Answer: the average reader takes about 33.3 minutes to read 20 pages.
You might take more or less time than 33.3 minutes to read 20 pages, depending on your reading speed and the difficulty of your text. The average person's reading speed is around 300 words per minute (WPM). A single-spaced page usually has around 500 words, though it can vary with page-size and the type of document. Documents that contain 20 pages can include research papers, manuals, and short books.
The typical reading speed for a fluent adult reading for enjoyment is about 300 words per minute. Reading speed usually slows down when reading technical material such as instruction manuals and scientific research papers. Students or professionals who have a lot of reading may need to read at speeds of 450 words per minute or more in order to consume content faster and increase their productivty.
Reading Time by Number of Pages
The table below shows the estimated time to read a given number of pages. The faster can read, the more time you save.
1 page | 3.3 minutes | 1.7 minutes | 1.1 minutes | 50 seconds |
2 pages | 6.7 minutes | 3.3 minutes | 2.2 minutes | 1.7 minutes |
3 pages | 10 minutes | 5 minutes | 3.3 minutes | 2.5 minutes |
4 pages | 13.3 minutes | 6.7 minutes | 4.4 minutes | 3.3 minutes |
5 pages | 16.7 minutes | 8.3 minutes | 5.6 minutes | 4.2 minutes |
10 pages | 33.3 minutes | 16.7 minutes | 11.1 minutes | 8.3 minutes |
25 pages | 1.4 hours | 41.7 minutes | 27.8 minutes | 20.8 minutes |
50 pages | 2.8 hours | 1.4 hours | 55.6 minutes | 41.7 minutes |
100 pages | 5.6 hours | 2.8 hours | 1.9 hours | 1.4 hours |
250 pages | 13.9 hours | 6.9 hours | 4.6 hours | 3.5 hours |
500 pages | 1.2 days | 13.9 hours | 9.3 hours | 6.9 hours |
750 pages | 1.7 days | 20.8 hours | 13.9 hours | 10.4 hours |
1000 pages | 2.3 days | 1.2 days | 18.5 hours | 13.9 hours |
How can I read faster?
Use SwiftRead to read and comprehend text up to 3X faster. SwiftRead is a software tool that helps you read more efficiently and absorb knowledge faster. Users from over 100 different countries have used SwiftRead to read faster and save time.
Created by Rita Rain
Reviewed by Dominik Czernia, PhD and Jack Bowater
Last updated: Sep 29, 2022
If you're thinking, "how long will it take me to read this book?" - you'll find the answer in this reading time calculator.
And not just that- you can also find the value of any of the variables used in the time to read calculator. You may want to know how much time a day you should allocate to finish a textbook before the deadline. Or maybe you want to assess how many books you should borrow from the library for a 2-week holiday? You can use the reading time calculator in many ways, which we'll describe in the text.
Choose a book, grab a coffee or tea and let's see what the calculator can do. But if you need help choosing a book, seek guidance from our quarantine books calculator.
The questions this reading time calculator can answer
Depending on which values you input into the reading time calculator, you can find out:
How much time per day should you allocate to finish in x days;
How long will it take to read this book;
What the total reading time will be (in hours);
How many pages you'll be able to read in a given time; and
How fast you should read to finish this book on time.
And if you are still curious and need more answers, then give our other tools are read:
- The Day counter; and
- The Time calculator.
How to use the time to read calculator? How long will it take to read this book?
Depending on your problem, fill in the fields for which you know answers and leave the one you want to calculate empty. You can also prevent some variables from changing values by clicking the grey area to the right of the variable and choosing "lock".
If you're wondering, "how long will it take me to read this book?":
Choose your reading speed. If you want the result to be accurate, measure your reading speed and input the number of pages you can read per minute into the second field of the calculator. You can also change the unit and enter the pages per hour. If you don't have time to test your reading speed, decide whether you're a slow, average or quick reader, and choose the adequate description in the first field. And if you are curious about your reading speed, do check out our reading speed calculator
Enter the book's length into the third field of the reading time calculator.
The total reading time will appear. You can display it in hours, minutes, or hours and minutes.
To assess how many days it will take to read the book, decide on your daily reading time.
The last field will tell you in what time you'll finish the book. The time to read calculator lets you display the number in different units.
Calculating reading time - an example
Another real-life example - you're going to have a major test in three months, and you want to work a textbook (300 pages) over before the deadline. How long will it take to read this book? How much time should you allocate to studying each day?
How to solve this problem using the reading time calculator:
Check how long it takes you to finish one page. Let's say the book is quite heavy and it takes you ~3 minutes to go through one page. Then divide 1 by the number of minutes to get the reading speed:
1/3 ≈ 0.33.
0.33 pages/min, let's input the number into the second field of the time to read calculator.
In the third field, enter the book's length - 300 pages.
You can see it will take you about 15 h 9 min to finish the book.
How many days will you devote to studying the book? Let's say you want to finish it in 2 months and then brush up on the material. You study for five days a week. There are around four full working weeks in a month, so there are 2 * 4 * 5 = 40 days in total. Let's say you want to complete the book in 40 days - type in "40" in the last field of the time reading calculator.
That's it, in the "daily reading time" section you'll see you should spend around 22 minutes per day reading. The time reading calculator will also tell you that you should read 7.5 pages a day. If overwhelmed with your results, consider that those who read regularly sleep better, have lower stress levels, and are generally happier.
If you are someone who is into reading, then our books vs ebooks calculator is sure to tickle your fancy.
FAQ
How long does it take to read 30 pages?
It takes about 1 hour to read 30 pages at an average reading speed - about half a page per minute. Persons can have different reading speeds. Usually, it would take us longer to read the same amount of pages of an academic text than a contemporary novel.
How long does it take to read the Great Gatsby?
You need around 6 hours to finish the Great Gatsby if you read at an average reading speed of half a page per minute. So, if you read for only an hour a day, you can finish the Great Gatsby in 6 days.
How much should I read a day to read 52 books per year?
You should read for about 1.5 hours per day. But that's assuming you're an average speed reader, and the books you're reading are 300 pages on average. You can lessen that number by learning to read faster.
How long will it take me to read a book?
To find how long it will take you to read a book, follow these steps:
Find out how many pages of your book you can read per minute.
Check your book's length.
Divide the book's length by your reading speed.
That's the time it will take you to read your book. You can check your result with our reading time calculator.
How much time will it take to read?
How many days will it take?
Period spent reading book
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