To finish IELTS Reading in 60 minutes, give each of the three passages about 20 minutes, which is roughly 90 seconds a question, and never spend more than about two minutes on a single question: choose your best answer, flag it and move on. There is no extra time to transfer answers, so the hour ends when the clock does. Leave nothing blank, because a wrong answer costs nothing.
60
minutes for the whole paper, with no transfer time
40
questions across three passages or sections
90 s
the average time you have for each question
0
marks lost for a wrong answer, so never leave one blank
Why is IELTS Reading so hard to finish?
IELTS Reading is hard to finish because it is a finding test, not a reading test, and candidates who read every word run out of time. In Academic Reading the three passages total between 2,150 and 2,750 words, before you read a single question. Reading all of it carefully, then hunting through it again for 40 answers, does not fit into an hour for most people.
The paper rewards a different habit: get a map of each passage quickly, then go to the exact sentences each question needs and read those closely. Everything in this guide is a way of doing that faster.
On computer there is one more pressure. The 60 minutes include everything, because you choose or type answers straight into the test and there is nothing to copy across at the end. When the clock reaches zero, you are done.
How much time should you spend on each passage?
About 20 minutes each, adjusted so the easier passage pays for the harder one. A simple plan is to aim to finish the first passage a few minutes early, keep strictly to 20 minutes on the second, give the third whatever you saved, and keep two minutes at the end for a final check.
To scale
One way to plan the hour
- Passage 1 · 17 minUsually the most direct: bank a few minutes here
- Passage 2 · 20 minKeep to the clock: move on at the twenty-minute mark
- Passage 3 · 21 minOften the longest or hardest: spend the minutes you saved
- Final check · 2 minAnswer every flagged or blank question with your best choice
This is a plan, not an IELTS rule, and it is only useful if you check the clock. Look at the timer each time you finish a passage. If the first one took 25 minutes, you are already five minutes behind, and the place to take them back is the next passage, not the last one.
In General Training the plan fits the paper's design: the first section is everyday texts such as notices and timetables, the second is workplace texts, and the third is, in IELTS's words, one longer, more complex text. In Academic IELTS does not say the passages rise in difficulty, but the third often feels hardest, so arriving there with time in hand is the safer default.
Should you read the questions or the passage first?
Skim the passage first, then read the questions, then scan for each answer. A minute or two of skimming tells you what each paragraph is about, so that when a question asks about a detail you already know roughly where to look. Reading the questions with no map of the passage leaves you searching the whole text for every answer.
Skim the passage: one to two minutes
Read the title, any subheadings, and the first sentence or two of each paragraph. Note in a few words what each paragraph is about. Do not stop for words you do not know.
Read one set of questions
Read the instructions carefully, including any word limit, and underline the words in each question that you will scan for: names, numbers, dates and unusual nouns.
Scan, then read closely
Run your eyes over the passage for the word you underlined, or a word with the same meaning. When you find it, slow right down and read the whole sentence and the one after it.
Answer, check the clock, move on
Write or choose the answer, check it against the word limit, and go to the next question.
What do skimming and scanning look like in practice?
Skimming is reading for the gist of each paragraph; scanning is searching for one particular word or idea without reading what is around it. You skim once per passage and scan once per question. Here is a short passage written for this guide, the same one used in the headings exercise further down:
A. A repair café is not really a café. It is a free event, usually held in a community hall or a library, where volunteers fix things that people bring in: lamps, bicycles, toasters, torn coats. Coffee and cake are often on offer, which explains the name, but the main attraction is the repair bench.
B. The volunteers are rarely professionals. Many are retired engineers or keen amateurs, and some learned their skills in jobs that hardly exist any more. What they share is patience: each repair is done with the owner sitting alongside, so that next time the owner can try it alone.
C. Not everything can be saved. Many modern devices are glued shut, and a spare part can be harder to find, or dearer, than a whole new product. Volunteers admit that plenty of items leave the bench still broken, though usually with a clear explanation of what failed and why.
D. Organisers argue that the real value lies beyond the repairs. People who come once with a broken kettle often return to help, and the events bring together neighbours who might otherwise never meet.
Skimming the first sentence of each paragraph gives you a map in about twenty seconds: A says what a repair café is, B is about the volunteers, C says not everything can be fixed, D is about the value beyond repairs.
Scanning works from a question. Asked where repair cafés are usually held, you do not reread A from the start. You scan for a place word, find "community hall or a library" in the second sentence, and read just that sentence. Asked why some items cannot be repaired, your map sends you straight to C, where "glued shut" and "harder to find, or dearer" give you the reasons.
Which questions should you answer first?
Answer the sets in the order they come, but know which ones follow the passage and which ones send you round the whole text. That decides how you read.
| Question type | Where the answers are | How to work through it |
|---|---|---|
| TRUE / FALSE / NOT GIVEN, YES / NO / NOT GIVEN | Usually in passage order | Work down the passage with the questions; each answer is a little further on |
| Multiple choice, sentence completion, short answer | Usually in passage order | Same: find the first, and the next is after it |
| Summary, note, table or flow-chart completion | Usually one part of the passage | Find where the summary starts, then read that part closely |
| Matching headings | One heading per paragraph or section | Best done from your skim: it is a test of main ideas |
| Matching information or features | Anywhere in the passage, in any order | Leave until last in the passage, when you know the text best |
"Usually in passage order" is a pattern, not a published rule, so use it to save time without relying on it completely. Matching information questions are the slow ones, because "which paragraph contains a reference to…" could point anywhere. By the time you have answered the other questions on the same passage, you will have read most of it closely, and the references are easier to place.
How do you do matching headings quickly?
Read the headings first, then match each paragraph by its main idea, not by any detail it mentions. IELTS gives more headings than paragraphs and uses each heading only once, so a spare heading is often written to match a detail in one of the paragraphs.
Read the list of headings and cross out any used as an example
If paragraph A is done for you as an example, its heading is used and cannot be the answer elsewhere.
Read the first and last sentence of a paragraph
The main idea is usually stated near the start and often restated at the end. The middle tends to be examples and reasons.
Say the paragraph's point in your own words
Five or six words is enough: "repairs teach the owner". Then look for the heading that says the same thing.
Reject headings that match only a detail
If a heading covers one sentence of the paragraph but not the rest of it, it is probably the spare heading set as a trap.
Do the easy paragraphs first
Each heading you place shortens the list for the hard ones.
Try it on the repair café passage. Paragraph B mentions where the volunteers learned their skills, but that is not what the paragraph is about.
Check yourselfMatch each paragraph to its heading
4 questionsThe repair café
A. A repair café is not really a café. It is a free event, usually held in a community hall or a library, where volunteers fix things that people bring in: lamps, bicycles, toasters, torn coats. Coffee and cake are often on offer, which explains the name, but the main attraction is the repair bench.
B. The volunteers are rarely professionals. Many are retired engineers or keen amateurs, and some learned their skills in jobs that hardly exist any more. What they share is patience: each repair is done with the owner sitting alongside, so that next time the owner can try it alone.
C. Not everything can be saved. Many modern devices are glued shut, and a spare part can be harder to find, or dearer, than a whole new product. Volunteers admit that plenty of items leave the bench still broken, though usually with a clear explanation of what failed and why.
D. Organisers argue that the real value lies beyond the repairs. People who come once with a broken kettle often return to help, and the events bring together neighbours who might otherwise never meet. For some regulars, the conversation matters more than the coffee or the toaster.
1Paragraph A
The answer is i. What the name does and does not mean. The paragraph explains what a repair café is and where the word café comes from. The coffee is a detail; the point is the name.
2Paragraph B
The answer is iii. Mending as a lesson for the owner. Where the volunteers learned their skills is mentioned, but it is supporting detail. The paragraph builds to its point: repairs are done with the owner watching so that they can do it themselves next time.
3Paragraph C
The answer is iv. The limits of what can be fixed. Glued devices and costly parts are the reasons, and the paragraph's opening sentence states the idea they support: not everything can be saved. Heading v picks out one reason and overstates it.
4Paragraph D
The answer is vi. Bringing a neighbourhood together. The paragraph is about the events' social value: people return to help and neighbours meet. Heading vii is not covered anywhere in the passage, which is what most spare headings are for.
What should you do when you are stuck?
Give a question about two minutes at most. If you have not found the answer by then, choose the best answer you can, flag the question and move on. The question that cost you five minutes is rarely worth more than the two or three you would have answered in that time, because every question is worth exactly one mark.
Three rules keep a hard passage from costing you the whole paper:
- Never leave a blank. IELTS gives one mark for each correct answer and takes nothing away for a wrong one. A blank is always zero; a guess sometimes scores.
- Guess intelligently. Rule out the options you can disprove first. For a completion question, an answer that fits the grammar of the gap and comes from the right paragraph is worth writing even if you are unsure.
- Come back only with time in hand. Flag the question, and return in the final minutes. With fresh eyes and the rest of the passage read, the answer is often obvious.
How do you build speed before the test?
Speed in Reading comes from accuracy first and timing second. Practising on the clock before you can explain your answers only makes you wrong faster. A progression that works:
- Untimed, with reasons. Do a passage without a clock and write one line of evidence for every answer: the words in the passage that prove it.
- One passage, 20 minutes. When your answers are reliable, time single passages and note where the minutes went.
- The full paper, 60 minutes. Sit three passages in one go, as on the day. Pacing across an hour is a different skill from pacing one passage.
- Review by cause. For every wrong answer, decide why: a misread qualifier, a spare heading, a word limit, running out of time. The causes repeat, and fixing your top two is usually worth more than more practice tests.
If TRUE, FALSE and NOT GIVEN is where your minutes go, a method for TRUE, FALSE or NOT GIVEN works through it statement by statement.
Try it on a full paper
Reading · 60 minutes
Three passages and 40 questions on the real 60-minute clock, marked at once, with a note of whether the clock ran out.
Every test in the IELTS Reading library can be sat on the clock in the Academic or General Training module, or one passage at a time as a 20-minute drill. The report shows where the clock ran out as well as which answers were wrong. For more practice on one question type, the library has pages of real question sets for matching headings, matching information and every other type in the paper.
Where to check this
Every rule in this guide comes from these official pages. Test centres can differ on dates and arrangements, so check yours too.
Questions people ask next
How long should I spend on each IELTS Reading passage?
About 20 minutes each, adjusted to the passage: a little less on the first, which is usually the most direct, and a little more on the last. Check the clock when you finish each passage, and if one has taken 25 minutes, take the time back from the next one.
Is there extra time to transfer answers in IELTS Reading?
No. The Reading paper is 60 minutes in total. On computer you choose or type each answer straight into the test, so there is nothing to copy across at the end, and when the hour is up the paper is over.
Should I read the whole passage before answering the questions?
Not word for word. Skim the passage for a minute or two to learn what each paragraph is about, then read the questions and scan for the exact place each one needs. You read closely only the sentences that hold the answers.
Are IELTS Reading passages in order of difficulty?
In General Training, yes by design: the third section is one longer, more complex text. For Academic, IELTS does not say the passages get harder, though the last often feels hardest. Judge each passage when you reach it rather than assuming.
What should I do if I run out of time in IELTS Reading?
Make sure no question is blank. Each correct answer earns a mark and a wrong answer costs nothing, so in the last two minutes choose a best guess for every unanswered or flagged question. A guess on a TRUE, FALSE or NOT GIVEN question has a one in three chance.
Written by SpeakMetry Team
The team that builds SpeakMetry's mock tests writes these guides. Every rule is checked against the official IELTS, British Council and IDP pages listed in the guide, and every example question, passage and sample answer was written for the guide it appears in.
