IELTS Reading gives you 40 questions, 60 minutes, and three passages that get harder as you go. Most candidates lose marks not because they cannot read, but because they never decided how to spend the hour. This lesson installs a time allocation you design before the test — and the checkpoint habit that keeps you on it.
The problem nobody plans for
Here is the arithmetic that catches people. Sixty minutes, forty questions: 90 seconds per question, on paper. But that ignores reading time. Each passage is 700–950 words, and Passage 3 is denser than Passage 1. There is also no transfer time in Reading — unlike Listening, you get no extra ten minutes to copy answers to the answer sheet. The hour is everything.
Run the honest version of the arithmetic and you get roughly this per passage: 3–4 minutes of orientation and skimming, 14–17 minutes of answering, and answers written straight onto the answer sheet as you go. If any of those numbers drift, the last passage — worth the same 13–14 marks as the first — gets starved.
Rule 1: every question is worth exactly one mark. A question you never reach costs the same as a question you get wrong.
The allocation: 17 / 20 / 23
Do not split the hour into three equal blocks. The passages are not equal.
| Passage | Time | Why |
|---|---|---|
| Passage 1 | 17 minutes | Easiest vocabulary, most literal questions. Bank marks fast. |
| Passage 2 | 20 minutes | Medium density, usually one "slow" question type (headings or matching). |
| Passage 3 | 23 minutes | Longest, densest, most abstract. It needs the extra minutes just to break even. |
This is a starting template, not a law. If your error log (see the reading error log) shows you consistently finish Passage 1 in 14 minutes, move the surplus to Passage 3 deliberately — don't just let it evaporate into re-checking answers you were already sure about.
Rule 2: the allocation is decided before the exam. During the exam you only execute it.
Checkpoints, not vibes
A plan you cannot verify is a wish. Write two checkpoint times on your question booklet (or note them mentally on computer) the moment the test starts:
- Minute 17 — you should be starting Passage 2. If you are still inside Passage 1, finish the question in front of you, guess anything unanswered, and move.
- Minute 37 — you should be starting Passage 3. Same rule.
The checkpoints feel brutal the first few times. That is the point. The single most expensive habit in IELTS Reading is "just one more minute" on a stubborn question — it always costs a reachable mark at the end of the test to chase an unreachable one in the middle.
The 90-second circuit breaker
Within a passage, apply one micro-rule:
Rule 3: if a question has taken 90 seconds and you still have no located sentence, mark it, guess if it's a closed format (True/False/Not Given, multiple choice), and move on.
Notice the trigger: no located sentence. If you have found the right part of the passage and are deciding between two readings, you may spend a little longer — you are close. If you are still hunting, you are lost, and lost time compounds. Location skill is the subject of the next lesson; the time budget exists so that a location failure costs you 90 seconds, not nine minutes.
Guessing on closed formats is not defeat, it is expected value. A blank True/False/Not Given scores 0% of the time; a guess scores 33%.
Answer sheet discipline
On paper, write answers directly on the answer sheet as you confirm them. Do not "transfer at the end" — candidates who plan a transfer phase either run out of time mid-transfer or rush it and shift a whole column by one row. On computer, this problem disappears, but a different one appears: the flag-for-review button. Use flags for genuine 90-second-rule skips only. Flagging half the test is the digital version of "I'll decide later," and later never has more time than now.
What goes wrong (and the fix)
| Symptom | Real cause | Fix |
|---|---|---|
| Passage 3 done in 12 minutes of panic | Passage 1 took 24 minutes | Enforce the minute-17 checkpoint for one week of practice |
| Finished with 8 minutes spare, score unchanged | Rushing, not skill | Slow Passage 1 down; spend spare time re-reading located sentences, not the whole passage |
| Blanks on the answer sheet | Treating guessing as failure | Adopt the circuit breaker; a guess is a strategy, not a surrender |
| Right answers in wrong boxes | End-of-test transfer | Write on the answer sheet question by question |
Your drill
Time to make the budget real. You need 60 minutes and a timer.
- Open Reading 2026-06 Test 1. Before you start, write down 17 / 37 as your checkpoint times.
- Sit the full test under the 17/20/23 allocation. Apply the 90-second circuit breaker ruthlessly — count your skips.
- When the timer hits 60, stop mid-word if necessary. Score it.
- Record three numbers: your score, how many questions you never reached, and how many circuit-breaker skips you made.
Later this week, repeat with Reading 2026-05 Test 1 and compare the three numbers. Your score matters least at this stage; questions never reached should hit zero within two timed tests. Once it does, every lesson that follows — location, question types, paraphrase — converts directly into marks, because you now reach every question that tests them.