The Verbal section always starts with usually an RC passage on the longest side. We do know that the passage has at most four questions. As such, here, the student got two passages.
The difficulty level of the questions on average is 2.7. Not that bad. The first section of the test is always on the medium level. Then if you nailed a specific range of # of questions, the next section will be easy OR medium OR hard. See here all the questions from the FREE power prep Official software to see the exact split to get the second section of different level for a higher score https://gre.myprepclub.com/forum/gre-power ... -3118.html

if you look at this first chunk of the test, which is an Rc with four questions and one with three questions you do notice the following:

1) only three questions are right and four wrong.
2) of these two are comfortable, and two are pretty tough.
3) a common factor of the 4 questions is that they are answered in a few seconds, which means the student guessed them. One answer is given in just two seconds, and frankly, this is appalling for a test taker who aims to the top score.
4) One of the right answers which have a level of two took the student almost three long minutes.
5) Notice how one question pretty tough (4 level) is got right in 2 seconds and one easier (3 level) wrong in 8 seconds. This is odd. It could indicate that the student understood something of the passage, but the strategy is not calibrated. We do have in front of us a paradox. Or he was just lucky

From this, overall, I consider that the student was NOT in control of the passage. Probably, he did not realize what was going on. The time management is poor and even worse are his stamina. Another consideration is that it is true these are seven questions, and you are left with 13 for the rest of the test. Maybe the student is going to nail all the rest of the section, and he will land in the second section with a hard one. BUT is really difficult to conceive a student which start so badly to end up the rest in a magnificent way. This first part is the symptom of not intense preparation. As my nonna said " the good morning is seen at dawn"







In this portion of the test, the student got two wrong (challenging level: the maximum) and one correct. However, time management is a disaster — almost 4 minutes per question.

Not only the time spent is consuming, but also this will affect the rest of the section: spending too much time on a question trying to nail it, will bring mental fatigue without a shadow of the doubt. One of the critical elements of this test is to stay FOCUS for the entire test, which is a marathon. It is like a runner: if he/she does not have the breath fro the whole race, then he or she will be on the finish line with the oxygen mask ...in the last spot among the other competitors or runners.




here we are with the Text Completion questions, one of my hot topic of this beautiful test

Some statistics about:
1) 2 one blank, 3 two blanks, and 1 three blanks for a grand total of 6 questions. Ets rarely gives you more than one three blanks TC.
2) Tough portion of the test with two top difficult level questions and the average of 3.8 difficulty level.
3) 0.96 seconds on average the time spent to reply

The time management here is pretty decent. However, the performance is overall bad. Here do notice an interesting thing, in my opinion: of the two questions one blank with the same level of difficulty (3) and one of the two questions two blanks with similar level of difficulty (4 and 5, the most) and with akin response time (less than one minute in the single blank and 1 minute or so in the 2 blanks): one is got correct and one is got wrong.

From all this, we can have a HUGE inference. In these details that the report is priceless. It is gold in these nuances.
A possible motivation could be that the student applied the same strategy to a very different question, even though they were still single or two blanks in the back-to-back. In other words: from one question to another the student applied the same strategy while is a different scenario. Maybe in one, the best approach was to use POE or time shift, and in the other the approach to solve the more straightforward blank first or word contrast or find a relationship between or among the different parts of the sentence.

Instead, he went straight. One way to solve them instead of being flexible.




The last portion of the test, probably, gives us the most useful insights of the entire first Verbal section. Goldfinger.

Outline:

1) All wrong
2) Difficult level 3.75.
3) Four questions pretty tough, even though they are not badass.
4) time spent on it on average 0.96 almost a minute, which is not bad.

What is bad here is the SE portion itself: it should be the easier not that much in the sense of the level of difficulty but rather in the sense SEs are the easier and quicker to attack thanks to the pair strategy. Always this type of questions has among the 6 answer choices one pair of words (two words which are alike in meaning, which means they have an identical meaning or they are really close and is the minor case scenario) or two pair of words (which is the likely scenario) or a third pair of words (the less likely configuration)

Now, in a standard outlook you do have (pairing the words, of course) the probability of getting the correct answer, inserting the words themselves into the question, of \(\frac{1}{2}\) or 50% to get the question correct.
Two pairs of words and two out of scope. Bingo. The probability of 50 % is high, is a huge chance to get one point in your favor.

Moreover, one possible strategy to attack the test is to get FIRST SE questions because they are the easier to attack, even though the questions are not easy at all, and the less time-consuming.
Most people could argue that in this case, a poor vocabulary plays a pivotal role to nail them.

I totally disagree: with a probability of 50/50 even if the student does not know the meaning of those words and disavows the significance completely, reading the question and follow at the very least your intuition you can get it right.