Hello! Just wondering if I could get advice from any instructors or high-scorers on how to become better at skipping a question and moving on? Is there a sort of confidence drill that I can do to help build that habit? Over the past few tests, I've noticed a pattern of freezing early in an LR section and spending 4+ minutes on one level 2-3 question and spending 20+ minutes on Passages 1 and 2 on RC. As you can imagine, I'm burning through a lot of time in the beginning/middle of sections, and it's costing me quite a bit of time and points towards the end.
Sometimes I get stuck on a question because of two tricky contenders, but most of the time it's because I know I can figure it out but I panic and start jumbling up my diagrams and refuse to move on from the question. I know that I should just flag it and come back to it, but I don't trust myself to have enough time!
This hasn't always been an issue for me, but I think I recently slipped into a very bad habit of needing to be 100% confident of every correct answer before moving on. How do I learn to trust 70-80% confidence on an answer?
Thanks in advance!
6 comments
I also struggled with being able to move on past a question I feel like I wasted a ton of time on and still feel stuck. And I agree; it feels a little off putting when you're spending a lots of time on a level 1-3 that feels like it shouldn't take as long. What helped me is remembering that all questions are worth the same amount of points. So it's better to skip one and come back if I'm able to be confident on two questions in the amount of time it takes me to parse out that one question. And when I skip it, I blow it a kiss goodbye so I don't go into the next questions with the mindset of, "well that one took forever so I'm basically screwed for all the questions."
It sounds extra but it worked for me!
@HappyTestTaker I love this kiss goodbye thing!! Will be implementing that immediately 🫡
Sometimes you just need to revisit a question with fresh eyes! Especially if it's one you know you can solve, allow yourself to take a break from it and trust that it will be faster to come back later. Practice doing this with timed drills and sections, until you feel confident enough to do the same on PTs. Good luck :)
@DaliaGolovco Ahh thank you! Will try that
I have learned that sometimes I have to tell myself that my mind is just not getting that stimulus at the moment whether it is an easy or a hard question. Then I flag it and move onto the next few fairly quickly. If you start to reread the stimulus and you don't get it that may be something to consider. When you come back to it either two things will happen, you have the time to appropriately stare at it and take the chance or you are short on time anyways which means skipping that question likely saved you from missing many more. It is an individual choice but something to consider and something that can be seen more as a strategy for getting the best score than something that people beat themselves up for when they stumble on a question.
@WillowBound2 Really good point, I think I might just have to bite the bullet and start skipping 😔