Scratch Pad on Test Day

[andreas.apostolatos]

May be a trivial question, but hey, every second counts right?

So, you know how during the Manhattan GMAT CAT exams, there are "divider screens" in between the first set of say, Sentence Correction questions and the first Critical Reasoning question. These screens give you the directions etc. for the question type. On the Manhattan GMAT CATs, that was a nice opportunity to write the elimination grid of ABCDEs without having to use any time to do so (the clock was not ticking while on those divider screens).

Is this how it is on the actual test as well? Or, if not, would it hypothetically be possible to write a ABCDE grid on every page of the pad BEFORE the clock starts, so that you don't have to do this every now and then while the clock is actually ticking?

[StaceyKoprince]

Every second does count. :)

The real test does have a timer on the instruction screen - last time I took it, the timer was 1m. Anybody out there who's taken it very recently, let us know if that's still the same!!

So, if that's still the case, then you do have a short amount of time to set up your scratch paper and, yes, that's a great way to use your time. You can also use any extra time you have during the essays to do so, though I will warn you that I've had reports from students of proctors taking the scratch paper on the break, even though the students didn't want them to. I don't think there's a standard policy about that but, if they do try to take it, apparently they won't let you keep it even if you tell them you want to keep it. At least, that has been the case for some people.

For verbal, by the way, I write ABCDE only once at the top of each page, with some separation between the letters, and then I keep track for each problem underneath - a new row for each problem, and the bottom row is always the current problem.