The Quant Triage Method: Why Attempting Fewer Questions Scores Higher
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Most Quant scores are lost not on the questions you get wrong, but on the ones you should never have started. In a section with 22 questions, 40 minutes and negative marking, speed is not the skill. Selection is.
The maths nobody does before the exam
Forty minutes for 22 questions is under two minutes each — but that average is a lie. A clean sitter takes 45 seconds; a nasty geometry problem can eat six minutes and still end in a wrong answer (−1). Attempt 22 in a rush and you will bleed marks to silly errors. Attempt 16–18 questions you can actually finish, at high accuracy, and you clear a 95+ percentile comfortably.
A 99-percentile Quant score often comes from ~18 attempts at ~90% accuracy — not from touching all 22.
The three-pass triage
Do not solve top to bottom. Scan the whole section first and make three passes:
- Pass 1 — Sitters. Questions you recognise instantly. Solve them now, bank the marks, build rhythm. This is your first ~12 minutes.
- Pass 2 — Doable. Questions that need a step or two of setup but no leap of faith. Solve as many as time allows.
- Pass 3 — Leave. Anything that needs a trick you can't see in 15 seconds, or heavy calculation with no shortcut. Mark it and move on.
Label every question in 15 seconds
When you first read a question, don't start solving — classify it: