exam at the point you come back.

The last time I took the test, the monitor was not adjustable. It may be different at different sites, but I'm guessing not. Three of the four walls in the room will have desks with cubicle walls on them. If you're sitting at the desk, you can't see anybody else, but if you push back from the desk, you will see others - so it isn't a full cubicle, but there is a visual cut-off.

The paper does have grid lines, so you don't have to draw those vertical lines yourself.

Good luck!