Hole punching - how to do in 20 seconds?

[YeaYea]

So I looked at the recommended time for the hole punching section and Kaplan recommends 5 minutes on it. which means 20 seconds per question. how do you do a question in 20 seconds? i'm using the grid method and (albeit just starting to practice) I seem to be doing it as fast as I can and still average like 40 sec/question, so i'm just wondering if you guys were able to get it down to 20 sec/q and how long did it take for you to do it?

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[nze82]

So I looked at the recommended time for the hole punching section and Kaplan recommends 5 minutes on it. which means 20 seconds per question. how do you do a question in 20 seconds? i'm using the grid method and (albeit just starting to practice) I seem to be doing it as fast as I can and still average like 40 sec/question, so i'm just wondering if you guys were able to get it down to 20 sec/q and how long did it take for you to do it?

Here's the thing. Coming up with an average time to complete any one section of the DAT is almost meaningless. It's all about how you manage your time. I'll give you an example. When I was going through the G-chem section of the test, I came across questions that required some though and rigorous calculations. Such questions took me somewhere between 1 to 1.5 minute. So the question is if someone tells you that the average time for each G-chem question is 30seconds, should you skip those questions that require more time?
The answer, of course, is No! Why?
Because after spending 1.5 minutes on one question, I might (and most likely will) come across 3-4 conceptual questions that didn't require any calculations and/or much thought, so I spent less than 10 seconds on each of those. At the end, the net amount of time that I spent in order to answer those 5 questions added up to be roughly the same. I'll prove it to you:

Question#1-->1.5 min-->90sec
Question#2-->10sec
Question#3-->10sec
Question#4-->10sec
Question#5-->10sec
***************
Total time = 140 sec

What would have happened if I spent 30sec/question:
Question#1-->30sec
Question#2-->30sec
Question#3-->30sec
Question#4-->30sec
Question#5-->30sec
****************
Total time = 150 sec

You get the idea.
So, don't freak out if you're taking more than 20 sec to answer each hole-punch question. Perhaps you can make up for that time in the cube-count section (Or any other pat section, where you feel you can answer questions faster).