When to skip a question Forum

[jswranch]

I am striving for a 167 score.

My biggest time drain is getting stuck on a question and having to re-read. I am sure there is a tipping point when my total score will be higher if I just move on.

When should I skip a question and just make my best guess from remaining possible answers?

[Brettanomyces]

Read a question twice if you don't understand it--if it's LR, skip it. If it's an LG q, try to find where you went wrong. If it's an RC question, it's up to you.

[meegee]

Second the LR. If after you've read the stem and read the answers, and you're still clueless, try reading the stem again. If after that you're still clueless, skip it.

You should never skip questions in the logic games. That's not to say you can't jump around, aka do question 10 first and then do question 9. But if you have to skip, it's better to recognize a difficult game and skip the whole game.

Read RC question, look through answers, if you feel clueless, read through the relevant passage. If you're still clueless (aka you can't even eliminate one answer choice), skip it.

If you must bubble in an answer with no clue what the right answer could be, D is the way to go.

[bp shinners]

Read a question twice if you don't understand it--if it's LR, skip it. If it's an LG q, try to find where you went wrong. If it's an RC question, it's up to you.

Good advice.

[bilbaosan]

Read a question twice if you don't understand it--if it's LR, skip it. If it's an LG q, try to find where you went wrong. If it's an RC question, it's up to you.

It also depends on type of question and your personal weaknesses.

For example, for a necessary assumption question I'd go into arguments even if you don't understand the stimulus. Most of those questions are connecting two explicit terms in stimulus, one in premise and one in conclusion, so you may solve it even without understanding it. Same goes for the vulnerability questions which you don't understand but which contain either percentages (most likely the number-percentage flaw) or study (study flaw).

Also you might benefit from finding out which questions you are much more likely to fail, and skip those. For example, I skip:

- Any parallel reasoning or principle question which is long (the only question in a column (those are for people aiming for 180)
- Any "point of disagreement" question unless I understand it completely (very high probability of getting it wrong)
- Any "suppose the condition X is replaced by the condition Y" question (too much effort for a point)
- Any "main point of passage" and any inference RC questions in a passage which is about African American filmmakers, medieval Latin poetry or some other retarded subject

Of course if you manage to finish the whole section within time without skipping, and you aim at the top score, you probably should not skip any. After all, some of them may be easy enough. Skipping only makes sense if you routinely run out of time.