Hello.
My question is applicable to both Verbal and Quant Sections. When faced with a difficult question, I often face a dilemma.
I find it difficult to skip a question on which I have methodically deliberated for two minutes, and about which I feel that I am just near the solution. What do you guys do?
Hi @user1731 I also had a similar issue, with question skipping, but, what I do is for that particular moment I skip the question and mark it down, attempt the other ones, and return back to it afterward if time permits.
Because, sticking to a particular question for so long, will definitely kill your time and subsequently, would also drop down your score as well
I think this technique would help you as well. Just give it a try.
so you’re saying like if you’re doing a question, and you have figured out the strategy, but you’re in a situation, let’s say, the answer you found out is not in the options, or the procedure is lengthy (as in brute forcing), then you see if 2 minutes have passed, you mark the question, and move on???
Yes, exactly.
Agree with user9576. While I was originally resistant to skipping, I found that it was instrumental in my test taking process. Often times, when I felt myself getting stuck, I would force myself to skip. Personally, I wrote the question # on my scratch paper to remember to go back to it, rather than marking it on the computer (felt faster to me). Upon my return to the question, I was often able to find a shortcut in quant, and look at the question with fresh eyes in verbal.
If you’re usually short on time / rushing to finish the sections, skipping questions that you get stuck on helps to answer as many potentially easier questions as possible.
If you’re usually not short on time, then you’ll have time to come back around and solve with fresh eyes.
Well almost everyone faces this issue!
For example, if I am aiming for 168 in V, I know I can only skip four questions at most in both verbal section. But as soon as I start my verbal section, I realize the first question is tough, so I skip it under 30 seconds. Then, the second question is also tough, and I can’t get anywhere with it, so I skip it too, marking random choices but I took 50 sec for this. The real struggle begins when I find that I am not getting anywhere with the third question either. The added pressure of not being able to answer any of the problems I encounter and the overall pressure of knowing that I can only afford to get four questions incorrect will surely mess up anyone’s brain. Thus, the most important thing is to have a game plan. For example, my game plan is to solve or choose random choices for each verbal section in 25 minutes so that I should have 5 minutes for revision. From my practice tests, I know I am good at reading and SE but very bad at 1 blankers. Therefore, I will first attempt SE, then RCs, then two or three blankers, and finally, I will attempt one blankers. More importantly, I will be on my own time constraint (25 minutes) instead of the 30-minute time constraint set by ETS, and I will not attempt the verbal section starting from question 1.
Hence, it very important to know your strength and weakness ; to practice under time conditions and to practice skipping in your practice tests as well has during problem solving sessions too!
How do I know/understand that I’m not getting anywhere?
I personally followed this rule → In verbal each question has a time limit of 1:30 means 90 sec per question now that means by 45 sec I should’ve figured out the trick/method for answering otherwise I skip or I can at-max take 15 sec more depending on the situation
There’s one more thing I’d like to talk about.
For example, if I decide that I’d skip the question after, say, 30 seconds of indecision. Sometimes, especially in word problems, just noting the given information, and understanding the requirements of the problem takes about a minute. Would you skip the question? or take another 30 seconds to strategize about the problem and then decide to proceed or skip?
I’d take another 30 seconds or so because usually word problems are time-consuming.