You are viewing a free preview of this lesson.
Subscribe to unlock all 10 lessons in this course and every other course on LearningBro.
The LNAT gives you 95 minutes to answer 42 multiple-choice questions across approximately 12 passages. Before you can develop any timing strategy, you need to understand exactly what these numbers mean — and why they make Section A so demanding.
Let us break down the arithmetic of Section A:
| Metric | Value |
|---|---|
| Total time | 95 minutes |
| Total questions | 42 |
| Approximate number of passages | 12 |
| Average questions per passage | 3–4 |
| Time per question (simple division) | 2 minutes 16 seconds |
| Time per passage (simple division) | ~7 minutes 55 seconds |
At first glance, 2 minutes and 16 seconds per question may seem generous. But this figure is misleading, because it includes everything: reading the passage, understanding the argument, reading the questions, evaluating each answer option, and selecting your response. Reading the passage alone can consume half of the available time.
Key Fact: You do not have 2 minutes 16 seconds per question. You have approximately 7 minutes 55 seconds per passage — and within that time, you must read, understand, and answer 3 or 4 questions.
Here is a realistic breakdown of how those ~8 minutes per passage should be allocated:
| Activity | Approximate Time |
|---|---|
| First read / skim of the passage | 2–3 minutes |
| Reading the questions | 30–45 seconds |
| Targeted re-reading and answering | 3.5–4.5 minutes |
| Quick review / checking | 15–30 seconds |
| Total | ~7–8 minutes |
The critical insight is that reading and answering are not separate activities — they overlap. As you re-read targeted sections of the passage, you are simultaneously formulating and checking your answers. Efficient candidates merge these steps; inefficient candidates treat them as sequential.
You might think 8 minutes per passage is comfortable. It is not, for several reasons:
Some passages are 500 words of clear, well-structured argument. Others are 900 words of dense philosophical reasoning or abstract academic prose. The time you save on an easy passage, you will need for a hard one.
Some questions require you to identify a simple factual claim. Others require you to trace a chain of reasoning across multiple paragraphs, identify an unstated assumption, or distinguish between the author's view and a view they describe without endorsing. Difficult questions can consume 2–3 minutes on their own.
By your eighth or ninth passage, you have already made 25+ decisions. Your concentration will not be as sharp as it was on passage one. The time pressure intensifies as mental fatigue builds.
The LNAT is delivered on a computer screen at a Pearson VUE test centre. Many candidates find screen reading slower than paper reading. You cannot physically annotate the passage or circle key words — you must rely on mental annotation and scratch paper.
Think of Section A as a journey through 12 stations, each with its own passage and its own set of questions. Here is what the journey looks like in terms of time:
| Passage | Cumulative Time Used | Cumulative Questions Answered | Time Remaining |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | ~8 min | ~3–4 | 87 min |
| 2 | ~16 min | ~7 | 79 min |
| 3 | ~24 min | ~10–11 | 71 min |
| 4 | ~32 min | ~14 | 63 min |
| 5 | ~40 min | ~17–18 | 55 min |
| 6 | ~48 min | ~21 | 47 min |
| 7 | ~56 min | ~24–25 | 39 min |
| 8 | ~64 min | ~28 | 31 min |
| 9 | ~72 min | ~31–32 | 23 min |
| 10 | ~80 min | ~35 | 15 min |
| 11 | ~88 min | ~38–39 | 7 min |
| 12 | ~95 min | ~42 | 0 min |
This table assumes a perfectly even pace. In reality, your pace will vary — and that is fine, as long as you know where you should be at key checkpoints.
The single most important checkpoint is the midpoint. When you have used approximately 47–48 minutes, you should have completed roughly 6 passages and answered approximately 21 questions. If you are significantly behind this marker, you need to adjust your strategy immediately — either by speeding up your reading, being more decisive with answers, or flagging difficult questions for later.
The Midpoint Rule: At 47–48 minutes, you should be at or past question 21. If you are not, you are falling behind.
If you reach the end of the 95 minutes with unanswered questions, those questions score zero. There is no negative marking on the LNAT, which means:
This has a critical implication for time management: if you are running out of time, it is better to guess on remaining questions than to leave them blank. Even random guessing will, on average, earn you several extra marks.
The key principle underlying all LNAT timing strategy is this:
Every question is worth the same mark. One difficult question is not worth more than one easy question.
This means that spending 5 minutes agonising over a single difficult question — at the cost of not reaching the final passage — is poor strategy. The three or four marks you could earn on the final passage are worth far more than the single mark you might gain from the difficult question.
Time management in Section A is not about working faster. It is about allocating your time where it will earn the most marks.
Section A gives you 95 minutes for 42 questions across ~12 passages. The effective time budget is approximately 7–8 minutes per passage, which must cover reading, comprehension, and answering. The time pressure is real because passages vary in difficulty, some questions are much harder than others, decision fatigue builds over 95 minutes, and screen-based reading is slower than paper. The midpoint checkpoint (question 21 at ~48 minutes) is your most important timing reference. Never leave a question unanswered — there is no negative marking. The fundamental principle is that every mark is equal, so allocate your time to maximise total marks, not to perfect individual answers.