108 seconds is a budget, not a stopwatch
Ninety minutes, fifty questions. That is 108 seconds each, and candidates hear it as a warning to hurry. It is the opposite. 108 seconds is generous for perhaps thirty of those questions and nowhere near enough for a handful of others — and the whole craft is knowing, within about ten seconds, which kind you are looking at.
The arithmetic, and what it hides
Fifty questions in ninety minutes. But the average is a fiction you will never experience: no question takes exactly 108 seconds.
In practice a Part B set splits roughly three ways. Some questions you see — the answer arrives in fifteen seconds and the remaining ninety are pure surplus. Some are workable: you need most of the budget and you get there. And some are simply beyond you on the day, and no amount of time changes that.
The entire skill is triage on arrival. Not triage across the paper — you cannot do that here, there is no going back — but triage within the question, in the first ten seconds. Do I see this, can I work it, or should I reason as far as I can and commit?
The trap is the middle
Nobody loses this exam on the questions they can see. They lose it on the ones they almost can.
There is a specific failure that costs more Part B marks than anything else, and it feels like diligence while it happens. You meet a question that is nearly within reach. You commit forty seconds. You are close. You commit forty more, because abandoning now would waste the first forty. Then another forty, because you are so close. And you have spent two minutes on one question — and on a one-way test, the surplus you were carrying from the easy ones is now gone, and the questions after it get answered in a hurry that costs you marks you had already earned.
This is the sunk-cost fallacy with a timer attached. The forty seconds you already spent are gone whether you continue or not. The only question that matters is whether the next forty are better spent here or on the question after this one. Usually they are not.
No calculator, and Numerical Ability is on the syllabus
Worth stating plainly because candidates discover it late: calculators are barred, along with slide rules, log tables and electronic watches with calculator functions. And Numerical Ability is one of the six named Part B areas — described as basic mathematics and its association with creative thinking, and unfolding space using geometry.
So you will do arithmetic in your head, under 108 seconds, having spent two years doing it on a calculator. That gap is real and it is closeable, but only by practice that also bans the calculator. Mental arithmetic is a physical skill; reading about it does nothing.
The good news is that the framing — basic mathematics, associated with creative thinking — does not suggest heavy computation. It suggests estimation, proportion and spatial reasoning, which reward fluency far more than they reward technique.
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 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
No instruments are permitted — no compass, no set squares — and no calculators, phones, or wet media.
Appendix-II states "Don't bring any instruments". Also barred: Bluetooth devices, slide rules, log tables, electronic watches with calculators, and any textual material. Numerical Ability is examined without a calculator.
Source · verified 2026-07-16
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
What almost everyone believes
“108 seconds per question means I need to work faster.”
You need to work faster on the questions you were always going to get, and give up sooner on the ones you were not.
Speed is not the binding constraint for most candidates — allocation is. The marks are lost in the middle bucket, where a nearly-solvable question absorbs two or three times its budget because abandoning it feels like waste. On a one-way test that surplus cannot be recovered, and the questions after it pay for it. The skill is deciding fast, not working fast.
Depending on how long you have
Foundation
Understand the skill. Months out, or starting from zero.
Build arithmetic fluency now, months out, because it is the slowest-moving thing on this list. Do mental sums daily — no calculator, no paper where you can avoid it. Ten minutes a day for three months beats ten hours in the last week, and this is the one area where that is unambiguously true.
Drill
The practice protocol. What to repeat, how often, how to score it.
Practise the ten-second read: before working anything, categorise the question as see it / work it / let it go. Then check yourself against the outcome. Most candidates discover they are systematically over-optimistic about the middle category — which is exactly the bucket that eats their paper.
Exam-Day
What to actually do under the constraint — 108 seconds, no instruments, one pass.
Set one rule and keep it: if you are past roughly two minutes on any question, reason to your best answer, commit, and move. Do not negotiate with yourself about how close you are. The forty seconds already spent are gone either way, and the next question is worth exactly as much as this one.
Try it
Twenty minutes. This drills the decision, not the arithmetic.
- 01Take 25 mixed reasoning and numerical questions, calculator banned.
- 02Before starting each one, say out loud which bucket it is: see it, work it, or let it go. Write the call down.
- 03Answer under a 108-second hard timer, in order, no returning.
- 04Afterwards, compare your call to what happened. Where did you say work it and then burn three minutes?
- 05Do this weekly. The number you want falling is not your time — it is how often your ten-second call was wrong.
The short version
108 seconds is an average you will never actually experience. Some questions cost fifteen seconds, some are unwinnable, and the exam is decided in the middle — where a nearly-solvable question quietly eats three times its budget and the rest of the paper pays for it. Decide fast, commit, move. And practise arithmetic without a calculator, because you will not have one.
Next: the day itself — what you may carry through the gate, and what the centre hands you.
Questions people actually ask
- How much time do I get per question in NATA Part B?
- 108 seconds. Part B is 90 minutes for 50 questions. The Council states the per-question budget directly, and questions are presented one after another rather than as a paper you pace yourself across.
- Can I use a calculator in NATA?
- No. Calculators are explicitly barred, along with slide rules, log tables and electronic watches with calculator functions — even though Numerical Ability is one of the six named Part B syllabus areas. Practise arithmetic mentally.
- How hard is the maths in NATA?
- The bulletin describes Numerical Ability as basic mathematics and its association with creative thinking, and unfolding space using geometry. That framing points at estimation, proportion and spatial reasoning rather than heavy computation. No weighting is published for the area.