Exam Time Per Question Planner

How this is calculated

TIME SHOULD FOLLOW MARKS, NOT QUESTION COUNT. Dividing the clock by the number of questions gives every question the same slot regardless of what it is worth, which systematically overspends on cheap questions and starves expensive ones. THE WORKING TIME IS THE EXAM LENGTH MINUS READING TIME AND CHECKING TIME. Both are reserved first, deliberately, because both are the first things sacrificed under pressure and both are worth more than the minutes they cost. MINUTES PER MARK is the number to actually carry into the room. It is working time divided by total marks, and it converts instantly: a 12-mark question at 1.5 minutes per mark is 18 minutes. That single figure is easier to hold under pressure than a list of per-question timings. ⚠️ THE POINT IS ABANDONING A QUESTION ON TIME. Marks within a question are not evenly distributed — the first half of the marks almost always comes faster than the second. Running four minutes over on a question you are close to finishing costs the OPENING four minutes of a question you have not started, and opening marks are the cheapest on the paper. Moving on at the budget and returning later is nearly always worth more than finishing in order. READING TIME IS OFTEN MANDATED and sometimes separate from the working time. Where it is separate, set it to zero here and use the full exam length. ⚠️ THIS ASSUMES EVERY MARK COSTS THE SAME EFFORT, which is not true. Essay marks generally take longer than short-answer marks, and a question requiring a diagram or a derivation can run well over its budget. Treat the figure as a starting allocation to adjust from, not a rule. OPTIONAL QUESTIONS ARE NOT MODELLED. If you choose 3 of 5, enter only the ones you will answer.

Common questions

Why budget by marks instead of by question?

Because questions are rarely worth the same. Splitting the clock by question count gives a 4-mark question the same time as a 25-mark one, which overspends on the cheap question and starves the expensive one. Since marks are what you are actually collecting, time should follow marks. On a paper with uneven questions the two approaches can differ by a factor of five on a single question.

Why reserve reading and checking time first?

Because they are the first things sacrificed under pressure and both are worth more than the minutes they cost. Reading properly is what stops you answering the question you expected rather than the one asked, which is an expensive mistake to make at speed. Checking catches arithmetic slips and, more importantly, whole parts of a question left unanswered — which is very common and completely invisible from inside the question. Reserving them up front means the budget you carry is real.

What is the single number to remember?

Minutes per mark. It converts instantly to any question — a 12-mark question at 1.5 minutes per mark is 18 minutes — and it is far easier to hold under pressure than a list of per-question timings. Write it at the top of your answer booklet in the reading time, then check each question against it as you go.

What do I do when I run over?

Move on, and this is the whole point of having a budget. Marks within a question are not evenly distributed: the first half almost always comes faster than the second, so the last few marks of a question you are close to finishing are the most expensive on the paper. Spending four extra minutes there costs the OPENING four minutes of a question you have not started, and opening marks are the cheapest available. Leave space, move on, come back if there is time.

Does this work when some questions are much harder?

Only as a starting point, and that is a real limitation. The budget assumes every mark costs the same effort, which is not true — essay marks generally take longer than short-answer marks, and anything requiring a diagram, a derivation or a long calculation can run well over its share. Use the figure as an allocation to adjust from rather than a rule, and if you know from past papers that one section runs long, take its extra minutes from a section you know runs short.

Take it further with AI

Copy this into ChatGPT or Claude with your own numbers filled in. It hands over the figures this calculator worked out, so the answer is built on real arithmetic instead of a guess.

I used the Exam Time Per Question Planner at https://www.bfcbrilliance.com/tools/exam-time-per-question-planner.

What I entered:
- Exam length (min): ___
- Questions you will answer (questions): ___
- Total marks available (marks): ___
- Reading time to reserve (min): ___
- Checking time to reserve (min): ___
- Marks on one question (marks): ___

What it calculated:
- Minutes per mark: ___
- Minutes for that question: ___
- Working time: ___
- If you split by question count: ___
- Average marks per question: ___

Use those figures as given — they are already worked out, so please don't recalculate or estimate your own. Help me turn them into a plan: what to buy or do, in what order, roughly what it should cost, and the mistakes people most often make with this job.

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