Can you come back to a question on the GRE test? The answer is yes – but you can only return to a problem within a specific section. Once the section ends, you can no longer review the previous questions.

I always tell my students that it does not matter if you can return to a question within a section – what matters is your strategy after knowing this.

My recommended strategy is to work through each question as efficiently as possible and skip the difficult question. Apply the 30-second rule – if you keep staring at a question for more than 30 seconds and still don’t get the hang of it, move on and return to it later. If you have prepared well for the GRE, it is likely a difficult question. So you should try to get the more straightforward questions out of your way and later come back to the difficult ones.

Always look at the question for 30-45 seconds and try to understand it. If you are unable to identify the pathway to its solution, you will be better off returning to it later.

Since the GRE software allows you to flag or mark a question, you can simply flag problems you don’t get. This will help you to come back to only the undo-able questions at the end of the exam and hence save you a lot of time.

Keep practicing from a wide variety of sources until you get a sense of the kind of questions you can skip and those you can manage well within the allotted time.

Since ETS allows you to return to a question, the above strategy becomes very practical and useful. Be wary of spending way too much time on questions on which you are stuck – do not make it a matter of pride if you do not know the answer to a question.