When I took the SAT many years ago, getting an 800 in math required answering each question correctly. Missing even one would put you down to the 770 range. Along these lines, my initial naive goal for GMAT quantitative was perfection, and my strategy at first was to "make up" time on the easy questions towards the beginning and thus have more time for the hard hitters later on. Looking deeper into the GMAT format though, it appears as though aiming for 37/37 is unrealistic, and that the algorithm can allow for up to quite a few "difficult" incorrects while yielding a perfect 51 score.
This creates an interesting sort of paradox in which the easier questions take the least time but are also weighted more. My question, then, is how this factors into timing strategies when aiming for a 99% percentile quant score. On the one hand, speeding through the easier questions creates the idea of a "higher ceiling" because you have marginally more time for the questions that really require it. However, I'm now leaning towards the opinion that this is needlessly reckless because the threshold for even a 51 is not as high as one would expect. Going even further in that direction, could it even be advantageous to "punt" questions which are clearly and apparently in the most difficult tier - perhaps by allocating your time in such a way that allows for very little time for the last 10? I'm not quite familiar enough with the test algorithm and format to appreciate the nuances here, but perhaps some folks on the forums could provide their insight. I have read that it is possible to miss 6-7 questions out of 37 and still get a perfect score if they were the "right" questions, but it was unclear if this was because they were largely experimental questions or simply the difficult ones.![]()
This creates an interesting sort of paradox in which the easier questions take the least time but are also weighted more. My question, then, is how this factors into timing strategies when aiming for a 99% percentile quant score. On the one hand, speeding through the easier questions creates the idea of a "higher ceiling" because you have marginally more time for the questions that really require it. However, I'm now leaning towards the opinion that this is needlessly reckless because the threshold for even a 51 is not as high as one would expect. Going even further in that direction, could it even be advantageous to "punt" questions which are clearly and apparently in the most difficult tier - perhaps by allocating your time in such a way that allows for very little time for the last 10? I'm not quite familiar enough with the test algorithm and format to appreciate the nuances here, but perhaps some folks on the forums could provide their insight. I have read that it is possible to miss 6-7 questions out of 37 and still get a perfect score if they were the "right" questions, but it was unclear if this was because they were largely experimental questions or simply the difficult ones.