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IELTS Reading Time Management: The 17-20-23 Plan

IELTS Reading29 August 2026 · 6 min read · WiderAI Team

IELTS Reading gives you exactly 60 minutes for three passages and 40 questions, and unlike the Listening test on paper, there is no extra time at the end to transfer answers — the hour is everything. The single most effective time plan is unequal: 17 minutes for Passage 1, 20 minutes for Passage 2, and 23 minutes for Passage 3. The passages are designed to get harder as the test progresses, so an even 20-20-20 split systematically starves the passage that needs time most and over-funds the one that needs it least.

The arithmetic behind the plan is simple. Forty questions in sixty minutes is ninety seconds per question, but the ninety seconds are not equally expensive. Passage 1 questions tend to be factual and findable; Passage 3 questions lean on dense argument, heavier paraphrase and writer's-opinion types that punish rushing. Banking three minutes early, when the questions are cheapest, and spending them late, when each mark is hardest to win, is the whole strategy.

The plan only works if you enforce it. Write your three checkpoints before the test starts — move on at 17 minutes, again at 37, finish at 60 — and obey them even mid-question. A stubborn question abandoned in Passage 1 costs one mark; the same question clung to for four extra minutes can cost three marks at the end of Passage 3.

Why 17-20-23 and not an even split?

Because difficulty is not evenly distributed, and neither is your energy. In the first fifteen minutes you are fresh and the questions are kindest; in the last fifteen you are tired and the questions are cruellest. An even split ignores both curves.

There is a second, less obvious reason: the plan includes your answer transfer. On the paper-based test, write answers directly onto the answer sheet as you go, or budget the final two minutes of each passage's block for transferring — never leave all forty for a panicked scribble at 59:00. On the computer-based test, answers are entered as you work, but the same two-minute tail per passage is well spent reviewing flagged questions.

If your practice scores show an unusual profile — say, you consistently finish Passage 3 comfortably but bleed marks in Passage 2 — adjust the ratio, not the principle. The principle is: fixed checkpoints, unequal allocation, hardest passage funded best.

How should you spend the minutes inside each passage?

A workable internal budget for any passage looks like this:

1. Two to three minutes getting the passage's map: read the title, any subtitle, and the first sentence or two of each paragraph. You are not reading for detail; you are learning where topics live so that every later search starts in the right neighbourhood.
2. The bulk of the block on the questions themselves, taken in the order that suits the type — completion and short answer sets follow passage order, so ride the text forward; matching headings is often better tackled after you already know the passage from other questions.
3. The final two minutes checking transfers, spelling, and word limits, and forcing an answer into every remaining blank. IELTS Reading has no penalty for wrong answers, so an empty box is the only truly wrong strategy.

Within that budget, the ninety-second rule keeps you honest: if a single question has taken ninety seconds and you are not closing in on the answer, mark it, guess it, and move. Marked questions are cheap to revisit because by the end of the set you know the passage far better, and for order-based types the neighbours' answers fence in the search zone.

What should you do when you fall behind schedule?

First, diagnose which of the two failure modes you are in, because the fixes are opposite.

Behind because of one passage: cut your losses cleanly. When the checkpoint arrives, guess every unanswered question in the current passage and start the next one on time. Marks come at the same price everywhere — one point each, whether the question was brutal or trivial — so protecting your access to the untouched, possibly easier questions ahead is always the better trade.

Behind everywhere: your reading method, not your discipline, is the problem. Candidates in this mode are usually reading the full passage slowly before looking at any questions, or reading every sentence at the same careful speed. The remedy is technique — knowing when to skim, when to scan, and when to slow down — which we cover in detail in our guide to skimming and scanning on the WiderAI blog.

In the final five minutes of the test, stop starting new hard questions. Spend the time where marks are cheap: fill every blank, check completion answers against their word limits, and confirm that on paper your answers sit next to the right question numbers — one misaligned column can wreck a whole section.

How do you train the plan before test day?

Timing is a skill, and it only develops under a running clock.

• Once or twice a week, sit a full three-passage test in a strict 60 minutes, checkpoints enforced. Note your raw score and where the time actually went.
• Between full tests, drill single passages at their block time: Passage 1-style in 17 minutes, Passage 3-style in 23.
• After every timed session, audit the lost marks. Separate didn't reach it (a timing problem) from reached it and got it wrong (a technique problem). The two need different practice, and mixing them up wastes weeks.
• Track the same statistic each week — questions attempted and questions correct per passage — so you can see whether the plan is holding.

Untimed practice still has a place early on, when you are learning question types. But from about four weeks before your test, every full practice should run on the clock, because the exam does.