![\"Manhattan](\"\/\/cdn2.manhattanprep.com\/gre\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/19\/2017\/06\/careless-mistakes-on-the-gre-go-slow-fast-chelsey-cooley.png\")
<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
You can attend the first session of any of our online or in-person GRE courses absolutely free. Crazy, right? <\/i><\/b>Check out our upcoming courses here<\/i><\/b><\/a>.<\/i><\/b><\/p>\n <\/i><\/b>It\u2019s okay to make mistakes on the GRE. You can miss plenty of problems and still get a great score. However,<\/span> it matters <\/span>why<\/span><\/i> you make those mistakes. Miss a problem because you don\u2019t know how to solve it? That\u2019s totally okay (as long as you don\u2019t waste too much time). Miss a problem because you added two and three and got six? That\u2019s a problem, and here\u2019s how to fix it: <\/span>stop trying to go fast.<\/b><\/p>\n Here\u2019s a story about something that actually happened to me. Every year, we folks at Manhattan Prep have a huge conference in New York. We get together and spend a couple of days brainstorming, sharing our knowledge, and getting to know one another. There\u2019s also always a talent show. And because we\u2019re the world\u2019s biggest nerds\u2014we <\/span>take standardized tests for fun\u2014<\/span><\/i>the talents on display can be pretty nerdy.<\/span><\/p>\n I like solving Rubik\u2019s cubes. And you won\u2019t be surprised to hear that I\u2019m not the only person at Manhattan Prep with that talent. So at this year\u2019s talent show, another MPrep instructor and I decided to get on stage and race to solve a Rubik\u2019s cube the fastest. <\/span><\/p>\n We started with a practice round before the talent show. I won. I\u2019m not <\/span>the fastest Rubik\u2019s cube solver out there<\/span><\/a>, but I can hold my own! But I only won the practice round by a few seconds. It could have easily gone the other way. And I can be a pretty competitive person. So, a few hours later, on stage in front of the entire company, the only thought in my head was this one:<\/span><\/p>\n If I want to win this, I need to go as fast as I can.<\/b><\/p>\n You can probably guess what happened next. I started solving the Rubik\u2019s cube, turning the faces as quickly as I possibly could. Everything went well for about twenty seconds. Then I made a careless mistake. I turned the front of the cube to the right when I should\u2019ve turned it to the left and totally scrambled the part of it that I\u2019d just been solving. I looked down at the cube, and it looked totally unfamiliar. I couldn\u2019t even figure out where I\u2019d gone wrong. I\u2019d have to go back half a dozen steps in order to fix it. <\/span><\/p>\n I was able to recover, but not quickly enough. Despite working the Rubik\u2019s cube as quickly as I possibly could, I lost the contest by a good ten or fifteen seconds. My careless error had cost me the victory.<\/span><\/p>\n Familiar story? Well, it turns out that it\u2019s familiar to Rubik\u2019s cubers. It\u2019s actually such a common story, that a piece of advice often given to new competitors is this:<\/span><\/p>\n I first heard that advice from a book about competitive Rubik\u2019s cubing: <\/span>Cracking the Cube: Going Slow to Go Fast and Other Unexpected Turns in the World of Competitive Rubik\u2019s Cube Solving<\/span><\/i>, by Ian Scheffler. In this book, Scheffler describes his struggle to become a competitive Rubik\u2019s cube solver. As it turns out, people who are very fast at solving the Rubik\u2019s cube\u2014think fifteen seconds or less\u2014won\u2019t recommend that you try to turn the cube faster. They know that trying to move your fingers more quickly will only make you freeze up and make mistakes. They\u2019ll actually tell you to <\/span>slow down <\/span><\/i>as you turn the cube. And they\u2019ll tell you to make up for lost time by practicing something called <\/span>lookahead<\/b>.<\/span><\/p>\n Lookahead, in Rubik\u2019s cube parlance, is the art of deciding on your next move before you\u2019ve even finished the current one. A Rubik\u2019s cuber with good lookahead can proceed seamlessly from one move to the next, without having to pause to think about it. It doesn\u2019t matter whether she executes each of those moves <\/span>slowly<\/span><\/i>. In fact, by slowing down a bit and doing each move carefully, she avoids careless mistakes that can cost her time. \u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n How does a competitive Rubik\u2019s cuber manage to solve the cube so quickly, then? For one, she chooses the right moves. A competitive Rubik\u2019s cuber is often able to solve a Rubik\u2019s cube in only 50 moves. I might need twice that many. She also doesn\u2019t pause between moves to think. World-class Rubik\u2019s cubers will sometimes practice with a ticking metronome, trying to turn the cube to the beat without ever pausing. This trains them to work fluidly and avoid long, awkward pauses.<\/span><\/p>\n Okay, let\u2019s get back to what we\u2019re really talking about: the GRE. Cracking the GRE has a surprising amount in common with solving a Rubik\u2019s cube quickly. If you <\/span>try<\/span><\/i> to go fast, you <\/span>will<\/span><\/i> make careless mistakes on the GRE. If your math speed is holding you up, the solution is <\/span>not<\/b> to force yourself to read faster and write faster. The solution is to practice math drills (we recommend the drills at <\/span>Khan Academy<\/span><\/a>) until speed starts to come naturally. And the solution is to work <\/span>smoothly<\/span><\/i>, not quickly. Use the \u2018<\/span>when I see this, do this<\/span><\/a>\u2019 study method to train yourself to recognize the steps to take. Review every problem you do, looking for the most efficient way to solve it. Try thinking a few steps ahead as you solve the problem: where are you going next? Why are you solving this equation, and what will you do with the solution once you find it? <\/span><\/p>\n It seems counterintuitive, but sometimes you really do have to go slow in order to go fast. Keep that in the back of your mind as you solve Quant problems. What you\u2019ll find is that you may take a few more seconds on some problems. However, the time you save by avoiding careless mistakes on the GRE, and by working more fluidly and confidently, will more than make up for it. ?<\/span><\/p>\n See that \u201cSUBSCRIBE\u201d button in the top right corner? Click on it to receive all our GRE blog updates straight to your inbox!<\/i><\/b><\/p>\n Chelsey Cooley<\/a> You can attend the first session of any of our online or in-person GRE courses absolutely free. Crazy, right? Check out our upcoming courses here. It\u2019s okay to make mistakes on the GRE. You can miss plenty of problems and still get a great score. However, it matters why you make those mistakes. Miss a […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":127,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2,474284,921840,6,7,449765,733451,733445,154333],"tags":[1362445,1362446,1362444],"yst_prominent_words":[],"class_list":["post-10467","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-challenge-problems","category-current-studiers","category-gre-prep-2","category-gre-strategies","category-how-to-study","category-learning-science","category-life-hacks","category-study-tips-2","category-taking-the-gre-2","tag-careless-mistakes","tag-go-slow-to-go-fast","tag-mistakes-on-the-gre"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.manhattanprep.com\/gre\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10467","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.manhattanprep.com\/gre\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.manhattanprep.com\/gre\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.manhattanprep.com\/gre\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/127"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.manhattanprep.com\/gre\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=10467"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.manhattanprep.com\/gre\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10467\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":10484,"href":"https:\/\/www.manhattanprep.com\/gre\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10467\/revisions\/10484"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.manhattanprep.com\/gre\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=10467"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.manhattanprep.com\/gre\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=10467"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.manhattanprep.com\/gre\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=10467"},{"taxonomy":"yst_prominent_words","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.manhattanprep.com\/gre\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/yst_prominent_words?post=10467"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
\nGo slow to go fast.<\/b><\/h4>\n
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\n![\"Chelsey](\"https:\/\/cdn2.manhattanprep.com\/gre\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/19\/2015\/11\/chelsey-cooley-150x150.jpg\" "\\"Chelsey")
<\/a> is a Manhattan Prep instructor based in Seattle, Washington.<\/strong>\u00a0<\/em><\/i><\/b>Chelsey always followed her heart when it came to her education. Luckily, her heart led her straight to the perfect background for GMAT and GRE teaching: she has undergraduate degrees in mathematics and history, a master\u2019s degree in linguistics, a 790 on the GMAT, and a perfect 170Q\/170V on the GRE.\u00a0<\/em><\/i>Check out Chelsey\u2019s upcoming GRE prep offerings here<\/a>.<\/em><\/i><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"