{"id":3310,"date":"2013-01-29T09:00:00","date_gmt":"2013-01-29T17:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/magoosh.com\/gmat\/?p=3310"},"modified":"2020-01-15T10:50:07","modified_gmt":"2020-01-15T18:50:07","slug":"when-to-guess-on-the-gmat","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/magoosh.com\/gmat\/when-to-guess-on-the-gmat\/","title":{"rendered":"When to Guess on the GMAT?"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/p>\n

When should I just guess and move on?<\/em> This has to be one of the most common questions my students pose when preparing for the GMAT<\/a>. Because the test can’t tell the difference between a guessed correct answer and well worked out correct answer, it’s important to have a good grasp of when to guess on the GMAT.<\/p>\n

<\/h2>\n

Two types of guessing<\/h2>\n

First of all, let’s be very clear when it comes to guessing on the GMAT: there are two very different types of guessing.<\/p>\n

1) random guessing<\/span><\/b> —- this occurs when you have absolutely no idea<\/i> what the answer might be — as far as you are concerned, any of the five choices could be the answer, and you are going to pick one out of five at random.<\/p>\n

2) solution behavior<\/span><\/b> —- this occurs when you understand enough about a question to eliminate one or more of the answers, and you are guessing from the remaining choices.<\/p>\n

Many test takers might call both of these simply “guessing”, but they are very different, and the guidelines concerning these situations are very different.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Random guessing<\/h2>\n

\"wtgotg_img1\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Once again, this only occurs when you have 100% zero understanding of the question —- it might as well have been written in Sanskrit.\u00a0\u00a0 The answer could equally be any of the five given choices as far as you are concerned.\u00a0 Theoretically, this will occur most frequently at the end of a section, as you are running out of time —- trying to fill in answers to 8 questions, say, in 3 minutes, just putting answers so that you don’t leave them blank.\u00a0 If you are in that situation, should you adopt that strategy? I discuss the strategies appropriate for handling the last few questions in a section as time is running out in this post\u00a0about guessing strategies<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Aside from running out of time at the end of a section, in all likelihood you will not find this scenario happens often.\u00a0 Most likely, you will be able to understand enough about almost all GMAT questions to eliminate at least one choice<\/span> in each, thereby making it no longer a “random guessing” scenario.\u00a0 If, in your practice, you find that you have to employ random guessing with any frequency, this probably means you are not at all ready to face the real GMAT<\/i>.\u00a0 With even moderate preparedness, you should be able to eliminate at least one answer to any question, as long as you have the appropriate time to read the question.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Solution behavior<\/h2>\n

\"wtgotg_img2\"<\/a><\/p>\n

I realize that if you understand so little about a GMAT question that you can only eliminate one answer choice, it may not feel like much of an accomplishment, but even when you can do even just this, the odds shift in your favor.\u00a0 Random guessing, on average, does nothing for you.\u00a0 Solution behavior, on average, moves you forward a little.<\/p>\n

If you realize that you can’t solve a problem in a reasonable amount of time —- about 120 seconds on Quant<\/b> and 100 seconds on Verbal<\/b> when you are working at full GMAT tempo<\/a> —- then eliminate as many answers as you can.\u00a0 In Sentence Correction, eliminate whatever grammatical mistakes you see.\u00a0\u00a0 In Reading Comprehension & Critical Reasoning, eliminate all choices that are unreasonable or obviously flawed.\u00a0 In the Quantitative Section, use estimation<\/a> and use whatever number properties are relevant.\u00a0 If you eliminate two, that’s great —- three, even better!\u00a0 Once you are down to the remaining, possibly acceptable answer choices, if you have used your “allotted time” on this question already, then guess randomly from the remaining two questions and move one.<\/p>\n

In order to work this way, it’s important to have a good intuitive sense of what 120 or 100 seconds feels like.\u00a0 For practice, you could even set a timer for the proper number of seconds before each question, so that you develop your own sense of timing.\u00a0 Of course, you will probably find that many questions you will answer in far less time than that, which is great — that buys you a little more cushion for the hard questions.\u00a0 During practice, try to be strict with yourself —- if most of the time for the question has elapsed, and you have eliminated a few answers but haven’t solved, then guess from the remaining answers and move on.\u00a0 I realize, intuitively this may not feel different from random guessing, but the statistics bear out — random guessing does not advance you at all, but solution behavior, on average, puts you a little bit ahead of where random guessing would have left you.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

If you have any experiences with this you would like to relate, or if you have questions about anything I have said, please let us know in the comments section.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

When should I just guess and move on? This has to be one of the most common questions my students pose when preparing for the GMAT. Because the test can’t tell the difference between a guessed correct answer and well worked out correct answer, it’s important to have a good grasp of when to guess […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":26,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[187],"tags":[],"ppma_author":[13209],"class_list":["post-3310","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-tips"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\nWhen to Guess on the GMAT?<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Moving on from a question is hard to do. When should you just guess? 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Beyond standardized testing, Mike has over 20 years of both private and public high school teaching experience specializing in math and physics. In his free time, Mike likes smashing foosballs into orbit, and despite having no obvious cranial deficiency, he insists on rooting for the NY Mets. Learn more about the GMAT through Mike's Youtube video explanations.","sameAs":["https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/c\/MagooshGMATChannel\/featured"],"award":["Magna cum laude from Harvard"],"knowsAbout":["GMAT"],"knowsLanguage":["English"],"jobTitle":"Content Creator","worksFor":"Magoosh","url":"https:\/\/magoosh.com\/gmat\/author\/mikemcgarry\/"}]}},"authors":[{"term_id":13209,"user_id":26,"is_guest":0,"slug":"mikemcgarry","display_name":"Mike M\u1d9cGarry","avatar_url":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/6b06de81592cd77bb46aa560cc59aee179cba4d042835c3529221ea1b344cce0?s=96&d=mm&r=g","user_url":"","last_name":"M\u1d9cGarry","first_name":"Mike","description":"Mike served as a GMAT Expert at Magoosh, helping create hundreds of lesson videos and practice questions to help guide GMAT students to success. He was also featured as \"member of the month\" for over two years at <a href=\"https:\/\/gmatclub.com\/blog\/2012\/09\/mike-mcgarrys-gmat-experience\/\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">GMAT Club<\/a>. Mike holds an A.B. in Physics (graduating <em>magna cum laude<\/em>) and an M.T.S. in Religions of the World, both from Harvard. Beyond standardized testing, Mike has over 20 years of both private and public high school teaching experience specializing in math and physics. In his free time, Mike likes smashing foosballs into orbit, and despite having no obvious cranial deficiency, he insists on rooting for the NY Mets. Learn more about the GMAT through Mike's <a href=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/c\/MagooshGMATChannel\/featured\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Youtube <\/a>video explanations and resources like <a href=\"https:\/\/magoosh.com\/gmat\/whats-a-good-gmat-score\/\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">What is a Good GMAT Score?<\/a> and the <a href=\"https:\/\/magoosh.com\/gmat\/gmat-diagnostic-test\/\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">GMAT Diagnostic Test<\/a>."}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/magoosh.com\/gmat\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3310","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/magoosh.com\/gmat\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/magoosh.com\/gmat\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/magoosh.com\/gmat\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/26"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/magoosh.com\/gmat\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3310"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/magoosh.com\/gmat\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3310\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/magoosh.com\/gmat\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3310"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/magoosh.com\/gmat\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3310"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/magoosh.com\/gmat\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3310"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/magoosh.com\/gmat\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/ppma_author?post=3310"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}