680 (v35) (q49): Need Help To Improve Speed

[sharshar]

Hello,

I need help to improve my speed in tackling the verbal section. I only completed 34 questions in that section and ran out of time. I am taking about 20 seconds more than what is required.

Was anyone successful in improving their speed, and how did they do it.

Sincerely,
Shar

[Sisi3a]

The easiest way to improve your speed is to focus on SC.

I used to never finish on time, which reflected negatively on my score.

I knew that my weakness in the verbal section was reading comprehension and I needed more time to work on it, but on the other hand I knew that every SC could be done in less than 1min.

So I downloaded 1000SC and started working on it. I was spending an average of 2.5 min on each question, but after 700SC questions I was able to do them in less than a minute. This improvement gave me more time to work on reading comprehension and to get the questions correctly. So just by practicing SC I was able to finish on time and I had enough time for the reading comprehension.

[SubZero]

I know it kinda sounds obvious but honestly one thing that can do wonder is practice. Once you keep doing tests on simulated CAT environment... you will start seeing patterns esp. in SC. When you take a lot of tests based on CAT... you will notice that your speed at SC has improved giving you more time for critical reasoning / reading comprehension.

Makes sense ?

[tictaktoe]

look at the positive, you couldnt complete your last 7 questions, even then managed to get a 35.. thts quite a feat !!

as subzero said.. practice more in time bound conditions. Save time on SC and to a lesser extent critical reasoning, and put that in reading comprehension !

I agree with Sisia3.

Also scoring 35 inspite of not able to answer 7 questions is big feat. A small improvement in speed will make you the candidate for 40+ in verbal.All the best.

I also had problems with Verbal speed. SC are best questions to cut time. Infact I got into similar situation during exam last 11 questions and only 11 minutes remaining. But luckily SC's helped. For recognizing most of patterns that GMAt checks try 1000SC (after leaning concepts for OG-10/11). It's very exhaustive and help you build speed. Only problem is that it doesn't give explnation.

Also for reading comprehension I noticed that the technque given in Kaplan aor anywhere esle of skimming very fast through passage ( less than 2 minutes) is not working for me. I found that I can answer more quickly and with better accuracy if I spend extra minute reading passage. That way i was not taking mostly more than a minute for each reading comprehension question. Try finding out what statergy works best for you in reading comprehension.

[shivalib]

hey x men..thanx for thy advice
even i face similar problems with reading comprehension..but i still feel m too slow for that...i take more than 10 mins to compelte 6-7 questions..how much time do u take..
for sc i take arnd 30 secs...!!!!:-(

pls can you help me out by telling what should be the max time spent on specific sections in GMAT...including maths (DS and quant).
that 'll be of great help ..so that i keep that as a target and start practising in the same manner.
thanx a lot
Others are most welcome to suggest..piyush y dont you tell us about the time limits that you followed!!!!

I guess 10 minutes for 7 questions in reading comprehension is not bad.
The way I was managing it during practice test was taking average of 2 minutes per question for first 15-20 questions (40 minutes). Then picking up speed from here on specially on SC and reading comprehension. For critical reasoning i was noticing that my consistencey rate is pretty good but I need 2 minutes on average for these
types of questions.

For SC in crisis i was taking around 1 minute to 1 minute 30 sec. Otherwise I was also pretty much taking 1 1/2 minute.

Toward end my reading comprehension was strongest (doing 12-13/14 correct) and I was doing 3 questions reading comprehension in around 5 minutes and 4 questions reading comprehension's probably in 6-7 minutes. 1 1/2 to 3 minute for reading passage based on toughness and content of passage and remaining for solving questions.
But there were times when I would have taken more time for tougher topics but then tried to pace myself with more familiar topics.
To improve my familarity with varied topics I made deliberate attempt to read daily (2-3) editorials from washington post ( these are mostly on issues of socitey, comparing biographies or discussing some personalities) and scientific american for bio and astronomy passages. It didn't take more than 15-20 minutes of reading daily and increased my confidence on reading through tough passages significatly.

Also I noticed that though sometimes I didn't understand the whole passage in sum but could answer all of the questions of passage correctly. So don't panic you u haven't gotten control over the passge after quick reading.

I guess I faced the problem in exam, because when I was doing these GMAT prep test and Power prep some questions were getting repeated. So whenever I was in time pressure even if I didn't remember the answer I was able to go through question stem qucikly because of familarity and save few seconds on each question till I came back to comfort level. In real exam this wasn't the option and I couldn't speed up till the end and paid for mistake. I was scoring b/w 40-44 on verbal in GMAT prep and Power prep.
So be careful abt this.

On Maths I had no defined speed for any section.. Even If I was behind the clock i knew that i could pick up the speed when required. Also I have noticed that difficulty of question is not always going up. In my GMAT Quant questions were more involved in term of calculations during middle and toward end I found them relatively easy.

But genearly I tried to gain 10 minutes in first 20-25 questions (assuming you have 2 minutes average to do 37 questions). This way I was always able to give extra minute if required for later questions.
Hope it will help you a bit. All the best on thy next attempt

[shivalib]

thanx x men..so if i just sum up by saying that we should try to give 2 mins per questions in maths(on a average, but not more than that) would i be wrong?i have heard that most of the times we have easy questions towards the end so the time taken decreases but ideally we should have good accuracy in the first 10-15 questions...is that true?(i havent taken GMAT yet)..my accuracy level is good in maths but i run outof time..i miss 5-7 questions while taking mocks...

on the other hand arnd 30 sec to 1 min(not more than this) in sc,10-12 mins in reading comprehension (6-7 questions) and arnd 2 mins in critical reasoning...Also we should be extra careful in the first 10-15 questions...is that right??

Earthlings say that if our accuracy level is good in the first few questions we get into a good scale on GMAT..i dont have much knowledge on this...pls comment on this

[SubZero]

I strongly suggest against using 2 full minutes against the first 10-15 question in quant. My suggestion is take the exam thinking that its a race and the first person who gets most of questions right in the least time is the winner. That way you are relaxed but not over relaxed or lose the focus. The questions at the end seem to be easier - but from what I have heard are trickier and needs little extra attention.

My 2 cents