Rushing at beginning - timing problems

[freya.birdie]

Hello All,
It seems like I have the opposite problem than most on timing: I always seem to finish the Quant section with extra time remaining: usually a few extra minutes and once with 10 extra minutes! I have analyzed my MGMAT CAT exams 1-4 and realized that I consistently rush through the Quant problems. I am fearful of running out of time, and therefore move briskly, especially at the beginning. This has resulted in careless errors. But when I tried to slow down on my most recent CAT, I felt as if I was investing more time into difficult problems which I did not answer correctly anyways just to "slow down".

I'm not sure if I should discipline myself to spend 2 minutes per question early on? On most problems I have a pretty good idea on if I know the concept to get me to the right answer or not. So when I feel like I don't (which is frustratingly more often than not!) I guess and move on, perhaps a bit too quickly?

My timing on Verbal is better as I am stronger in Verbal overall.
I'm aiming for a score around 700 (will be happy with 680+)
My CAT scores have been:
CAT 1: 2/12: 560 (Q36 V31)
CAT 2: 3/24: 640 (Q42 V36)
CAT 3: 4/8: 690 (Q44 V39)
CAT 4: 4/14: 650 (Q43 V36)

I was obviously very disappointed and shaken to drop down significantly from CAT 3 to CAT 4. I think this may be because I spent the entire week between CAT 3 & 4 reviewing only Quant and did not touch Verbal. Judging by my score I figured out that is not a good idea and am changing my strategy for this week of study.

I'm going to work on timed set practice with the OG problems. I've been giving my self 2 minutes per problem when practicing, but I think I just need to set a block time limit for a group of problems.

I'm not sure if my Quant level is just stuck in the 70% range because of conceptual understanding or if it could be improved with better timing?

I am scheduled to take the GMAT on May 8, three weeks from now. So this is really the home stretch!

I'd greatly appreciate your help and advice on timing and improving my score.

Thanks, grazie mille! Freya

[StaceyKoprince]

You're right that this is the less usual of the two main types of timing problems (too fast and too slow), but plenty of people are in your boat. :)

But when I tried to slow down on my most recent CAT, I felt as if I was investing more time into difficult problems which I did not answer correctly anyways just to "slow down".

That's because you were choosing the wrong problems in which to invest time. You mentioned making careless errors sometimes due to rushing. A careless error, by definition, is an error on something that you DID know how to do. You weren't making careless errors on difficult problems that were too hard for you anyway. You were just missing them because they were too hard!

You need to invest that time in the problems that feel easy to medium for you - those are the ones for which rushing can result in careless errors. Write down all of your steps, check your work, etc, when you do know what you're doing. Make sure that you aren't going to lose that point simply due to a silly mistake.

Read this and start doing what it says:
http://www.manhattangmat.com/blog/index ... anagement/

On quant, spend at least a minute on any question* - if you finish it in less than a minute and think you got it right, check your work. Why not? You have the time. (And it's not like you want to save that time to spend 3+ minutes on some other question - as you've found out, if you don't know how to do it in 2 to 2.5 minutes, you likely just don't know how to do it at all.)

*The only caveat to that is if you've messed up your timing and are behind. Then you're going to have to bail on some questions to catch back up again.

Agreed that it's not a good idea to ignore quant or verbal for a long period of time. Also, have you been doing the essays? Was there any other reason why you might have been more fatigued on the lower-score test? Verbal's the last section, so mental fatigue can play a large part there.

Agreed on doing sets of OG questions with a block of time - much better than one at a time. Make sure the questions are random / mixed, too - the real test won't give you 5 geometry questions in a row.

In terms of what to do, you can use the below article to analyze your most recent CAT:
http://www.manhattangmat.com/blog/index ... -the-gmat/

Use that to figure out a study plan for yourself and also come back here and share your analysis and plan (note: not just the raw data - we want to see your actual analysis). We'll tell you whether we think you're on the right track, etc. :)