<p>^ you can check which you got wrong w/ the list</p>
<p>...the list?</p>
<p>Check the MATH 2 Nov 2008 thread and I posted it in there somewhere.</p>
<p>so if i omit 2, how many at most can i get wrong for 780 plus?
<em>crosses fingers for 5-6</em></p>
<p>5-6 wrong, jason88.</p>
<p>Why do you guys omit any questions? Looking at it mathematically, if you guess on five questions, you will get one right because there are five choices for each question. That would earn you one point and your four wrong answers would lose you one point so there is no gain nor loss. That is if you can't eliminate any of the five choices. If you can eliminate even just one, your chances go up and strictly going by the odds you would be earning yourself points. The negative quarter point rule is just to eliminate any advantage coming from random guessing. It doesn't hurt you for that guessing and it is still advantageous to guess if you can eliminate even only one answer, which is pretty easy to do for most questions.</p>
<p>If you don't have time or REALLY just don't know what you're doing, then it's smart to omit.</p>
<p>Omitting can increase your chances of an 800. If you know -6 raw points is an 800, and that you believe you have gotten the vast majority of the questions right, then from a strategic standpoint blanking a question when your not POSITIVE of the answer is advantageous. extreme example: you know you had the first 44 questions correct. You are unsure of the last six and have them narrowed down to two possible answers each. Even though it is unlikely you will get all 6 wrong, it is moronic to guess. </p>
<p>If the curve was something like only -1 = 800, then nobody would omit.</p>
<p>Okay I guess if time is an issue AND you don't know what you are doing, then omitting would save you time. But even if you have no clue how to do a problem, there is often one ridiculous answer that you can eliminate as a choice.</p>
<p>JJJJ1234- In the extreme case you described I see the advantage, but in a reasonable situation, I don't think someone could be sure enough that they have already earned enough points from right answers to not take a small risk in order to earn more points.</p>
<p>Shrimphead- I guess another tacit assumption i am making is that the person has to be confident in their math ability. You should also realize that the first 45 questions are much easier than the last 5 (although they are all pretty easy). Due to this obvious fact, in many cases it will be strategically sound to leave a few of the last questions blank; sacrificing a very high raw score to ensure that one's performance on the first 45 questions guarantees an 800. To your credit, in a situation where a confident test-taker has five unanswered questions, s/he should guess on two (three wrong answers incurs a penalty of 1 raw point). I think its reasonable that someone can be very sure that they have answered 44 or 45 questions correctly. Of course, if you're not good at math and need a high-risk approach to have a chance at 800, guess away!</p>
<p>Yes, the first 40 questions are generally not littered with tricks (question-wise) so it is reasonable to expect your answers to be correct (unless you made a calculation error like not dividing bh by 2)</p>