Reading Time and the Written Examination
A student sitting the external written examination has 130 minutes for reading, listening, and writing sections. The student's practice results show: reading section completed in 55 minutes against an allowance of 40; listening completed accurately; writing section left with only 20 minutes against a recommended 45. In the last practice paper the student scored well on reading comprehension but lost most marks on the writing section because two of three required text types were unfinished. The student's plan is to read every reading passage twice to improve accuracy, and to write the longest possible response for the first writing task.
1. Evaluate the student's plan and explain the timing trade-off it ignores.
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The plan worsens the existing problem. Reading already overruns by 15 minutes; reading every passage twice will increase that further and squeeze writing even more. The student is optimising the section that is already strong while neglecting the section losing the most marks. The trade-off is that marks per minute are far higher in finishing all required writing tasks than in gaining marginal reading accuracy. The student should cap reading at the allowance, move on when a passage is not resolving, and bank the gained time for writing. The plan to write the longest possible first response compounds the error, because it consumes time needed for the other two text types. A better allocation is roughly 40 minutes reading, listening as scheduled, and 45 minutes writing, with the writing time split across all required text types so each is completed.
2. Describe a concrete in-exam routine that would prevent the writing section from being undercut again.
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The student should set a hard checkpoint: when the reading allowance expires, stop regardless of unfinished items and begin the next section. Within reading, they should answer the questions that are quickly resolvable first and flag difficult items to return to only if time remains. For writing, they should note the required text types and allocate a fixed share of the 45 minutes to each, writing a complete shorter response rather than an elaborate partial one, since an unfinished text type typically forfeits the structure and content marks. They should reserve the final few minutes to check that every required text type has been attempted and that key features such as format and register are present. Practising full papers under strict timing, rather than open-ended practice, is what builds the discipline to keep the checkpoints.