Answer randomly

[nigar]

Hi,

When practicing Verbal section with PowerPrep software, normally I could not finish all the 30 questions. Because sometimes in the question 24 or 25 I encounter a short reading passage (time about 25:00). I have following options:

1- To read the reading quickly and only answer the reading questions. Therefore I could not answer 3 or 4 questions.

2- just answer the reading questions randomly and then answering carefully remaining questions ( about 3 or 4 questions).

Which option would you suggest?

[Strangefox]

Hi,

When practicing Verbal section with PowerPrep software, normally I could not finish all the 30 questions. Because sometimes in the question 24 or 25 I encounter a short reading passage (time about 25:00). I have following options:

1- To read the reading quickly and only answer the reading questions. Therefore I could not answer 3 or 4 questions.

2- just answer the reading questions randomly and then answering carefully remaining questions ( about 3 or 4 questions).

Which option would you suggest?

It is better to answer all questions (some of them randomly) than to answer only a part of the questions but carefully. That is 100 percent true. Your score will be significantly lower if you leave several questions unanswered.

[DRT23]

Hi,

Remember that if you answer reading questions randomly and if they are wrong then your score will be lowered and last questions will be those with little points. If i were you, I would answer reading questions carefully and little faster than you do now at least to have a few seconds for answering that last 3 or 4 questions randomly. You should focus on reading questions now to pace yourself in verbal. Don't forget that you do not have to read entire passage to answer questions. Many times, reading just a few sentences could be enough to answer a reading question.

Good luck.

[DrFaustus666]

It is better to answer all questions (some of them randomly) than to answer only a part of the questions but carefully. That is 100 percent true. Your score will be significantly lower if you leave several questions unanswered.

Absolutely right.

OP:

ETS's website says somewhere (please don't anybody chide me for not giving the link right here, I don't feel like wading through the whole bloody thing to find it)---anyway, it says that there is a "heavy penalty" for leaving questions blank at the end. Just HOW heavy? It doesn't say.

BUT, the reasoning seems obvious: the "heavy penalty" is to prevent you from trying to "get around" the CAT thing. They do not want you to, say, answer the first 15 questions correctly, then give no answer for the last 13 in the Quantitative section, then expect to receive a score of 800 because you "got every question [ that you answered, with extra time! ] right."

[anonacademic]

Pick up a test book and read through their suggestions for how to tackle the verbal section - because as the others have said, there's a huge penalty to leave questions blank, but it's also bad to randomly guess. I have the Princeton Review and the Barron's Guide - each was helpful (the Barron's had better vocab lists, though). Their techniques work. Read them, study them, practice them. They'll help you focus how to read the passages and what to look for in the least amount of time possible.

I am not trying to sell anything, FYI, and I would recommend looking into your campus library/career center for test books, rather than shell out for them yourself.