A downlink control information monitoring method, a terminal, and a base station are applied to the field of communications technologies include monitoring, by the terminal, downlink control information in a first time resource unit range according to a first rule, and monitoring, by the terminal, downlink control information in a second time resource unit range according to a second rule, wherein the first time resource unit range is different from the second time resource unit range, and wherein the first rule is different from the second rule.