How is the time allocation decided upon?
During the development of CAE, the papers were all trialled on CAE level candidates to establish the timing. In addition, all of the exam material is pretested on students at CAE level to check that the timing and the level of difficulty are appropriate. In compiling the actual tests, timing is taken into account. Appropriate reading strategies, e.g. skimming and scanning in Parts 1 and 4, need to be adopted for candidates to do the paper in the time available.
