OET Writing Time Management: How to Use the 45 Minutes

The OET writing sub-test gives you 45 minutes. How you divide those minutes decides more marks than most candidates realise, because the criteria that separate a pass from a near-miss — Purpose, Content selection, and Organisation — are won in the minutes before you write the letter, not during it. This guide gives a minute-by-minute plan and explains what to cut when you fall behind.

The timing is the same for every profession. If you want to see how the minutes map onto the marking, read it alongside the OET writing criteria.

The 45 minutes, minute by minute

The sub-test opens with 5 minutes of reading time during which you cannot write. The remaining 40 minutes are yours to plan, write, and check. Here is how a band 350 candidate typically uses them.

The pattern to notice is that roughly the first 9 minutes — 20 percent of the test — produce no letter text at all. That is deliberate. Those minutes set up the Purpose, Content, and Organisation marks that the writing phase then simply executes.

How to use the 5-minute reading time

You cannot write during reading time, so use it to make three decisions: who is the recipient, what is the single action the letter is requesting, and which case notes are irrelevant. Candidates who skip this and start the planning cold at minute 5 effectively lose part of their planning window. The reading-time goal is to walk into writing time already knowing your purpose sentence.

For how to extract the right facts quickly, see our guide to reading OET case notes.

Why the planning minutes pay back

Three to four minutes of planning protects two criteria at once. Deciding paragraph order protects Organisation. Deciding which facts to include protects Content and Conciseness. A letter written without this step tends to follow the case notes in chronological order, which is rarely the order the recipient needs, and tends to include everything, which costs Conciseness marks under the 2026 rubric. The full mechanics are in what examiners look for.

What to cut when you are behind

If you reach minute 30 and the body is not finished, cut detail, not structure. The four things that must survive are the purpose opening, one history paragraph, the current status, and the closing request. Secondary background, second examples, and courtesy lines go first. A complete 170-word letter outscores an unfinished 230-word letter, because an unfinished letter usually loses its closing request — a direct Purpose failure.

Never sacrifice the final check to write two more sentences. The check recovers more marks per minute than late drafting does.

Build the habit before exam day

Time management is a trained habit, not something you improvise on the day. Practise full letters under a 40-minute clock, not open-ended. Write one timed letter, then submit it to the Writing Checker for a band estimate, or have it graded against all six criteria through our letter correction service. The Development Pack suits candidates doing one timed letter a week in the run-up to the exam; pricing is on the pricing page. For structuring those weeks, the 6-week study plan builds timed practice in from the start.