How the IELTS Academic Reading test works

The format, timing, question types and scoring of IELTS Academic Reading in 2026, including what changes on the computer-delivered test.

Before you practise a single passage, you need a clear picture of what the test asks you to do. Many candidates lose marks not because their English is weak but because they are surprised by the format: they run out of time, write three words where two are allowed, or spend ten minutes on one stubborn question. This lesson removes the surprises.

The test at a glance

The passages come from books, journals, magazines and newspapers. They are written for a general educated reader, so you never need specialist knowledge. If a technical word is essential, a short glossary is printed under the passage.

The three passages usually feel different:

• Passage 1 is descriptive or factual: the history of an invention, the life of an animal, how something is made. The questions are mostly about finding facts.
• Passage 2 often has paragraphs labelled A, B, C… and uses matching tasks. You need to understand what each paragraph is for.
• Passage 3 is an argument. The writer has opinions, compares theories and evaluates evidence. The questions test whether you can follow reasoning and recognise the writer’s views.

The question types

There are about a dozen task types, and a typical test uses six to eight of them. Each passage normally has two or three different tasks.

Every type has its own lesson later in this course. For now, notice one thing: in most task types the questions follow the order of the passage. The answer to question 3 normally comes after the answer to question 2. The main exceptions are matching headings, matching information and matching features, where the order is mixed.

What has changed for 2026

The content of the test, the skills it measures and the scoring are the same as before. What has changed is the delivery:

• From mid-2026, IELTS is no longer offered as a fully paper-based test. Everyone reads the passages and answers the questions on a computer. (In some countries you can choose to handwrite the Writing section, but Reading is always on screen.)
• The passage appears on the left of the screen and the questions on the right. Each side scrolls independently, so you never have to turn pages.
• You can highlight text and add notes by right-clicking. Use highlighting for names, dates and the topic of each paragraph.
• A clock at the top of the screen shows the time remaining.
• You type or click your answers directly. There is no answer sheet and therefore no transfer time, but you can go back and change any answer until the 60 minutes are over.
• You cannot search the text with Ctrl+F. Scanning is still a skill you need.

Teachers and recent candidates also report some trends in the questions themselves, visible in the latest official practice materials: matching headings appears a little less often than it used to, while matching information and matching sentence endings appear more. These are tendencies, not rules, so prepare for every type.

How your score becomes a band

Each correct answer earns one mark. There is no penalty for a wrong answer, so never leave a question blank. Your raw score out of 40 is converted to a band from 1 to 9. The conversion varies slightly between test versions, but these figures for Academic Reading are a reliable guide:

Two conclusions follow. First, you do not need to be perfect: Band 7 allows ten mistakes. Second, the difference between Band 6 and Band 7 is only four or five questions. Those are usually lost through avoidable errors, which is good news, because avoidable errors can be trained away.

The rules that cost people marks

1. Word limits are absolute. If the instruction says NO MORE THAN TWO WORDS, then the blue door is wrong even if the idea is right. Always underline or highlight the limit before you start a completion task.

• ONE WORD ONLY → one word, no number
• ONE WORD AND/OR A NUMBER → 12, days, or 12 days
• NO MORE THAN TWO WORDS AND/OR A NUMBER → up to two words plus a number
• A hyphenated word such as well-known counts as one word. A number written in figures counts as one number.

2. Words must come from the passage. For completion tasks you copy the word exactly as it appears. Do not change transported to transport because it sounds better. If the sentence is not grammatical with the word from the text, you have chosen the wrong word.

3. Spelling counts. enviroment earns nothing. Because you are copying, there is no excuse: look at the word, type it, check it.

4. Write what the question asks for. If it says write the correct letter, A–G, write C, not the heading itself. If it says TRUE/FALSE/NOT GIVEN, do not write YES.

5. Capital letters do not matter. PARIS, Paris and paris are all accepted.

A realistic plan for 60 minutes

If a question is still unanswered after about a minute and a half, choose your best guess, flag it and move on. One difficult question is worth exactly the same as one easy question, and the easy ones may be waiting further down the screen.

What good readers do differently

Strong candidates do not read faster in the ordinary sense. They read selectively. They take two or three minutes to understand how the passage is organised, then let the questions tell them which parts deserve slow, careful reading. The rest of this course teaches that habit step by step:

1. Lessons 2 and 3 cover the core skills: reading at different speeds and seeing through paraphrase.
2. Lessons 4 to 9 take each family of question types in turn, with worked examples.
3. Lessons 10 to 12 deal with timing, vocabulary and how to move from one band to the next.

Key points

• 3 passages, 40 questions, 60 minutes, no transfer time.
• The whole test is on computer from mid-2026; learn to highlight and to scroll the two panels.
• Questions mostly follow the order of the text, except in matching tasks.
• Respect the word limit, copy words exactly and spell them correctly.
• Never leave a blank, and never let one question take five minutes.

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