Time on new GRE

[mrsplant]

Hey everyone, I'm taking the GRE the first time (and last time because the deadlines for most of the programs I'm applying to are at the beginning of December) tomorrow.

I'm kind of nervous because of the time issue - I know how to do all of the problems but I haven't taken many timed practice exams (only the free one on the ETS website). What is your experience of the exam (the Quant section in particular)? Did you feel rushed while you were taking the exam? Did you have time to go back and check your answers? I'm asking because I've heard mixed reviews - some say that there's more time on the new GRE, some say less...

Any advice for tomorrow is appreciated!

[phetish]

"Mark" and "Review" are your best friends on the Quant section - if you know that a question is going to take time, mark it, skip it, and come back to it. Take the timed practice test to get a feel for how long it takes you to go through it.

I know that (for me) the questions that had data interpretation (charts, graphs etc) took more time for me to work out, so I marked all of those and went back at the end. I am better at algebra and geometry, so probabilities and interpretation were areas that I marked and came back to later. Basically, I took the test this way: algebra, geometry, evaluation, probabilities, and then finally interpretation.

Reading comprehension was the same way for me - mark, skip and come back to it. The rest of the verbal was quick and easy (in a manner of speaking) - that left me plenty of time to read the horribly written reading comp questions.

Hope that helps!

[phetish]

Oh - one last thing, I will say that I never had more than a minute or so left on each section when I finished.

D

[Rachel B]

Just some advice for the quantitative section-- the calculator can be a liability and if you use it on every single question it can eat up your time. Learn how to do calculations, even basic ones, without the calculator. It's much faster. Also, learn to eliminate answers that are out of the range for what you're looking for.

[mrsplant]

thank you both! yeah, the charts and data questions usually take up the most of my time, too. and when i practiced i tried using the calculator sparingly (also, the practice test calculator on the ETS practice exam didn't work well for some reason), i should be ok in that respect... wish me luck

[MartianQ]

In my experience time goes by faster on the GRE. On my practice tests I was always finishing with 3-4 minutes of spare time to check my answers, on the GRE I didn't have time for 1 question on one math section and on all the other ones I finished with seconds left.

Key is to be calm, composed and confident, the last one probably being the most important. If you've gotten to the point where you make 0-3 mistakes per section, you got the knowledge, you just gotta work on your concentration and anxiety control. Being anxious takes up your time, it takes time being worried, thinking about the implications of making errors or about past questions or about how much time you got left, you have trouble concentrating, which especially on the verbal section can cost you dearly.

So, just be calm confident. It's just a test, you've done the work, you're gonna do great and it's not the end of the world if you don't, you can always retake.

Good luck!

[mrsplant]

thanks for the words of encouragement MartianQ! I appreciate it and you're absolutely right

[DeeLovely79]

The biggest thing is not to let the time get away from you. In my practice I routinely ran out of time on the Quant and always had 10 mins left over on the Verbal. So what I would do is when I had 10 mins left in the Quant section I would move forward and select answers for every remaining question and then come back to the original problem I was working on. As I moved forward any question that I could not easily solve or eliminate answers I would just leave the random answer I had previously selected and then move to the next question. The strategy isn't perfect but I got a 153 which for me is good enough.

[MartianQ]

thanks for the words of encouragement MartianQ! I appreciate it and you're absolutely right

You're welcome How'd you do?