Reading gives you 60 minutes for 40 questions and no extra time to transfer answers, so pace is part of the skill being tested. Almost nobody runs out of comprehension; people run out of clock. The techniques below are about finding the right lines quickly and then reading those lines very carefully.
You will stop losing marks to Not Given, to a single qualifier, and to a clock that reaches passage three before you do.
The format at a glance
Time
60 minutes, no extra transfer time
Questions
40, one mark per question
Sections
3 passages or sections
Suggested pace
About 20 minutes per passage
Academic
Three long texts from books, journals, magazines and newspapers
General Training
Everyday and workplace texts, then one longer general-interest text
The traps, worked through
Reading punishes two opposite habits: reading too loosely to notice one word, and reading too long to reach the last passage. These four traps are where both show up.
Not Given versus False
FALSE needs the passage to contradict the statement. NOT GIVEN means the passage stops short. Most errors here are FALSE chosen because the passage was silent rather than because it disagreed.
On screen
Statement: The museum's evening tours are more popular than its daytime tours. TRUE / FALSE / NOT GIVEN
In the passage
Passage: “The museum introduced evening tours in response to steady demand from commuters, and they now run four nights a week.”
Most candidates write
FALSE, because the passage plainly does not say evening tours are more popular.
Earns the mark
NOT GIVEN
Why: The passage compares nothing: for FALSE it would have to state that daytime tours draw the larger audience, and silence is never a contradiction.
The heading that matches a phrase, not a paragraph
Heading banks include a heading built from wording that appears once in the paragraph, usually in its opening clause or an example. It matches your eye; it does not match the paragraph's point.
On screen
The paragraph opens “Tidal barrages were once the obvious answer”, spends four sentences on their cost and silt problems, and closes “which is why developers have turned to floating turbines”. Headings include iv The appeal of tidal barrages and vii Why one tidal technology gave way to another.
Most candidates write
iv, because “tidal barrages” is right there in the first line.
Earns the mark
vii
Why: A heading has to cover the paragraph from its first sentence to its last, and this one travels from barrages to their replacement — iv describes the opening clause only.
Completion answers are lifted verbatim and must fit a word limit. Candidates lose them by paraphrasing, by re-typing words already printed, or by keeping an adjective they did not need.
On screen
NO MORE THAN TWO WORDS. Sentence: The seeds are stored in __________ before being sent to the laboratory.
In the passage
Passage: “Once dried, the seed is sealed into airtight foil packets and held there until it is required for testing.”
Most candidates write
airtight foil packets — three words, so zero — or a paraphrase such as sealed containers.
Earns the mark
foil packets
Why: The answer has to be the passage's own words, inside the limit, and still grammatical in the printed sentence, which leaves exactly one option.
Sixty minutes, forty questions, three passages, and no extra time to transfer anything. The arithmetic decides passage three's marks long before you get there.
Minute 0
Split the hour before you read a word: 18 minutes a passage, 6 minutes held back. Your finish lines are minute 18, minute 36 and minute 54. Fix them now, because a plan you have to recalculate mid-test is not a plan.
First 2 minutes of each passage
Skim for structure only — title, first line of every paragraph, any subheadings. You are building a map of where things are, not learning what they say.
Per question
Roughly 13 questions in the 16 minutes left is about 75 seconds each. At 90 seconds, put in the best answer you have, flag it, and move. No single question is worth two others.
Minute 18 and minute 36
Move to the next passage even mid-question, filling any blanks as you go. Every question is worth one mark wherever it sits, so an unattempted passage three is the most expensive thing in the paper.
Minute 54 to 60
No new reading. Return to the flagged questions first, then check every completion answer against the printed limit for spelling, plurals and word count.
Run the clock, not the passage
Budget roughly 20 minutes per passage and move on when the time is up, even with questions unanswered. The last passage is worth the same marks as the first.
Do the questions in the order printed, because most question types follow the order of the text and each answer narrows the search area for the next.
Give yourself a hard limit of about 90 seconds per question. If you exceed it, put a plausible answer in and flag it.
Leave three or four minutes at the end for flagged questions and for checking spelling in the gap-fill answers.
Never read a whole passage before looking at the questions. You do not have time to read the passage twice.
Skim first, then scan, then read closely
These are three different actions and mixing them up is the most common cause of running out of time.
Skim once for structure: title, first line of each paragraph, and any headings. Ninety seconds is enough. You want to know where things are, not what they say.
Scan for the specific marker in the question: a name, a year, a number, a capitalised term, a technical word. These are rarely paraphrased and act as an anchor.
Once you have found the region, read those two or three sentences slowly and completely. Marks are won and lost in that close read, not in the scan.
Underline or note the paragraph letter beside each answer as you go, so verification later takes seconds.
Do not sub-vocalise the whole text. Reading every word at speaking speed does not fit inside 60 minutes.
True / False / Not Given and Yes / No / Not Given
These reward a very literal reading. True/False/Not Given is about facts in the passage; Yes/No/Not Given is about the writer's claims and opinions.
Not Given means the passage neither confirms nor contradicts the statement. It does not mean 'I could not find it', so search properly before choosing it.
False and No require an actual contradiction somewhere in the text, not merely an absence.
Watch quantifiers closely. 'All', 'never', 'only', 'the majority' and 'some' are usually the exact word the answer turns on.
Do not use outside knowledge. A statement that is true in the real world is False if the passage says otherwise.
Answer each statement using the passage alone, in the order given, and stay within the region the previous answer left you in.
Matching headings, information and features
For matching headings, read the paragraph's first and last sentences, then decide the main idea before you look at the heading list. Choosing from the list first invites keyword matching.
Headings describe the whole paragraph. A heading that matches one striking detail is normally the distractor.
Cross off headings as you use them and do the paragraphs you are sure of first; the remaining choices then narrow quickly.
Matching information questions do not follow the text order, so treat them as a scanning task and leave them until you know the passage layout.
For matching features, build a quick shortlist of the names or categories and where each one appears before you start assigning.
Completion questions and word limits
Sentence, summary, note, table and flow-chart completion answers must come from the passage, spelled exactly as printed.
Read the instruction line for the limit and count hyphenated words as one.
Predict the word class before searching. A gap after 'a rapid' needs a noun, and that halves the search.
Summary completion with a word bank uses paraphrases of the passage, so match meaning rather than looking for the identical word.
Check that your completed sentence is grammatical. If it does not read correctly, the answer is usually wrong.
Type only what the gap is missing. Repeating words already printed either side of the gap pushes you over the limit and voids the answer.
Where the answer is a letter or a Roman numeral, give exactly as many as the instruction asks for. Adding a spare letter makes the whole answer wrong.
Beat the paraphrase trap
The passage almost never repeats the question's wording. Train on synonym families: reduce/decline/fall/drop, cause/trigger/give rise to, important/significant/crucial.
Words repeated verbatim between question and passage are often planted near a wrong answer.
Note the writer's stance verbs, such as claims, argues, concedes, disputes. Yes/No/Not Given questions frequently hinge on them.
Keep a running personal list of paraphrase pairs you missed in practice; that list is worth more than any generic vocabulary book.
Advice to ignore
The four habits that most often turn a strong reader into a mid-band score.
“Read the whole passage carefully first, then answer the questions.”
Three passages at comprehension speed do not fit inside sixty minutes. Skim for structure, then let each question send you back for a slow read of two or three sentences.
“If you skim faster you will finish in time.”
The marks usually go missing where the wrong lines were read slowly, not where the right ones were misunderstood. Speed comes from locating better, not from skimming harder.
“If you cannot find it, the answer is Not Given.”
NOT GIVEN is a statement about the passage, not about your search. Find the region the claim belongs to, read it properly, and only then decide.
“Do the easy questions across all three passages first.”
Most question types run in passage order, so each answer narrows the search for the next. Jumping about throws that away and has you re-locating the same paragraphs three times.
Common mistakes and how to fix them
Reading the entire passage carefully before looking at the questions.
Fix: Skim for structure in 90 seconds, then let the questions drive the close reading.
Choosing Not Given because the answer was hard to locate.
Fix: Locate the relevant region first. Only choose Not Given when the text genuinely stops short of the claim.
Spending eight minutes on one matching-headings question.
Fix: Cap every question at about 90 seconds, guess, flag, and come back if time allows.
Copying an answer with a spelling slip from the passage.
Fix: Completion answers must be spelled as printed. Check them in your final review pass.
Assuming General Training Reading is easy and pacing badly.
Fix: The final General Training section is a long text carrying a large share of the marks, so protect time for it.
Leaving questions blank.
Fix: There is no negative marking. Fill every box before time is called.
Question type by question type
The single mistake that costs most marks on each task. Each guide then covers what the task looks like on screen, how it is marked, four strategies and the two traps specific to it.
Are Academic and General Training Reading marked on the same scale?
Both are marked out of 40, but the band conversion differs, and General Training generally requires a higher raw score for the same band because the texts are more accessible.
Do I get extra time to transfer answers in Reading?
No. The 60 minutes includes everything. On the computer-delivered test you type answers straight into the answer boxes.
Do the questions follow the order of the passage?
Most types do, including True/False/Not Given, completion and short answer. Matching headings and matching information do not.
Should I answer the easy passage first?
Doing the passages in order is usually simpler to manage, but the marks are identical, so if one section is clearly faster for you, take it first and keep to the time budget.
Put these tips under exam conditions with a full timed section.
Drill True / False / Not Given until NOT GIVEN stops feeling like a guess, then take a full timed passage set so the 18-minute finish lines become a habit rather than a calculation.
