Timing tips for C/P?

[Necr0sis713]

So I took a FL today, and was totally punched in the stomach by the fact that I ran out of time during the C/P section. I had to guess on 2 passages and some free standings at the end.

Just as a side note for comic relief: One passage was about gluconeogenesis which I have down like the back of my hand, so I was literally able to answer all the questions without reading the passage...haha, lucky as hell.

Anyway, what are the general timing "commandments" so to speak for the C/P section? 1 minute max per question? I heard something somewhere about "you should be at x number of minutes by question number x" or something along those lines.

I noticed I spent alot of my time on doing calculations and just reading over the passage slow and stuff...Throw some tips at me bros.

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[pre.med2016]

So I took a FL today, and was totally punched in the stomach by the fact that I ran out of time during the C/P section. I had to guess on 2 passages and some free standings at the end.

Just as a side note for comic relief: One passage was about gluconeogenesis which I have down like the back of my hand, so I was literally able to answer all the questions without reading the passage...haha, lucky as hell.

Anyway, what are the general timing "commandments" so to speak for the C/P section? 1 minute max per question? I heard something somewhere about "you should be at x number of minutes by question number x" or something along those lines.

I noticed I spent alot of my time on doing calculations and just reading over the passage slow and stuff...Throw some tips at me bros.

I heard that you should do 8 minutes per passage and allow 1 minute for discrete questions. This would give you exactly 95 minutes. However, you may want to go quicker (especially on some easy discrete questions) to allow you some extra time at the end. Also, some passages are longer/harder than others, so just use this as a rough estimate.

I sometimes struggle with timing as well. If I know that I am going to run out of time but I know that I have a few discrete questions left, I usually try to look for those real quick (sometimes they are the very last questions asked). I do those because I know I can get those pretty easily without wasting more time reading a passage. I have also heard some people doing all discrete questions first. However, I feel like this would waste time just searching for the questions. I also like the discrete questions in between passages as it gives me a little breather! Good luck!

 

[ieatshrimp24]

So I took a FL today, and was totally punched in the stomach by the fact that I ran out of time during the C/P section. I had to guess on 2 passages and some free standings at the end.

Just as a side note for comic relief: One passage was about gluconeogenesis which I have down like the back of my hand, so I was literally able to answer all the questions without reading the passage...haha, lucky as hell.

Anyway, what are the general timing "commandments" so to speak for the C/P section? 1 minute max per question? I heard something somewhere about "you should be at x number of minutes by question number x" or something along those lines.

I noticed I spent alot of my time on doing calculations and just reading over the passage slow and stuff...Throw some tips at me bros.

I would write down these numbers on the side of my paper before the CARS section started.
1:30 1
1:21 2
1:12 3
1:03 4
54 5
45 6
36 7
27 8
18 9

The numbers on the left represent the time on the screen and the numbers on the right represent the passage I should be on at that time. If you do this perfectly, then you should have 9 minutes left. Sometimes I would go more than 9 minutes on a passage, so I would cross out the number on the left and then write the time that I finished the passage.
Make sure you don't do any passage for more than 10 minutes. Even if you breezed by some passages in 7 minutes or whatever. If you spend too much time on a passage, you start overthinking things and that'll screw you over. Don't get too analytical on one question. Just pick a 50/50 answer and move on. I hope this helps.

 

[Necr0sis713]

Thanks a alot. Apparently it's in my best interest to just give a 50/50 guess and move on for questions that I spend too much time thinking about.