Exam pacing calculator
Running out of time is rarely a knowledge problem. Enter the marks and the minutes for the paper you are sitting, and this works out the rate you need, the points on the clock to check yourself against, and roughly how long one question of each size deserves.
Clock checks
Where you should be when you look up. Minutes are counted from the moment the paper starts.
| At | You should have finished | Checkpoint |
|---|---|---|
| 24 min | 20 marks | 25% through the answering time |
| 44 min | 40 marks | 50% through the answering time |
| 1 h 5 min | 60 marks | 75% through the answering time |
| 1 h 25 min | 80 marks | Pens down on new answers |
How long one question deserves
| Question worth | Spend about |
|---|---|
| 1 mark | 1 min |
| 2 marks | 2.1 min |
| 3 marks | 3.1 min |
| 4 marks | 4.1 min |
| 5 marks | 5.1 min |
| 6 marks | 6.1 min |
| 8 marks | 8.2 min |
| 9 marks | 9.2 min |
| 10 marks | 10.3 min |
| 12 marks | 12.3 min |
| 15 marks | 15.4 min |
| 16 marks | 16.4 min |
| 20 marks | 20.5 min |
| 25 marks | 25.6 min |
| 30 marks | 30.7 min |
Where these numbers come from
The arithmetic is deliberately plain: reading and checking time comes off the top and the bottom, and what is left is shared out in proportion to the marks. That works because the marks-per- minute rate really is close to constant across UK papers, which is something we were able to check against our own corpus of 48,000 exam-style questions. What is not constant is the size of one question, which is why the ladder above is computed from your paper rather than assumed.
To practise at that pace, every pack in the worksheet library prints its mark total and a target time on the front, and the revision timetable generator will tell you when to sit them.
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