5 TOEFL ITP Reading Tricks to Beat the Clock

The biggest problem in Section 3 Reading of the TOEFL® ITP is usually not the English, it’s the clock. You have to answer 50 questions in 55 minutes across several long academic passages. Read every passage slowly from the first word to the last full stop and you’ll almost certainly run out of time.

This article is about how to work: splitting your time, an efficient workflow, and 5 shortcut tricks that save minutes without costing accuracy. For the full list of question types, see 5 TOEFL ITP Reading Question Types. (The slides below are in Indonesian.)

Do the Math First

TOEFL ITP Reading usually has 5 passages with about 10 questions each. That means:

Target	Time
Per passage (including its questions)	About 10–11 minutes
Per question	About 1 minute
Buffer at the end	2–3 minutes for flagged questions

Set a simple rule: if a passage has taken more than 11 minutes, move on to the next one. The next passage might have easier questions, and every question is worth the same.

Also remember: there’s no penalty for wrong answers. Never leave a question blank. If time is almost up, fill in every remaining number.

An Efficient Workflow

Instead of reading the whole text in detail, try this flow:

Skim the structure (1–2 minutes). Read the first sentence of each paragraph to get the topic and how the text develops.
Read the question, then scan. For each question, find the keyword or line number it mentions and read that part carefully.
Postpone the slow ones. Tricky NOT/EXCEPT or inference questions can be flagged and done last within that passage.

This way you read in detail only where a question points. That’s where the 5 tricks below come in.

Trick 1: Vocab in Context, Test It in the Sentence

Vocabulary questions aren’t a dictionary test. The most common meaning is often the trap, because the question asks for the meaning in that sentence.

“Water is a critical element for the survival of organisms.”

❌ fault-finding (the “likes to criticize” meaning) ✅ essential (very important)

The quick method: swap the word with each option and reread the sentence. If it sounds wrong, drop it. One sentence is enough, no need for the whole paragraph.

Trick 2: NOT/EXCEPT, Eliminate What’s There

Questions like “All of the following are mentioned in the passage EXCEPT…” are the biggest time sinks. Don’t hunt for the wrong option from scratch.

Flip the logic:

Take a keyword from options A, B, C, and D.
Scan the passage for each keyword.
Cross out every option you find.
The one left is your answer.

The three options that are mentioned usually sit close together in one part of the passage. If time is tight, flag this question and do it last.

Trick 3: Pronoun Referents, Check Around the Pronoun

“The word ‘they’ in line 8 refers to…” doesn’t require reading the whole paragraph. The referent is usually in the same sentence or one or two sentences before.

Two quick steps:

Match the number. They and them need a plural noun, it needs a singular one.
Substitute. Replace the pronoun with your answer and check that the sentence makes sense.

“Carnivorous plants grow in poor soils. They trap insects for food.”

What traps insects is carnivorous plants, not soils.

Don’t automatically pick the nearest noun. The nearest noun is often planted as a distractor.

Trick 4: Inference, Just One Logical Step

“It can be inferred from the passage that…” tempts people to guess freely or use outside knowledge. But an inference answer must be directly supported by the text, just not stated word for word.

“Sunlight cannot penetrate deeper than 200 meters into ocean waters.”

❌ No creatures live in the deep sea. (too far, no evidence) ✅ Plants that need photosynthesis cannot grow below 200 meters.

Limit yourself to one logical step from what’s written. Options that need two or three leaps, or that use absolute words like always and never, are usually wrong.

Trick 5: Preceding/Following, Read the Edges Only

Sometimes you’ll see “What does the paragraph preceding the passage most likely discuss?” or “What will the following paragraph probably discuss?”. Don’t reread everything.

Preceding (before the passage): read the first sentence of the first paragraph.
Following (after the passage): read the last sentence of the last paragraph.

“Another type of volcanic eruption is the Hawaiian eruption.”

Another type at the very start shows the previous paragraph discussed a different type of eruption.

This can save several minutes compared with rereading the middle paragraphs.

Strategy Summary

Step / Trick	What to read	Why it saves time
Skim the structure	First sentence of each paragraph	You know the map before answering
Vocab in context	One sentence	Test options directly
NOT/EXCEPT	The parts with each option’s keyword	Cross out what’s there
Pronoun	That sentence and the one before	Match number + substitute
Inference	The sentence that holds the evidence	One logical step only
Preceding/Following	The very first or very last sentence	No need for the middle

Quick Quiz

You’ve spent 12 minutes on passage two and still have 3 hard questions. What should you do?
Question: “The word ‘it’ in line 5 refers to…”. Options: the rivers, the valley, the farmers, the crops. Which can you eliminate immediately?
The passage ends with: “The next challenge, however, was finding enough workers.” What will the following paragraph probably discuss?

Answers:

Mark your best guess, flag them, and move on to passage three. Come back if time remains.
All the plural options (rivers, farmers, crops) go, because it is singular. That leaves the valley, which you confirm by substitution.
The problem of finding workers (the next challenge).

Train Your Reading Speed

Timing strategy only develops through timed practice. The more you practice, the faster you spot which parts need a close read.

Kawan EPT (formerly Kawan TOEFL) has 256 passages with 2,560 Reading questions, each with an explanation for every answer option, Reading Strategies lessons (11 topics), and a full 140-question simulation with a timer and a score estimate from 310 to 677. Free on Google Play Store.

Next, get to know each question type in 5 TOEFL ITP Reading Question Types, or collect cross-section tricks in 5 Quick-Answer Tricks for TOEFL ITP.