IELTS Reading: a 4-week plan to prepare by reading

What the Reading test asks of you

According to ielts.org, Academic Reading lasts 60 minutes and has three sections with 40 questions. The texts add up to 2,150 to 2,750 words. They come from books, journals, magazines, newspapers and online resources, are written for a non-specialist reader, and at least one contains a detailed logical argument. General Training has the same length and number of questions with 2,150 to 2,375 words: short everyday texts first, two work-related texts next, and one long general-interest text at the end.

Do the arithmetic. Three texts in 60 minutes is 20 minutes per text, and in those 20 minutes you read roughly 700 to 900 words and answer 13 or 14 questions. There is no separate time to transfer answers. A study in the IELTS Research Reports found that item writers are asked for source texts of 750 to 950 words.

Raw scores are averages published on ielts.org and vary slightly between test versions. Each correct answer is one mark and wrong answers lose nothing.

Two things changed the practical side in 2026. IELTS announced that from mid-2026 the test is no longer offered on paper, with the switch date depending on the country, so advice about transferring answers to a sheet is out of date. On the computer the text sits on the left and the questions on the right, you can highlight and make notes, a bar at the bottom shows all 40 questions, the font size can be adjusted, and the timer flashes at 10 and at 5 minutes before the end.

Academic Reading uses eleven question types, in the wording of ielts.org: multiple choice, identifying information (True/False/Not given), identifying the writer's views or claims (Yes/No/Not given), matching information, matching headings, matching features, matching sentence endings, sentence completion, summary, note, table or flow-chart completion, diagram label completion and short-answer questions.

What reading practice can do, and what it cannot

The evidence that regular reading improves reading in a second language is solid, if modest in size. A meta-analysis of 49 studies with 5,919 learners (Jeon and Day, 2016) found positive effects on reading rate (0.83), comprehension (0.54) and vocabulary (0.47), measured as standardised effect sizes. An earlier meta-analysis of 34 studies (Nakanishi, 2015) reported 0.46 against control groups. Most of that data comes from classrooms in Asia, and few studies ran for long, so treat the numbers as direction rather than promise.

What reading does not do is teach you how True/False/Not given differs from Yes/No/Not given, how to match headings under time pressure, or how to pace yourself across three texts. Those are skills of the test, and the only honest way to learn them is on real test material. That is why the plan below pairs daily reading with the official samples.

The four-week plan

This plan is our suggestion, not an official programme. It assumes you are around B1 to B2 and have four weeks. If you have less time, put the official practice tests first.

Week 1. Build the habit on easy text

Read for 20 minutes a day, every day. Choose texts where you already know almost every word: research on comprehension puts comfortable unassisted reading at about 98% known words (Hu and Nation, 2000), and Paul Nation notes that with outside help a slightly lower share is acceptable. Graded books at your level or short pieces of about 500 words work well. Do not time yourself yet.

Week 2. Move to texts of test length

Read one article of 800 to 1,500 words a day on a typical IELTS topic: science, the environment, history, psychology, technology, society, health or education. Free sources with articles of that length are listed on our page about what to read for IELTS Academic. Twice this week, do a set of the official sample questions by type on ielts.org. They run on the same software as the real test and come with answer keys.

Week 3. Add the clock

Keep the daily article, but give yourself 20 minutes for about 900 words, then write two sentences that sum up the argument. At the end of the week sit the full official Academic Reading sample: three texts, 40 questions. It has no timer of its own, so set one for 60 minutes. Check your answers and sort your mistakes into two piles: words you did not know, and questions you misread.

Week 4. Practice tests and stamina

Take two more full tests. A free IELTS Ready account from the British Council includes two full mock tests with Reading and Listening scores, and IDP publishes further practice material. On the days between, read one long piece of 2,500 words or more without stopping, so that three texts in a row stop feeling long. Ease off for the last two days.

Where the official free practice is

• ielts.org sample questions: ten interactive Academic Reading tasks by question type with answer keys, no registration. There is a matching page for General Training.
• Full Academic Reading sample on the test platform: three texts and 40 questions, untimed.
• British Council free practice tests: the same tasks plus printable PDFs, no login.
• IELTS Ready: the free account has two full mock tests with scores for Reading and Listening. The Premium tier is free only for people who booked their test with the British Council.
• IDP practice material for Reading, no login.

If the result disappoints you in one section only, check One Skill Retake: where the test centre offers it, you can retake Reading alone within 60 days of a computer-delivered test, once per test. Ask the organisation that needs your score whether it accepts the retake.

Where Readlang Mobile fits, and where it does not

Readlang Mobile is an iPhone and iPad app for reading in a foreign language. You paste the link to an article and it opens in the reader; tap a word and its translation appears in the line, tap the first and the last word of a phrase to translate the phrase. Every word you translate is saved to a vocabulary list. The built-in library has public-domain books graded from A1 to C1, which suits week one; those are classics, not exam-style texts, so for weeks two to four you bring your own articles by link.

The free plan allows 30 translations a day. That covers one 900-word article if you already know about 97% of its words, since 30 out of 900 is 3.3%. If you need more than that, the text is probably too hard for timed practice anyway. Premium is $8.99 a month or $59.99 a year and removes the limit.

It is not an exam trainer. There are no practice tests, no question types and no exam timer in the app, and it runs only on iPhone and iPad. Use it for the reading half of the plan and the official sites for the test half.

Questions people ask