I had a call with a prospective student who kept getting stuck on questions in their actual exams – taking up to 8-9 minutes on individual questions. (And these weren’t the first RC or MSR questions).
I asked them, “So, what should you have done?”
His immediate answer was: “Well, I should have guessed, bookmarked it, and moved on much sooner.”
Then I asked, “Okay, then why didn’t you do that?”
He laughed and said: “I knew what I should do, but I couldn’t do it in the moment.”

That begs the question: If you knew what you should do, then why didn’t you do it? And I asked the student this question.

His answer (again smiling) was: I don’t know. Maybe it is the pressure of the test. Maybe I was scared of getting the question wrong. I’m not sure.

And this brings me to an important aspect of mastery.

There are three stages to mastery (at least in the GMAT context):

1. Knowledge: Knowing what to do: concepts, learning methods, formulae
2. Application of knowledge: The ability to figure out when to apply what knowledge
3. Application of knowledge in the moment: The ability to do it efficiently

In the student’s particular case, the gap wasn’t at the knowledge level. They knew what they should have done. The gap was at an application level. They did not execute what they knew they should do.

Now, let’s understand this better:

Why couldn’t the student skip despite knowing that’s the right step?

So, why couldn’t the student act, even when he knew the right strategy?

I believe that while on surface level it might seem illogical to the student why they didn’t do what they knew they should be doing, there is a deeper logic that actually convinces them to not move ahead. I believe the starting point is that there is an internal dialogue that is still justifying spending that extra time on the question.I expect the student’s internal thinking would have gone along one or more of the following lines:

1. Making the time already invested worth it

• “Oh, I’ve already spent quite some time on this question. I believe I’m quite close. And so it’s justified to spend a little more time to try to get to an answer. If I don’t do that, I would have ended up wasting even the time I’ve spent initially. On the other hand, if I eventually do get to an answer, that, at least to some extent, justifies the time I have invested in the question.”

2. “I’ll be able to catch up”

• “I know I’m running behind time, but, if I power through, I can get through the remaining questions without any significant compromise. I’ll just need to be super fast and efficient, but I think I’ll be able to manage it.”

3. “I can’t afford to get such an easy question wrong”

• “It’s such an easy question. I’m just missing something quite simple. It’s just a matter of catching it. Maybe a few seconds more, and I should be able to catch it. I can’t afford to get such an easy question wrong. That will seriously impact my score.”

4. If get an initial question wrong, the algorithm will punish me severely

• “The question appeared at the very beginning of the section. If I get such an initial question wrong, then I’ll get severely penalised by the algorithm, and I’ll not be able to recover. So I need to try and get the question correct, even if that means taking extra time.”

5. I already wasn’t sure of my answers to the previous few questions. I cannot afford to continue getting questions wrong. So, I have to stay with this one.

6. I have already spent some time on this question. If I bookmark it for later, I will need to spend this time again to remind myself of the question. It’s better to just continue with it right now.

These reasonings, however, are all flawed.

The flaws in this internal thought process

1. “Oh man, I’ve already spent 2.5 minutes. If I move on, I’ve wasted that time. But if I spend 1 more minute, I can get it right and ‘justify’ the time spent.”
   The 2.5 minutes are gone. They are sunk. You can’t get them back. Your only decision is about the future: “Is spending the next minute on this question I’m confused about a better investment than spending that same minute on a new, fresh question?”
   The answer is almost always no.
2. Say the student typically in their practice hits ~80% accuracy when practicing questions with a 2 minutes/ question average. Now, if the same student tries to answer questions in 1.5 minutes/ question on average, their accuracy will dip. There will be a trade-off. It is not rational to expect that they’ll be able to perform as well as they usually do even with less time. In fact, the time crunch pressure, if anything, will make matters more difficult. And yes, a wrong answer will have negative consequences. But there will typically be far more severe consequences of spending 8 minutes on one question. Your performance in the rest of the section will get compromised for a single question. That is a terrible trade.
3. Notice how the student decided the question is easy. Not by how easy it was for them to answer it. When trying to answer it they are stuck. They have made a notion about the difficulty of the question based on how it looks and kind of a ‘gut feeling’. I have seen numerous times students underestimate the difficulty of questions. If you are getting stuck, the question is not easy for you. Nothing else matters.
4. Understand the purpose of the algorithm. The algorithm is designed to figure out your correct level with as few questions as possible. Any anomalies – either at the start of the section or later – would be handled to not let your score get impact too significantly in either direction. i.e., even if you get the initial questions correct, it’s not like you will certainly get a high score. Similarly, if you get some of the initial questions wrong, it is not like you will certainly get a low score. My suggestion is simple: Let them do their job (managing the algorithm), you focus on yours (handling the questions well).
5. Your past performance should not dictate how you handle the next question. The only parameters to keep in mind while dealing with a question is how that particular question feels and how much time you have left.
6. You have an option to bookmark questions and come back to review and change up to 3 answers in the end. Use this feature to your advantage. e.g. in round one, out of say a total of 21 questions, find the best 17-18 to do in the first go. Come back to remaining ones in the end – if time permits. If you anyway do not have time left, you wouldn’t have had time initially either to handle all questions properly. Sure, if you revisit a question you already invested some time on earlier, you’ll probably need to repeat some of the steps – such as read the question again. But on the other hand, a ‘break’ from the question could also help you identify something that you were missing earlier.

How to get better at applying knowledge in the moment

The challenge is we cannot always trust our “in the moment” feelings. Because our first instinct need not be the right response. And we would probably be under pressure to calmly think of a better response. I recommend you figure out ideal outcomes in a “calm state” beforehand. And then you need to build the skill of executing a pre-planned response.
Here’s how.

1. Define your ideal response (and fix your thought process)

The key is to decide right now – while you are calm and rational – what the correct move is.
So, let’s define that ideal response. This could be your process to follow for when you get stuck.

The 3-step “stuck” process

• Acknowledge: Say (in your head), “I am not 100% at ease with this question.” (Notice: The acknowledgement isn’t “I have no idea about this question”. The acknowledgement is “I am not 100% clear.”)
• Assess: Ask yourself one question: “Do I have a clear path to the answer right now?” (Yes/No)
• Act: If the answer is “No,” shift your objective from “How do I get the correct answer?” to “How can I make an educated guess?”. Spend 15 seconds, make an educated guess, bookmark the question and move on.
  If the question seems fairly difficult, even spending those 15 extra seconds might not be worth it.

2. Train the ability to let go

You can’t just assume you’ll be able to let go of questions on test day. You have to train it.
How? Create a practice set of 10 questions. Now, give yourself only 16 minutes. Go into that set with the goal of not answering all 10. Your mission is to find the best 7-8 questions you have the highest chance of solving and ruthlessly guess on the others.
From the very first question, your first thought shouldn’t be, “How do I solve this?” It should be, “Is this worth my time right now?” Be open to skipping at any point: based just an initial feel of the question, based on how you feel after (or while) reading the question or the passage, after you have spent some time to try to answer the question. There is no wrong time to move ahead. These are judgment calls. Calls don’t need to be perfect. They just need to be the right decisions in the moment. Sometimes it is possible you skip a question you could have answered. But as long as you are skipping the right questions at the right time more often than not, you’re doing fine.

Practice the act of letting go. Practice it in self-created short tests. Practice it in your practice tests. Say you typically need 3 minutes on average to answer a 2-part-analysis question properly, do not try to suddenly try to answer such questions in 2 minutes in the test. Accept that maybe you’ll not have enough time to answer all questions properly. In a MBA.com mock test I attempted, I skipped a complete MSR set. I guessed on all 3 questions and all 3 answers were wrong. I was still able to score 86/ 90 in the section. By skipping the MSR initially, I felt more relaxed through the remaining section. I wasn’t always chasing the clock. Turns out I did not have time left in the end anyway to come back to the MSR. So, had I spent time on the MSR set initially, I would have missed answering some other questions for sure.

The takeaway

The gap between “knowing” and “doing in the moment” is closed by a system. You need a process that makes the right move automatic, removing your panicked brain from the decision.

First figure out what should be your ideal response in such situations. Then practice executing that response till it becomes a habit.
Practice this process. Work on your mindset. Understand why your mind fights you, realise the flaw in that reasoning, and then train this new habit until it becomes an instinct. Learn to listen to that “I am not crystal clear” feeling, and let your pre-defined process take over.

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