<p>A word of warning to everyone on this forum, the first questions of the GRE are NOT actually more important than the later questions. This is a common misconception that we at Manhattan GRE try to dispel. You don't want to front load your time on the GRE, because wrong answers at the end of the test hurt you just as much as wrong answers at the beginning, and leaving questions blank due to lack of time is worse than not answering them at all. While it is true that wrong answers early on in the test will hurt you, having less time at the end will hurt you more. See page 3 of this study published by ETS (the organization that administers the GRE) showing these results <a href="http://www.psych.umn.edu/psylabs/catcentral/pdf%20files/br02-01.pdf%5B/url%5D">http://www.psych.umn.edu/psylabs/catcentral/pdf%20files/br02-01.pdf</a>.</p>
<p>Let's say that your actual ability is to score a 700 on Quant; this means you should miss questions that are the difficulty of a 710, and, although they will likely be difficult for you to work through, you should get questions that are the difficulty of a 690 correct. On a Computer Adaptive Test, you begin with a medium difficulty question (lets assign it a difficulty of 400 for the sake of argument) a correct answer moves you to a slightly more difficult question, while an incorrect answer will move you to a slightly less difficult question. For a test taker with an ability of 700, the first question (of 400 difficulty) should be relatively easy, as will the next few questions. If you front load your time, you will be spending a lot of your test time on these questions below your ability, questions that you should be able to answer more easily, and leave yourself much less time for the questions at your ability that will be really challenging and require more time from you. As mentioned in the study cited above, taking more time at the beginning of the test and having less time at the end of the test is especially detrimental to test takers who should have higher level scores.</p>
<p>This isn't to say that early questions aren't important. It is true that you want to answer early questions correctly to get into more difficult questions, but all of that will be lost if you miss questions at the end due to a lack of time. We recommend setting a time limit on each question and sticking to it. That time limit shouldn't change as the test goes on, you should be measured throughout. The nature of a Computer Adaptive Test is that you will miss questions, if you get flustered and fail to keep an even pace, you won't score at your true ability level. Next time you do a practice test, try spending the same amount of time on each question all the way through and see how your score changes.</p>
<p>Good luck to everyone who is studying, and good luck on your tests.</p>
<p>Regards,
Taylor Dearr</p>