IELTS Academic Reading gives you three passages, 40 questions, and 60 minutes with no extra transfer time. Run out of time on passage three — the hardest one — and you can lose a full band. Here is how to make the clock work for you.
The 17-20-23 rule
Do not split your time evenly. Spend roughly 17 minutes on passage one, 20 on passage two, and 23 on passage three, because difficulty rises through the test. Set checkpoints: if you are not on question 14 by minute 17, move on — an unanswered easy question later costs the same as the hard one you are stuck on.
Never leave any answer blank. There is no negative marking, so guess on anything you skip — especially True/False/Not Given, where a guess has a one-in-three chance.
Skim first, but skim correctly
Spend 2–3 minutes per passage reading the title, the first sentence of every paragraph, and the last sentence of the passage. Your goal is a mental map of where topics live, not comprehension. Then go straight to the questions and let them send you back to the right paragraph.
Match question types to strategy: heading-matching questions are answered from your skim map; detail questions (True/False/Not Given, sentence completion) need close reading of one or two sentences you locate by scanning for names, numbers and capitalised words.
Why practising untimed is wasted effort
Reading is the most trainable IELTS skill, but only under exam conditions. Untimed practice teaches you English; timed practice teaches you the exam. From your very first practice test, use a strict 60-minute timer and the 17-20-23 checkpoints.
Track your error types across tests: are you losing marks to Not Given traps, paraphrase blindness, or simply the clock? A platform that auto-marks your reading attempts and shows your per-question-type accuracy — like the Cambridge-style mock tests on ZenIELTS — turns each hour of practice into a targeted fix instead of blind repetition.