How did you respond when things went wrong during a test?

WickedLost

Hi 7Sagers. I'm taking my first attempt in February and I was curious how people handled different instances of things going wrong during the test: things like misreading or missing a rule during a logic game, not having enough time to get to all your LR questions, not understanding an RC passage well, etc?

I'm trying to make a plan for how I would handle things if they go wrong in order to decrease my anxiety so any help would be greatly appreciated!

HopefullyHLS

The only way to be appropriately weaponed for this is to simulate your PTs under conditions as close as possible to the real exam.

At least I can tell from my experience that the anxiety will always be higher during the real exam, as there will always be in the back of your mind that this is not a PT, but the real thing. Therefore, it is extremely crucial to be able to handle such moments, and the only way to train your brain to do this is by repeatedly making the decisions you have to make in such moments in your PTs.

I think a "plan" would be too long to write down here, since the list of potential "fuck-ups" is simply too long, though I can share for instance in what moments during my last exam in January I felt that training my brain for those really paid off:

• I got stuck during the second logic game. I skipped three questions without spending too much time on thinking/worrying about them. Finished game 3 and 4, and had 5 or 6 minutes left. Came back, and saw that I had forgotten about a rule of that game. Solved all 3 questions with sufficient time to double-check my answers on those, and had 1 min left at the end.

• I did not have to blind-guess a single question during LR and RC this time. This was not the case at the October exam, where I blind-guessed 1-2 questions on each LR section due to time running out (I completely messed up RC back then). This was the case simply because I actively trained that situation so many times that my brain was hard-wired to function by the following algorithm, in case I do not know an answer:

a) Re-read stem
b) Re-read stim
c) Re-read all AC
d) Lower your standards
e) Identify assumptions and compare leap
f) Compare subject-verb-object, if applicable
g) Read for precise meaning
i) If not sure after some time (1.5 min for LR, 1 min for RC), flag, pick your best guess and move on.

• The last RC passage was hard, and there were several things I did not understand through the first reading. However, I was able to differentiate what I DID understand vs. what not, and I remember one question which I could answer after coming back & re-reading two sentences I did not understand.

Lastly, keep in mind the following:

• Each question is worth 1 point, no matter how hard or easy it is. If you find a question particularly hard, it could be that you would only be able to answer it after a very long time, or even get it wrong after BR. If you miss it, you lose 1 point. If you miss it + spend 3-4 minutes on it, you lose more than 1 point, as you will run out of time and have to blind guess low-hanging fruits.