Practise with a timer
When solving questions, set a realistic limit and hold yourself to it. Then review not just your score but where the time went.
Do not let one question swallow the paper
If you are stuck, continuing to stare rarely helps. Move on and come back. Marks you never reached count exactly the same as marks you got wrong.
Separate speed from rushing
Speed does not mean reading carelessly. The sequence you are aiming for is deliberate, not frantic:
- Read efficiently
- Understand
- Decide
- Answer
Find your own time traps
Everyone loses time somewhere different. Work out which of these is yours:
- Re-reading questions repeatedly
- Changing answers you had already got right
- Long calculations you could shorten
- Writing more than the question asked for
- Refusing to leave a difficult question
Once you know which one it is, you can practise the specific fix instead of vaguely trying to "be faster".
Know your budget per question before you start
Divide the time by the number of questions before the paper begins, and you have a pace to measure yourself against. If a paper gives you two hours for 180 questions, that is roughly forty seconds each — knowing that number turns "am I going too slowly?" from a feeling into something you can actually check.
Do a first pass, then a second
Rather than treating the paper as one continuous run, work through it in passes. On the first, answer everything you can do confidently and mark anything that stalls you. On the second, return to the marked ones with the easy marks already banked. This protects you from the worst outcome — running out of time with answerable questions still unread.
- Pass 1: bank the certain marks
- Mark the hard ones
- Pass 2: return with time left
Set checkpoints, not one deadline
Checking the clock once, halfway, tells you too late. Decide in advance where you should be at a quarter and at halfway. If you are behind at the first checkpoint you still have time to adjust; if you only find out at the end, you do not.
Simulate the real environment
Occasionally practise without your phone and without interruptions. It is the only way to find out how you actually perform under pressure rather than how you perform comfortably — and the gap between the two is usually larger than people expect.
Time management is not about writing faster. It is about not spending five minutes on a question worth the same as one you could answer in thirty seconds.