Time management | ACT Reading

You’re given 35 minutes to answer 40 questions on the ACT Reading section. This is a really short amount of time to read four passages and answer 40 questions about them. If you struggle to finish the reading section, don’t beat yourself up about it. You’re not alone—most students don’t finish the reading test in time. However, there are some things you can do to use your limited time more efficiently.

How to approach the reading section

Because time is short, it’s important to keep track of how long you take to answer each question. Ideally, you would take:

3.75 minutes (or less) to read and annotate each passage.
30 seconds (or less) to answer each question.

It’s important to time yourself while you take practice tests to see where you spend your time. If you find that you’re taking over five minutes to read a passage, then that’s at least one reason why you aren’t finishing the reading section.

What to do if you’re a slow reader

If you take more time reading, that’s okay! You just need to make effective use of your time.

Avoid reading the same material twice. If you didn’t understand a paragraph the first time around, you might be tempted to read it again. Don’t read it again—you need that time to read the rest of the passage and answer the questions. In fact, reading the rest of the passage is more likely to help you understand what’s going on in the earlier paragraphs. Reading the same paragraph over and over again is not likely to help you.

What to do if you’re slow at answering questions

Some of these questions take time to answer—that’s expected, and you just need to approach them strategically.

Annotate the passage. It might feel like you’re wasting time by going through extra steps, but it’s quite the opposite. The Annotating chapter will help you find answers more quickly and shorten the time it takes you to answer questions.

Skip around and complete your best passages first

After taking several practice tests, you might find that you do better on some passage types (e.g., Natural Science passages) than on the other types. Take advantage of this by going straight to the Natural Science passage when the test starts rather than starting on page one. This likely will score you more points and leave the passage that you don’t do so well on for last.

Why do you think it would be a good idea to leave the passage you normally don’t do so well on for last?

(spoiler)

If you run out of time, it’s likely that the last passage will be the one you leave unfinished. To maximize your points, it makes sense to neglect the passage that you normally score the lowest on. Work on your best passages at the beginning to make sure you have time for them, saving the most challenging ones for last.

Strategies when you’re running out of time

If you find yourself with three minutes left and an entire passage left to answer, here are some tips:

Focus on the questions that reference a line number. Often, these will be Vocabulary in Context questions, which can be answered more quickly than others. This helps you avoid endless scanning of the text when you don’t have the time for it.
Guess for all unanswered questions. Guess for the last few if you don’t have time to do them! There is no guessing penalty, meaning an unanswered question is just as bad as an incorrectly answered question.

Key points

You’re given 35 minutes to answer 40 questions on the ACT Reading section. This means that you’re allowed:

3.75 minutes to read and annotate each passage.
30 seconds to answer each question.

Use your time effectively:

Avoid reading the same material twice.
Annotate the passage.
Do the passage that you historically score the highest on first.

When you’re running out of time:

Focus on the questions that reference a line number.
Guess for any unanswered questions.