The Reading test at a glance
- 60 minutes, 40 questions, 3 sections.
- Academic: three long texts from books, journals and magazines, written for a general but educated reader.
- General Training: shorter everyday texts (notices, adverts), workplace texts (job descriptions, staff guides), then one longer general-interest text.
- There is no extra time at the end. On the paper test you write answers straight on to the answer sheet within the hour; on computer you type them as you go.
As a rough guide, band 7 in Academic Reading needs about 30 correct answers out of 40. General Training needs more correct answers for the same band because the texts are easier.
Question types you will meet
On IELTS Learning there are 52 Reading practice sets covering:
- TRUE / FALSE / NOT GIVEN and YES / NO / NOT GIVEN
- Matching Headings
- Matching Information (which paragraph contains...)
- Matching Features and sentence endings
- Summary, note, table and flow-chart completion, with and without a word box
- Multiple choice and short-answer questions
- Diagram labelling
Every set comes with explanations, so you see exactly which line in the passage gives the answer.
The two big traps: NOT GIVEN and Matching Headings
NOT GIVEN catches more students than any other type. The rule is simple and hard to follow: answer only from the text, not from what you know is true. A sentence about rice yields in Nepal may be perfectly correct in real life and still be NOT GIVEN if the passage never says it.
Ask yourself:
- Does the passage say the same thing? TRUE.
- Does it say the opposite? FALSE.
- Does it simply not say? NOT GIVEN.
Matching Headings traps students who match words rather than ideas. A heading that repeats a word from paragraph C is often a deliberate distractor. Read the first two sentences of the paragraph and ask, "What is this paragraph mainly about?" before you look at the list.
A timing strategy that holds up
Many students spend 25 minutes on the first passage and then panic. Try this:
- Passage 1: about 17 minutes.
- Passage 2: about 20 minutes.
- Passage 3: about 23 minutes (it is usually the hardest).
If one question is taking more than a minute or two, flag it and move on. The navigator on our computer-style screens shows flagged questions so you can return at the end. Never leave a blank: there is no penalty for a wrong answer.
Academic vs General Training practice
Academic students in Kathmandu often find the vocabulary in Passage 3 the main barrier, especially in science and social science topics. Read widely in English: popular science articles, features in the valley's English-language newspapers, and long reads on topics outside your field.
General Training students sometimes relax too much on the early sections and lose easy marks on detail. The texts are simple, but the questions demand precise reading of numbers, dates and conditions, just like reading a notice board in an office or a hospital.
Choose your track when you register and your sets follow it automatically.
Practising Reading in Kathmandu
Reading practice suits life in the valley better than most modules:
- On the microbus or in a queue: vocabulary flashcards and Daily Vocabulary on your phone, five new words a day.
- At a desk, three or four times a week: one full timed passage on a laptop, then a careful review of every mistake.
- Your day off: a complete 60-minute Reading test, no breaks.
Students at Tribhuvan University and Kathmandu University colleges often already read plenty of English for their courses. The skill IELTS adds is speed with precision, which only comes from timed sets.
Charged sets for band 7 and above
Once you are scoring around 30 out of 40, regular sets can stop stretching you. Charged sets are harder Reading passages with denser vocabulary and trickier distractors, built for students aiming at 7, 7.5 or 8. Use them in the last few weeks before your test, alternating with standard sets so your confidence stays steady.
Every wrong answer goes into your Mistake Notebook automatically. Reviewing it once a week is one of the quickest ways to see a pattern, such as always losing marks on the same question type.
Start with the free sample Reading set: register free and then explore more IELTS Reading practice tests.