"Biggest Time Killers" - Or when to skip a question?
Posted: Mon Aug 27, 2012 9:07 am
While doing the practice tests, I realize I have a big problem: Even on my 2nd attempt at a paper, when I knew how to solve each question and is just running through the computation, I keep running out of time!
The biggest "time killers" are those questions that I know I can solve if I spent a little bit more time on them. E.g. Spending 7-10 minutes. While wasting time on them, I keep getting the feeling that the solution was "around the corner" and refuse to give up. Also, having spent time reading the question, it feels like such a waste to let it go.
How do I know when to skip these? Spend 2 minutes per question, if I'm not rapidly approaching a solution, skip?
E.g. Those "which of the following is a metric" type question. We all know to check for triangle inequality, d(x,y) = 0 iff x = y etc. But I often get stuck thinking about how to disprove the triangle inequality for one of the options, after spending time eliminating 2-3 others.
The biggest "time killers" are those questions that I know I can solve if I spent a little bit more time on them. E.g. Spending 7-10 minutes. While wasting time on them, I keep getting the feeling that the solution was "around the corner" and refuse to give up. Also, having spent time reading the question, it feels like such a waste to let it go.
How do I know when to skip these? Spend 2 minutes per question, if I'm not rapidly approaching a solution, skip?
E.g. Those "which of the following is a metric" type question. We all know to check for triangle inequality, d(x,y) = 0 iff x = y etc. But I often get stuck thinking about how to disprove the triangle inequality for one of the options, after spending time eliminating 2-3 others.