How to score more in the quant section: the attempt order that adds ten marks

Two candidates with the same knowledge routinely score ten marks apart in the quantitative section. The difference is almost never a formula one of them knows. It is that one of them attempts the section in the order it is printed, and the other attacks it in the order that pays. This is a method for being the second candidate.

The section rewards selection, not heroics

Quant is the section where the sunk-cost trap does the most damage. A hard question looks solvable for the first ninety seconds, so you stay, and then you stay longer because you have already invested ninety seconds. Four minutes later you have a wrong answer, a quarter-mark penalty and, far more expensively, six easy questions you never reached.

So the goal on exam day is not to solve the hardest problems. It is to harvest every mark that is cheaply available before anyone else’s paper lets them, and to spend nothing on questions that are priced too high in time. That is a selection skill, and it is trainable.

Start with a triage scan

Spend the first sixty to ninety seconds not solving anything. Scroll the whole section once and sort every question into three buckets in your head:

• Green — you see the method instantly. Simplification, a clean percentage, an average, a direct formula.
• Amber — solvable but longer. A multi-step arithmetic problem, a data interpretation set whose table you can read, a quadratic comparison.
• Red — either a topic you are weak in, or a set that looks tangled. A wordy time-and-work variant, a caselet DI with unusual phrasing, an awkward probability.

This scan feels like wasted time. It is the opposite: it is what stops you meeting the section in printed order and drowning in question three.

The order that works

Three passes.

1. Green pass. Clear every green question. This is your guaranteed base, and doing it first means a clock or a panic later can never take it from you. In banking prelims this pass alone is often fifteen to eighteen marks in under eight minutes.
2. Amber pass. Now spend the bulk of your time here, on the solvable-but-longer questions, starting with the data interpretation set whose numbers look cleanest. This is where the section is won or lost.
3. Red pass, if any time remains. Only now, and only on the reds where you can eliminate two options. Everything else stays blank, on purpose.

Know what is worth your time

Not all topics pay the same return per minute. As a rough guide for banking and railway papers:

Return	Topics	Why
Highest	Simplification, approximation, number series, quadratic comparison	Fast, formulaic, low error rate — pure green marks
High	Data interpretation you can read, percentage, ratio, averages, interest	Predictable method, and DI clusters four to five marks together
Lower	Time and work, pipes and cisterns, probability, permutations	Longer setup, more traps, thinner in most papers

The lesson is not that the lower-return topics are unimportant. It is that on exam day, in a timed section, you attempt them last and only when the cheaper marks are already banked.

A per-question time budget

Put a hard cap on each question and obey it. Something like:

• Simplification or a single-step arithmetic question: 30–40 seconds.
• A standard word problem: up to 60 seconds.
• A full data interpretation set of four to five questions: 3–4 minutes for the set.
• Any single question that stalls: abandon at your cap, mark it, move on.

The exact numbers matter less than having a cap and respecting it. The failure mode is always the same — pouring a fourth minute into a question because you spent three. The three minutes are gone either way.

Approximation is a scoring skill, not cheating

A large share of quant questions have options far enough apart that you never need the exact value. If a question asks for 18.7% of 4,412 and the options are 620, 825, 1,040 and 1,310, round to 19% of 4,400 and you have the answer in five seconds. Building this habit is covered in simplification and approximation techniques, and it is worth more marks per hour of practice than any single formula.

The prerequisite is raw calculation speed. If tables, squares and fraction-to-percentage conversions are not on instant recall, every approximation still costs you the calculation time you were trying to save. The fractions and squares drill is the fix, and it belongs in daily practice from day one.

Clear the sectional cutoff first, then maximise

In IBPS and SBI prelims and mains there are sectional cutoffs. Your objective is therefore not to maximise the total; it is to clear every section, then maximise. If quant is your weak section, your green and amber passes exist first to get you safely past the quant cutoff. A candidate who scores brilliantly elsewhere and misses the quant cutoff by half a mark has failed the whole paper.

RRB NTPC is different: no sectional cutoff and no sectional timing, so the entire clock can flow to wherever it earns most. Most candidates underuse that freedom — use it deliberately.

The loop that actually raises the score

After every mock test, do this, and give it as long as the test itself:

1. For every quant question you got wrong, label it: did not know the method, knew it but slipped on arithmetic, or should never have attempted it.
2. Count the three. The largest bucket is next week’s work, and for most people it is the third — a selection problem, not a knowledge one.
3. Track one number over time: of the quant questions you attempted and got wrong, how many were reds you should have left. That is your selection error rate, and it is the fastest thing to improve in your whole preparation.

Then keep the recall sharp between mocks with a short daily quant quiz. Knowledge takes months to build; attempt order and time discipline can improve in a week, and they are worth marks in every paper you sit.