Read the question first. Always.
The instinct is to read the passage, understand it thoroughly, and then look at the question. It is what school trained and it is the slowest possible order. Read the question first and you are no longer reading — you are searching, and searching is many times faster than reading because you know when to stop.
A question turns reading into searching
Reading without a question means giving every sentence equal weight, because you have no way of knowing which one matters. That is thorough and it is very slow, and under 108 seconds it is unaffordable.
Read the question first and the passage reorganises itself. Most of it is now irrelevant and you can see that instantly. One or two sentences are the answer and they light up. You are not reading faster; you are reading less, which is not the same thing and is much more achievable.
This is the same move as reading the options before calculating in Numerical Ability — and it is the same reason it works. Knowing what you need tells you how much work to do, and the honest answer is nearly always less than you were about to.
One caveat: read the question, not the options. Options are designed to mislead you about what the passage says, and reading them first plants exactly the assumptions you then go looking to confirm.
Speed reading is mostly a myth. Subvocalising is not the enemy.
Worth saying plainly, because there is an industry built on the opposite claim.
You cannot reliably triple your reading speed while keeping comprehension. The evidence for the techniques sold on that promise is poor, and the tradeoff is real: past a certain rate you are skimming, and skimming a passage you must reason about is how you get a confidently wrong answer.
What does work is unglamorous. Read the question first. Read less of the passage. Do not reread compulsively — the instinct to go back over a sentence you already understood is anxiety, not method, and it is where most of the time goes. And read more, generally, over months, which raises your natural rate without any technique at all.
So the honest position: there is no trick that lets you read at three times your speed. There is a large gain available from reading a third as much, and that gain is entirely under your control.
Answer from the passage, not from what you know
The trap here is the same one as Logical Derivation's, and it deserves a second airing because it is that reliable.
When a passage discusses something you know about — architecture, a city, a material — you arrive with opinions. The question asks what the passage says. Those are different, and the option built from your outside knowledge will be sitting right there, true and unsupported.
So the discipline: point at the sentence. If you cannot put your finger on the line that supports the option, the option is not supported, however certain you feel. That test takes two seconds and it is the single most reliable defence in this area.
And note who this catches. Not the weak candidate — the well-read one, who recognises the topic, brings genuine knowledge, and answers from it. Being informed is an advantage everywhere in life except here, where it is a liability you have to consciously suppress for ninety seconds at a time.
The rules behind this
Sourced to the official brochure rather than restated here, so there is one place to correct when the Council revises it.
Part B examines six named areas: Visual Reasoning, Logical Derivation, General Knowledge/Architecture and Design, Language Interpretation, Design Sensitivity and Thinking, and Numerical Ability.
Visual Reasoning — understanding and reconstructing 2D and 3D composition. Logical Derivation — decoding a situation or context and drawing conclusions. General Knowledge, Architecture and Design — current issues, important buildings, historical progression, innovation in materials and construction. Language Interpretation — meaning of words and sentences, English grammar. Design Sensitivity and Thinking — observing and analysing people, space, product, environment; semantics, metaphor, problem identification. Numerical Ability — basic mathematics and its association with creative thinking; unfolding space using geometry.
Source · verified 2026-07-16
Part B allows 108 seconds per question, presented one after another, on an adaptive engine.
90 minutes across 50 questions. The adaptive structure dates to NATA 2025 per the President's foreword in V2.0, which states that NATA 2026 continues it.
Source · verified 2026-07-16
What almost everyone believes
“I need to read faster, so I should learn a speed-reading technique.”
You cannot reliably read much faster with comprehension intact. You can read a great deal less, and that gain is entirely available.
The techniques sold on the promise of tripling your rate have poor evidence behind them, and past a certain speed you are skimming — which is how you get a confidently wrong answer on a passage you were supposed to reason about. What works is reading the question first so the passage reorganises itself, not rereading out of anxiety (where most of the time actually goes), and raising your natural rate over months by reading more. Less, not faster.
Depending on how long you have
Foundation
Understand the skill. Months out, or starting from zero.
Read a lot, over months. That is the entire foundation-level advice for this area and there is no shortcut: natural reading rate rises with volume and with nothing else. Read things that argue, because those also train the ear for attitude that 7.1 needs.
Drill
The practice protocol. What to repeat, how often, how to score it.
Question first, every time, without exception. Then time how much of the passage you actually needed — for most people it is a third. And practise pointing at the sentence: if you cannot locate the line supporting your answer, do not choose it.
Exam-Day
What to actually do under the constraint — 108 seconds, no instruments, one pass.
Read the question, not the options, then search rather than read. Do not reread out of anxiety; that is where the time goes. And point at the sentence before committing — especially if the topic is one you happen to know about, because that is when you are most likely to answer from memory instead of from the page.
Try it
Fifteen minutes. Two passages, two orders.
- 01Take a passage with questions. Read the passage thoroughly first, then answer. Time it.
- 02Take a second passage. Read the QUESTION first, then search the passage. Time it.
- 03Compare. Note how much of the second passage you never read at all — that unread portion is the gain.
- 04Now for each answer, point at the exact sentence that supports it. If you cannot find one, you inferred it.
- 05Last: note any question where you knew the topic. Check that your answer came from the page and not from your own knowledge. That is where a well-read candidate loses marks.
The short version
Read the question first and reading becomes searching, which is faster because you know when to stop — you are not reading faster, you are reading less, and only one of those is achievable. Speed reading is mostly a myth; the real gains are question-first, not rereading out of anxiety, and reading more over months. And point at the sentence before committing: if you cannot locate the line, you inferred it — which is how a well-read candidate loses marks that an ignorant one keeps.
That completes Language Interpretation — the area most often skipped and most cheaply improved.
Questions people actually ask
- Should I read the passage or the question first in NATA?
- The question first, always. It turns reading into searching: most of the passage becomes visibly irrelevant and one or two sentences light up. You are not reading faster, you are reading less. Read the question but not the options — options are designed to mislead you about what the passage says.
- Does speed reading work?
- Not reliably, and the evidence behind the techniques sold on that promise is poor. Past a certain rate you are skimming, which is how you get a confidently wrong answer on a passage you had to reason about. The real gains are reading the question first, not rereading compulsively, and raising your natural rate over months by reading more.
- Why do I get comprehension questions wrong on topics I know well?
- Because you answer from your knowledge rather than from the page, and the option built from outside knowledge will be there, true and unsupported. Point at the sentence: if you cannot put your finger on the line that supports your answer, it is not supported. Being well-read is a liability here, uniquely.