GRE Timing Strategy #1: Get a Feel For Your Target Time

It’s very helpful to have an intuitive understanding of what 1:45 feels like. You don’t want to be checking the clock during and after every question you solve. Doing so would be incredibly distracting and potentially nerve-racking. It’s better to have a general feel for how long you’ve spent on a question.

One way to develop this intuition is to practice timed sets of GRE quant questions in the latter portion of your prep. Start a timer when you start work on a question. When you think 1:45 is up, look at the timer to see how close you were to the actual time. Your goal is to get a comfortable intuition for what 1:45 feels like. The more you practice this simple exercise, the easier it will be for you to accurately gauge how much time you have to continue working on a problem.

👉 Takeaway: Practice timed sets of GRE quant questions in the latter portion of your prep, so you can develop a general feel for how long you’ve spent on a question.

GRE Timing Strategy #2: Use the “Time-Remaining Approach”

At the top left of your testing screen will be a countdown clock, and you should use that clock to help you keep pace both during your practice exams and your actual GRE.

Since you have 35 minutes to answer 20 questions in each section, you’ll want to complete half of those questions with about 18 minutes remaining on the clock. If you have more than 18 minutes remaining, that’s great! You’ll probably have plenty of time to finish the questions if you continue at your current pace. However, if the clock indicates that you have fewer than 18 minutes, realize that you’ll need to hustle a bit in order to answer every question. Know the time you should have remaining at a few key points in a quant section, so you can effectively track and adjust your pace without having to constantly check the clock or calculate how many questions you should have already answered. Your calculations during the GRE should be focused on the questions, not the clock.

👉 Takeaway: After question 10, if the GRE countdown clock indicates that you have fewer than 18 minutes, realize that you’ll need to hustle a bit in order to answer every quant question. Know the time you should have remaining at a few key points in a quant section.

Warmest regards,
Scott