You’re sitting in a mock CAT. The clock is ticking, and a particularly nasty QA question stares back at you. You know the concept, you’ve practiced this type before, yet the answer doesn’t seem to click. Seconds feel like minutes. Every passing moment amplifies the pressure. Do you keep going? Or do you leave it and move on?

This is where timing strategy becomes more critical than raw knowledge. In CAT, the ability to manage your mental clock often outweighs how well you understand a topic.

Why Stubbornness Costs More Than Mistakes

It’s tempting to stick to a problem until it cracks. After all, it could be the difference between a correct answer and a lost mark. But here’s the problem: every second spent on a single tough question is energy and time taken away from others you could solve.

Decision science calls this opportunity cost, the potential points lost elsewhere because you stayed too long on a single problem. In CAT, the harsh reality is that a wrong or skipped question often hurts less than losing time and clarity across multiple questions.

How Long Is “Too Long”?

There isn’t a one-size-fits-all number of seconds. It depends on your pacing strategy, sectional difficulty, and confidence. But a simple rule helps: the 90-Second Checkpoint.

• 0–90 seconds: Engage actively. Work through the question calmly. If progress is being made, stay.
• 90–120 seconds: Assess carefully. Are you genuinely getting closer to a solution, or just spinning in circles?
• 120+ seconds: Move on. Mark it for review, and return only if time allows.

Why this works: your brain operates like a resource-limited engine. The longer you spin on a tough question without progress, the faster your mental energy depletes. By enforcing a soft time cap, you preserve cognitive bandwidth for the questions where you can actually secure marks.

Building Timing Muscle Before the CAT

Mastering timing isn’t something you do on exam day; it’s a skill you train over months:

1. Timed practice sets: Start with small sets of 5–10 questions and strictly enforce your 90-Second Checkpoint. This trains your brain to recognize when it’s spinning unproductively.
2. Mock analysis: After every mock, note which questions you got stuck on and how long you spent. Were the ones you abandoned early actually solvable later? Learn patterns, not just answers.
3. Sectional pacing drills: Simulate the real CAT sections. Practice knowing which question types demand more time, which you can skim, and when it’s worth making a calculated skip.
4. Mental reset exercises: A 5-second pause, deep breath, or even shifting focus to a simpler question helps reset your brain’s stress response and avoids compounding mental fatigue.

Why This Strategy Changes the Game

Timing strategy does more than save marks; it boosts confidence. Knowing that you can make a quick, smart call to skip a question frees you from unnecessary anxiety. You stop wasting energy on the illusion that every question must be solved immediately.

In CAT, it’s not about brute force knowledge; it’s about smart energy allocation. The candidates who master timing are the ones who consistently finish strong, not the ones who collapse in the final 20 minutes because they gave up too many minutes to one question.

Next time you face a tough question, ask yourself: Am I gaining progress, or am I burning time I can’t afford to lose? Your clock is as important as your knowledge, respect it, and your CAT score will reflect that discipline.