How to Survive 3 Passages in 60 Minutes

In IELTS Academic Reading you get 60 minutes for three passages totalling roughly 2150–2750 words and 40 questions — on average only 90 seconds per question, and this time includes both reading the passage and finding the answer. So reading by analysing every sentence word by word is mathematically impossible. Using a dictionary is forbidden anyway.

Most candidates who run out of time lose not because of weak language but because of reading without a plan: they spend too long on the first passage, only half the time is left for the third, and the last questions stay unanswered. Panic also lowers your level of comprehension — a time plan gives back the feeling of control. The good news is that Reading is not a speed-reading test but a test of selectivity: the questions require you to read only part of the passage precisely; for the rest, skimming is enough. The winning formula is not reading faster but knowing where to slow down. This material presents the full plan for those decisions: the minute budget, the question order, the skip rule and control of the answer sheet.

Later passages and questions may feel harder, so adapt the time plan to your needs. The figures below are not a hard law but a starting point — during practice, measure your own pace profile and adapt the table to yourself. The main thing is to have a plan: a candidate without a plan is managed by time, while a candidate with a plan manages time.

A 20–20–20 split may not suit every candidate. To allow more time for the third passage and difficult questions, try this sample budget:

Two rules make this budget work. First, when a stage's minutes are up, move on: three extra minutes gained on one passage do not bring back six minutes lost on another. Second, tie the clock to checkpoints — for example, at minute 17 I should be on passage 2, at minute 36 on passage 3. In the computer exam the timer is on the screen; in the paper exam, find the wall clock beforehand. In Reading no extra time is given for transferring answers — this is the main difference from Listening.

If you are behind at a checkpoint, don't panic — the way to restore the budget is not to read faster but to skip more: in the remaining passage, solve questions using keywords only, and save full reading for the evidence sentences. A ten-minute loss can be recovered in the following passages with correct triage.

When several question sets come with the same passage, the order is up to you. One sequence to try during practice is:

1. Questions that normally follow the passage's order — sentence completion, True/False/Not Given, Yes/No/Not Given, multiple choice. Each located answer can narrow the search for the next. Do not treat all gap-fill tasks alike: summary/note/table/flow-chart completion answers may not follow text order.
2. Questions where you should not rely on exact text order — Matching Headings, Matching Information. Try leaving these until later: detailed questions can help you become familiar with the passage and choose headings more quickly.

A typical combination for passage 2: paragraph headings + True/False/Not Given + summary. Try True/False/Not Given first: this set may familiarise you with parts of the passage, but it need not cover every paragraph. When you return to the headings, you may find some answers easier to choose.

And one more point about marks: start with the set that is most reliable for you — easy marks collected in the first five minutes restore confidence and pace. Put your weakest question type at the end: if time runs out, the questions you lose should be those with the lowest chance of success.

Remember: the question sets do not depend on each other — leaving one question for later in the headings set does not cancel a gap-fill answer. So this freedom of order is a tool the exam gives you: use it.

This is a suggestion to adapt during practice, not an official IELTS time limit.

If 90 seconds have been spent on a question and you still can't see a direction, move on — but don't leave it blank:

• In a four-option question, mark a guessed option immediately: in IELTS there are no negative marks for a wrong answer, so a blank question is a thrown-away mark.
• In the paper exam put a small mark next to the question; in the computer exam use the review flag — so that you have a map for coming back.
• Come back after the whole set is finished, or in the checking minutes saved for the end: often the clue you couldn't see earlier becomes clear once you have done the later questions.

The strict form of the rule: a maximum of 2 minutes per question — no question deserves more than two minutes. Giving one question five minutes means leaving the next three questions unanswered, and that trade is never worth it. A decision that protects time is sometimes more valuable than the cleverest reading decision.

In the last three minutes a completely different mode starts: no new passage is read any more — only guesses are written for unanswered questions and the sheet is checked.

Your answers count only on the answer sheet — this requires special discipline:

• Write every answer immediately. In Reading there is no separate time for transferring; copy the answers to the sheet as soon as each question set is finished.
• In gap-fill questions, pay attention to the word limit: the instruction NO MORE THAN TWO WORDS makes a three-word answer worth zero.
• A spelling mistake costs marks: write a word you take from the passage with the spelling used in the passage and don't change it afterwards.
• In multiple choice, read what is being asked: a question like According to the writer, ... asks for the writer's position, not yours.
• Write numbers and dates in the format in which they appear in the passage: 1998 and the late nineties are not the same.
• On paper, write your answers legibly: write cleanly the first time so that you don't lose time on corrections.
• Copy names and place names carefully: misspelling a name like Greystone ruins even a correctly found answer.

The same discipline applies in the computer exam: after each set, check that the answers have registered — the checking minutes are for checking, not for searching.

A plan works only when it has been repeated in practice. A sample minute-by-minute routine to adapt in practice:

1. 0–1. Look at the questions: the type, the number, the largest set of questions. Fix your target.
2. 1–17. Passage 1: start with the questions that follow the order of the passage and move on using the 90-second rule.
3. 17–36. Passage 2: the same rhythm; save the headings set for the very end.
4. 36–57. Passage 3: a little more time for the difficult questions, but the same rule.
5. 57–60. Check: no blank questions, no word limits broken, spelling checked.

Before the exam, practise this split with a timer in at least three full mock tests — a sense of time is built through repetition, not through reading. After each mock test do a one-minute analysis: where did the time leak? Which question type burned the budget? In the next mock test change only one element. On exam day there will be no need to make decisions any more — only the execution of a rehearsed routine remains.

Make the repetition between mock tests systematic too: if you are repeatedly late with one question type, practise that type separately — without time pressure — and then return to a full mock test. Knowledge gaps often look like time problems; analysis tells them apart.