diff --git a/src/openbench/scorers/humaneval.py b/src/openbench/scorers/humaneval.py
index 9f48c186..7713a28e 100644
--- a/src/openbench/scorers/humaneval.py
+++ b/src/openbench/scorers/humaneval.py
@@ -13,7 +13,9 @@
 from inspect_ai.solver import TaskState
 from inspect_ai.util import ExecResult, sandbox
 
-TIMEOUT = 3
+# Wall clock on the harness event loop, not CPU time: under a burst of
+# completions a saturated loop expired 3s on correct answers.
+TIMEOUT = 10
 
 
 # Adapted from https://github.com/UKGovernmentBEIS/inspect_evals
diff --git a/src/openbench/scorers/mbpp.py b/src/openbench/scorers/mbpp.py
index 8559ad93..e7c8a546 100644
--- a/src/openbench/scorers/mbpp.py
+++ b/src/openbench/scorers/mbpp.py
@@ -10,7 +10,9 @@
 )
 from inspect_ai.solver import TaskState
 
-TIMEOUT = 3
+# Wall clock on the harness event loop, not CPU time: under a burst of
+# completions a saturated loop expired 3s on correct answers.
+TIMEOUT = 10
 
 
 def parse_mbpp_response(response: str) -> str: