GT Reading Section 3: General Interest

Section 3 is the most challenging part of the GT Reading test. It presents a single long text on a topic of general interest — similar in length and complexity to an Academic Reading passage. This is where your reading ability is truly tested, and where the difference between Band 6.5 and Band 7 is often decided.

---

What to Expect

Section 3 contains one long text (approximately 700–1000 words) with 13 questions. You should allocate approximately 25 minutes to this section.

Common Topics

The text covers a general interest topic that does not require specialist knowledge:

• Psychology and behaviour (e.g. why people procrastinate, the science of habit formation)
• History and culture (e.g. the origins of a tradition, the development of a technology)
• Science and nature (e.g. how memory works, the impact of urbanisation on wildlife)
• Society and trends (e.g. the rise of remote working, changing attitudes to education)
• Health and wellbeing (e.g. the benefits of sleep, the psychology of exercise)