Any Advice is Appreciated..

[Vintage]

While studying for my first attempt at the GMAT exam, I've noticed that each of the Manhattan Strategy Guides have an "Advanced Section" towards the end of the book. Are these sections crucial to scoring approximately a 650 on the test in your opinion? I'm currently at the Data Sufficiency section, and although I haven't looked at the Data Sufficiency Advanced portion of the book in depth yet I'm sure that it will be nearly impossible to comprehend since the normal portion of Data Sufficiency is embarrassing me.

Also, I've seen on numerous sites that the average amount of time to spend on each question is approximately 2 minutes in order to complete the test on time. What are some tips as to how to solve some of these Data Sufficiency questions in such a short amount of time? It seems almost impossible.

I'm doing pretty well with most of the Quant stuff, but I definitely hit a brick wall with DS. Please tell me that I'm not the only one who's found these questions discouraging..

Thank you for your assistance.

[RonPurewal]

While studying for my first attempt at the GMAT exam, I've noticed that each of the Manhattan Strategy Guides have an "Advanced Section" towards the end of the book.

to be one hundred percent honest, "advanced" isn't really an accurate title.
a better title would be "peripheral". those are mostly topics that have appeared just once or twice in the official problems (remember that there are over a thousand official probelms); they are included only for the sake of completeness.

the non-"advanced" chapters are more essential for absolutely everyone, regardless of performance level.

[RonPurewal]

Also, I've seen on numerous sites that the average amount of time to spend on each question is approximately 2 minutes in order to complete the test on time.

^^ that red thing. that's important.

What are some tips as to how to solve some of these Data Sufficiency questions in such a short amount of time? It seems almost impossible.

here, "some" probably means "problems that are longer than average".

an average is ... an average. it's not a limit. about half of ALL problems should take LONGER than the average time! this is just the nature of averages.

so, the only relevant tip is "don't worry about it".

to think you have to solve every problem in ≤2 minutes is a horrible mistake.

[RonPurewal]

by the way, any further questions along these lines (about general test strategy) should be posted in the "General GMAT Strategy" folder (= first folder on the forum home page), not here. thanks.