Should I purposefully miss some questions?

[BilboSwaggins]

Talking GRE here.  It seems that I did really well on the first quant section, but on the second they are all 4-5 in difficulty.  If I miss, like, 3 in the first section, will that lower the difficulty of the second?

[blc073]

No, do not miss any questions on purpose. 

The GRE works by grouping. Let's say in math there are two sections. The first section will be a fair mix of easy, medium, and hard questions. It will be the same difficulty for everyone. However, there will be three groups for the second math section. Group A will be difficult, Group B will be medium, and Group C will be easy. How well you do in the first section will determine your group for the second section. 

This is where your question comes into play. Intuitively, it makes sense to want your second section to be easy, so you might try to miss questions on purpose. However, each group is confined to a range of scores. So, Group C might be 130 to 150, Group B might be 151 to 160, and Group A might be 161 to 170. Meaning, if you get every question right in Group B, you will still only get a 160 in math. But if you miss every question in Group A, you are still at a 161. Note, these numbers are not official. 

So, it is best to do the best you can in the first section so you will be placed in the highest group for the second section. 

[MathCat]

Lowering the difficulty of the second section by deliberately missing problems in the first section will limit the maximum score you can get. 

[sivakumaranandan]

Score the best possible in both tests of a section. Missing some questions to increase the overall correct responses does not increase you score proportionally. GRE scores have a upper bound on score based on difficulty level of questions you attempted.