You have to ask five out of eight questions. You realize you have five facts with time to spare. Should I address an additional question?
First, you need to consider why you have time to spare. Either you’re really good at your subject and can finish the assignments with ease, or you struggle and can’t finish most of the questions, which leaves you with more time. Another possibility is that you made a mistake and left something out!
Before we look at these possible scenarios, consider this. If you ask an extra question, you won’t get any benefit until you get to the point where you get more points than your worst question.
For example, let’s say you get 60 points on your worst question. This means that if you ask an extra question, you don’t get extra points until you’re over 60. All the time you spend on these 60 is wasted. If you manage to get 65 on your extra question, then you’ve gotten only 5 extra for that question, in all that time.
So what you should ask yourself is; If you had spent that extra time on the questions you already completed, would you have been able to scratch more than five more points? (I’m pretty sure she would). If so, then that is your best option.
Now, with that in mind, let’s look at the different scenarios.
1. You are very good and you have finished early. You should spend some time reviewing the questions you’ve already finished – we all make mistakes under pressure. You just need to get a little better at them to get those extra marks. So please consider carefully before agreeing to an additional question.
2. You are doing it very badly. It’s still worth looking at the questions you’ve already asked, to see if you can improve them, unless you know you can get a lot more points on an additional question. (If so, then he should have been the one he chose in the beginning!) Only if he has made a complete mess of a question, should he start a new one.
3. Make sure you haven’t missed anything, check again and again for errors or omissions.
So overall, not a good idea. But there are always exceptions. Keep these thoughts in mind to help you make the best decision of the day!