In this paper, a theoretical and experimental study of the sectional behaviour of reinforced concrete beams subjected to short-term loads is carried out. The pure bending behaviour is analysed with moment-curvature diagrams. Thus, the experimental results obtained from 24 beams tested by the authors and reported in literature are compared with theoretical results obtained from a layered model, which combines the material parameters defined in Model Code 2010 with some of the most recognized tensions-tiffening models. Although the tests were carried out for short-term loads, the analysis demonstrates that rheological effects can be important and must be accounted to understand the experimental results. Another important conclusion for the beams tested in this work is that the method proposed by EC-2 tends to underestimate the tension-stiffening effects, leading to inaccuracies in the estimations of deflections. Thus, the actual formulation is analysed and a simple modification is proposed. The idea is the separation of the deflection prediction in two parts: one for short-term loads and other for rheological effects (shrinkage). The results obtained are in fairly good agreement with the experimental results, showing the feasibility of the proposed modification.