Guess in GMAT!!

[priyankur.saha]

Can anybody tell me that what is the procedure to skip a question and how much does it cost to the total score?

I feel that I am too much obstinate to skip questions on exam and, therefore, I face problem at the end when there is less time and more number of questions to be solved. I know that sometime it is required to skip a question on GMAT but what should be the parameter for it?

Say:
1. I did not understand the question after my first reading (SC, CR)
2. RC question is asking some detail that requires thorough scan of passage
3. CR question stem is not clear or after going through all the option choices I found that nothing seems good and therefore I intended to re-read the stem
4. SC question is too long and whole sentence is underlined. I am not able to apply any rules in it.
I agree that there is no such hard-and-fast rule for skipping/guessing but what are the basic steps those titillate people to skip/guess questions on GMAT?

Time:
Some 700 scorers say that you have to feel 2 mins without watching at clock. How to practice this?

Thank you very much.

[RonPurewal]

first, i hope you know that you can't "skip" questions. you must guess on them. if you don't answer a question, it will sit there and stare at you until you answer it.

I feel that I am too much obstinate to skip questions on exam

this is a big problem. proper guessing strategy is a MUST on this exam. you CANNOT DELAY in any way on the exam; if you find yourself loitering at all, you should either move on to another method of problem solving or guess.
ideally, you should NEVER find yourself at a point where you are making no progress toward solving a problem. if you are EVER "stuck" for more than a few seconds, you should IMMEDIATELY either (a) move on to some back-up solution technique (such as "plug in numbers" on quant problems) or (b) guess.

I know that sometime it is required to skip a question on GMAT but what should be the parameter for it?

basically, i only have two rules for this:

1. GUESS WHEN YOU GET "STUCK".
read above.
if you are "stuck", try alternate approaches to the problem. if you can't think of any alternate approaches, then guess, NOW.

2. GUESS ON PROBLEMS THAT ARE HARD FOR YOU.
only your practice tests can tell you which problems these are.
go over the results of your practice tests, and notice (a) which problems you've been missing and (b) which problems have been taking you too long (remember that spending ridiculous amounts of time is just as bad as missing problems!).
these are the problems on which you should be more inclined to throw in the towel and guess.

so, as for your points 1, 2, and 3, you should use your practice tests to tell whether these are truly "weaknesses" or not. if they are, then, yes, you should be more likely to guess on them.

i do want to comment on this, though:

4. SC question is too long and whole sentence is underlined.

ironically, underlining the entire question actually makes the problem easier than does underlining only part of the question.
if only part of the question is underlined, then you have to keep glancing back and forth between the answer choices and the non-underlined part of the prompt. especially when you're looking at choices c, d, and e, which appear way down the screen, that can be difficult and annoying.
if the whole question is underlined, then, yes, you've got a lot of stuff to look at, but you don't have to collate information from different parts of the screen. that actually makes such problems a bit more, not less, friendly.

Time:
Some 700 scorers say that you have to feel 2 mins without watching at clock. How to practice this?

they are correct.
you practice this by ... practicing this!
whenever you're doing practice problems (remember that YOU SHOULD NEVER, EVER DO PRACTICE PROBLEMS UNTIMED), just hide the stopwatch from view while you're working the problem. then, at the end of the problem, try to predict how much time it's been, check, and calibrate.
once you can do this fairly reliably for single problems, move on to doing it for small timed sets (i.e., do 3 problems in a row without looking at the stopwatch, and see if you can predict whether it's been 6, 7, ... minutes).

good luck.

[priyankur.saha]

Marvellous support Ron. Thank you.

Within last 22 days I took two MGMAT tests and my scores are 630 (v37, Q41) and 640 (v36, Q42). I think my quant score is fixed on 42 and my verbal score is not moving beyond 37!! In last exam, I did all weaken type questions wrong. Somehow I pointed out that I do most of the mistakes on Assumption and weaken type questions, Therefore, I did some practice especially on them. But while I do them under test condition, I commit most of the mistakes. When I took test I feel extra cautious after seeing any weaken or assumption questions but that makes no difference.
I agree that I can't ignore them because those are the important types on GMAT. Could you tell me that how to nail those kind of questions?

[JonathanSchneider]

Assumption and Weaken the Conclusion questions are complex. You certainly can't just skip these areas. Mastering them, however, takes quite awhile, and probably cannot be explained in any one forums post. For starters, you should go back to the questions that you missed on these topics, both from the OG and any practice tests you've taken (but just those from a reputable source). Go over each question, and ask yourself: how would I see the assumption at stake here? Remember, assumptions are never written explicitly, but they are indeed implicitly attached to the argument. Fortunately, there are only a few types of assumptions that the GMAT presents, though these occur time and again. Do your best to categorize/group the problems you've missed by the assumptions they involve, and you'll be on your way toward building an understanding of these complex questions!