IELTS Academic Reading Test Format

Sixty minutes, three passages, forty questions — and no extra time to transfer your answers. The Academic Reading paper is where time management decides the band as much as reading ability does.

Format at a Glance

Feature	Detail
Time	60 minutes, including answer transfer
Passages	3
Length	2,150–2,750 words in total
Questions	40
Marks	1 per correct answer
Sources	Books, journals, magazines, newspapers and online resources
Audience	Written for a non-specialist reader

There is no separate transfer time in Reading. Whatever is not on the answer sheet when the hour ends does not count — budget the last few minutes for it.

The Three Passages

Passages are taken from real published sources and may be narrative, descriptive or argumentative. At least one presents a developed argument. Diagrams, graphs and illustrations can appear, and genuinely technical vocabulary is glossed for you.

Difficulty increases across the paper, so the third passage will usually cost you more time than the first. A common working split is 17, 20 and 23 minutes.

Matching Headings & Information

Choose a heading for each paragraph, or find which paragraph contains a given detail. Tests whether you can identify a paragraph’s main idea.

True / False / Not Given

Decide whether a statement agrees with the passage, contradicts it, or is simply absent. The single most misunderstood task in the paper.

Completion & Multiple Choice

Summary, table, sentence and short-answer completion, plus multiple choice. Word limits are strict and enforced to the letter.

All 11 Question Types

Multiple choice — one answer from four, or several from a longer list.
Identifying information — True / False / Not Given.
Identifying the writer’s views — Yes / No / Not Given.
Matching information — find the paragraph containing a given detail.
Matching headings — assign a heading to each paragraph.
Matching features — link statements to people, places or dates.
Matching sentence endings — complete a sentence from a list.
Sentence completion — fill gaps with words from the passage.
Summary, note, table or flow-chart completion — complete an outline.
Diagram label completion — label a technical drawing.
Short-answer questions — answer factual questions within a word limit.

True / False / Not Given asks about facts in the text. Yes / No / Not Given asks about the writer’s opinions. Mixing the two up is the most expensive habit in the Reading paper.

How It Is Marked

Each correct answer scores one mark out of 40, converted to a band in whole or half increments. Spelling and grammar errors lose the mark, and answers that exceed the stated word limit score zero even when the meaning is right.

Academic and General Training use different conversion tables — General Training needs slightly more correct answers for the same band. See the IELTS Reading scoring page for the full table.

How to Prepare

Answer the questions in the order the paper gives them, not the order of the text — most question sets already follow the passage.
Never read the passage fully before looking at the questions. Read the questions, then hunt.
Count your words for every completion answer. "No more than three words" means three, and hyphenated words count as one.
Train Not Given specifically. It means the text is silent on the point — not that the point seems unlikely.
Fill every blank before the hour ends. There is no penalty for a wrong guess.

Three full practice passages with answer keys are on the IELTS Reading samples page.

Written by Kirill O'Nayd

IELTS expert and educator at TestSucceed, with over a decade of experience preparing candidates for the Academic and General Training modules. Author of the Complete IELTS Preparation Course on Udemy ★★★★★★4.7