Strategy to Drop Questions

[aidasani]

Hello,

I realize that I'm struggling with timing on both quant and verbal. I do have a tendency to get stuck up on questions and I try to solve each one of them. I was wondering what the general guideline would be to miss a few questions? I've heard some people getting 720+ say they let 3 quant questions just fly by - complete guessing on the questions they had no idea to solve to save time . Not sure about verbal - how many would you recommend to let go?

Please assist. I appreciate your help.

[zaur]

Hello,

I realize that I'm struggling with timing on both quant and verbal. I do have a tendency to get stuck up on questions and I try to solve each one of them. I was wondering what the general guideline would be to miss a few questions? I've heard some people getting 720+ say they let 3 quant questions just fly by - complete guessing on the questions they had no idea to solve to save time . Not sure about verbal - how many would you recommend to let go?

Please assist. I appreciate your help.

By loosing a hose we create leakage. I have never prepared myself for 3 question fly-by in the quant. In case I am pressed with timing issue on exam, I will be doing two scenarios: 1) guess out only unbelievable, crazy answers not coming to my mind during the first 5 seconds of thinking, because GMAT is such to put the correct answers like this, 2) guess out A or B when I think it's E for Data Sufficiency (DS) and guess out E when I think it's C again for DS.

Verbal is quite easy to guess out when pressed by time. In RC first question topic is always in first paragraph; arguments are in the first sentence or next following one of each paragraph; counter arguments follow the arguments i.e. the second sentence of each paragraph; opinion is a resume of last sentence of the first paragraph and middle part of the last paragraph.

In general, I would not guess randomly for more than one question in Verbal. I would better plan accordingly my time for the Verbal section and leave the difficult questions for making an educated guess choice.

p.s. guessing on GMAT is either the sign of a test taker's prodigy or the end of one's complete beating by ETS :)))

[StaceyKoprince]

Most people have to guess on between 4 and 7 questions per section, if they're taking the test correctly. If you're working at the very peak of your ability, then the test is going to give you questions you can't get, and it's also going to give you some that just kind of blow your mind. :) So that's when you guess.

You may want to read your copy of our free e-book The GMAT Uncovered - there's a PDf available for download in your student center account. Pay attention to the section that talks about the algorithm and the timing and guessing. That'll help give you a better idea of how the test works and why everybody (yes, even the 99th percentile testers) has to guess sometimes.

zaur makes a distinction between random guessing and educated guessing above. Educated guessing is the ideal (and The GMAT Uncovered talks about this), but most people do have to guess randomly at times, too - just FYI.

[aidasani]

Thank you Stacey! Taking my GMAT on 20th nov. Let's see how it goes. Keeping my fingers crossed.

[StaceyKoprince]

good luck - er, it's over now. I hope it went well!
:)