Reading passages: how to answer without reading twice
The reading section is 39 questions in 64 minutes. Rereading is the habit that costs applicants the section.
Academy Admin · 12 October 2026 · 8 min read
Thirty-nine questions in sixty-four minutes is about ninety seconds each, including the time it takes to read the passages. That budget does not survive a second full read, so the goal of your first read is to make a second one unnecessary.
Map, do not memorise
Read for structure rather than detail. For each paragraph, note in your head what it is doing — introducing a problem, giving evidence, conceding a point, concluding. You are building an index, not storing content. When a question asks about a detail, your map tells you which paragraph to return to.
Answer before you look
Read the question and form your own answer before reading the options. This single habit neutralises most distractors, because a well-written wrong option is designed to look attractive only when you have nothing to compare it against.
The four distractors that keep appearing
True but irrelevant. A statement the passage supports, which does not answer the question asked.
Right idea, wrong scope. Correct in substance but overstated — "always", "the most important", "never".
Outside knowledge. Something true in the world that the passage never claims. Under time pressure this is the hardest one to resist.
Reversed relationship. The right two concepts connected the wrong way round — cause and effect swapped.
Practise the diagnosis, not just the answer
When you get a reading question wrong, name which of the four you fell for. After thirty or forty questions you will start seeing them before you fall for them, and that is the point at which reading speed stops being the problem.
