How the TOEFL iBT works

The test at a glance

The TOEFL iBT changed on 21 January 2026. The updated test is shorter, uses new task types, adapts its Reading and Listening sections to your level, and reports scores on a new 1–6 scale (ETS, Updated TOEFL iBT Test Overview). This course is written for that updated test. If a book or a website describes task types that are not in the tables below, it is describing the test as it was before 2026.

You always meet the sections in the same order: Reading, then Listening, then Writing, then Speaking (ETS, Updated TOEFL iBT Test Overview).

Section	Task types	Items	Approximate time
Reading	Complete the Words; Read in Daily Life; Read an Academic Passage	50	30 minutes
Listening	Listen and Choose a Response; Listen to a Conversation; Listen to an Announcement; Listen to an Academic Talk	47	29 minutes
Writing	Build a Sentence; Write an Email; Write for an Academic Discussion	12	23 minutes
Speaking	Listen and Repeat; Take an Interview	11	8 minutes

(ETS, TOEFL iBT Test Content and Structure.) These times do not include reading the directions or adjusting your volume, and ETS adds that "as the test adapts, test time and items may vary". ETS advises allowing about two hours for the whole appointment (ETS, Test Content and Structure; Teacher FAQ). The blueprint ETS published in December 2025 gives a minimum testing time of 1 hour 23 minutes and a maximum of 1 hour 29 minutes, depending on the adaptive path (ETS, 2026 Test Blueprint and Specifications).

What each task asks you to do

Reading

Task	What you do	Length and questions
Complete the Words	Type the missing letters of words in an academic paragraph. After an intact first sentence, the second half of every second word is missing.	About 70–100 words; 10 words to complete per paragraph
Read in Daily Life	Read a short everyday text (notice, menu, schedule, email, text messages, receipt, social media post and so on) and answer questions.	About 15–150 words; 2 or 3 questions
Read an Academic Passage	Read a short expository passage, like one from a textbook, and answer questions on facts, vocabulary, inferences, connections between ideas and purpose.	About 200 words; 5 questions

(ETS, Updated TOEFL iBT Test Overview; TOEFL iBT Lesson Plans: Reading.) The blueprint lists 30 Complete the Words items in the section, with 5–15 items each for the other two tasks (ETS, 2026 Test Blueprint and Specifications). You need no background knowledge: everything you need is in the text (ETS, TOEFL iBT Reading Section).

Listening

Task	What you do	Length and questions
Listen and Choose a Response	Hear one question or statement (it is not printed) and choose the most appropriate of four written replies.	One short line; 1 question
Listen to a Conversation	Hear two people talk, usually about campus or daily life.	Short; 2 questions
Listen to an Announcement	Hear an announcement in a class or at a school event: schedules, directions, rules, achievements.	About 40–85 words; 2 questions
Listen to an Academic Talk	Hear a short talk by a professor or expert.	About 100–250 words; 4 questions

(ETS, Updated TOEFL iBT Test Overview; TOEFL iBT Lesson Plans: Listening.) Each recording is played once, and you may take notes (ETS, 2026 Test Blueprint and Specifications; Test Content and Structure). ETS's documents list slightly different sets of accents you may hear: the blueprint names U.S./Canadian, Australian and British English; the overview says North America, the United Kingdom and Australia; the section page adds New Zealand. Either way, expect several varieties of English.

Writing

Task	What you do	Time
Build a Sentence (10 items)	Put words and phrases in order to make a grammatical reply to another person's sentence.	Part of the section's 23 minutes
Write an Email	Write an email for a stated purpose, such as making a request, recommending something or proposing a solution.	7 minutes
Write for an Academic Discussion	Read a professor's question and two classmates' posts in an online class forum, then post your own supported opinion. ETS recommends at least 100 words.	10 minutes

(ETS, Updated TOEFL iBT Test Overview; TOEFL iBT Lesson Plans: Writing.) There is a word counter for the two longer tasks but no spell-check anywhere in Writing (ETS, Lesson Plans: Writing).

Speaking

Task	What you do	Time to respond
Listen and Repeat (7 items)	Hear a sentence once, then repeat it exactly. The seven sentences belong to one campus scenario and grow longer.	Up to 8–12 seconds per sentence
Take an Interview (4 items)	Answer a prerecorded interviewer's questions about one topic, from personal experience to opinions on broader issues.	45 seconds per question

(ETS, Updated TOEFL iBT Test Overview; TOEFL iBT Lesson Plans: Speaking.) You speak into a microphone and your responses are recorded (ETS, TOEFL iBT Speaking Section).

Two-stage adaptive Reading and Listening

Reading and Listening are multistage adaptive. Each section has two stages. How you do on the first stage (ETS's blueprint calls it the router) decides whether your second stage is easier or harder, so that the questions match your level (ETS, Updated TOEFL iBT Test Overview; Teacher FAQ).

Section	First stage	Second stage
Reading	18–21 minutes	9 minutes
Listening	18 minutes	7 minutes (easier stage) or 11 minutes (harder stage)

(ETS, 2026 Test Blueprint and Specifications.) Writing and Speaking are not adaptive: everyone who takes a given version of the test gets the same tasks.

What this means for you:

• You cannot skip or go back between stages (ETS, Teacher FAQ). When you leave the first stage, it is closed. ETS's pages do not say whether you can return to an earlier question within a stage, so practise answering each question when you meet it.
• Your score uses both stages and how difficult the questions were (ETS, Teacher FAQ). A harder second stage is a sign that the first went well; an easier one is not a failure. Either way, keep working carefully: every question in the second stage still counts.
• Do your best on the first stage. There is nothing to gain from trying to guess how the routing works. Steady, accurate work is the whole strategy.
• Some questions are unscored. Every test taker gets pretest questions, which ETS is trying out for future tests, in either Reading or Listening. They look like the others, so treat every question as if it counts (ETS, Teacher FAQ; 2026 Test Blueprint and Specifications). This is one reason the item counts and times above are approximate.

Scoring in one paragraph

Reading and Listening items are scored by machine, one point each, and converted to the reporting scale with a statistical method (item response theory) that takes question difficulty into account. Writing and Speaking responses are scored by ETS's AI scoring engine against ETS's scoring guides; human ratings train the engine and oversee its accuracy. Build a Sentence items are worth one point each, and each email, discussion post, repeated sentence and interview answer is scored from 0 to 5 (ETS, 2026 Test Blueprint and Specifications; Teacher FAQ; Updated TOEFL iBT Test Overview). Each section, and the overall score, is reported on a 1–6 scale. The next lesson explains the scale in detail.

Test center or Home Edition

You can take the test on a computer at an authorized test center, or at home as the TOEFL iBT Home Edition, monitored by a live human proctor (ETS, Test Content and Structure). The content is the same; the practical rules differ.

Topic	Test center	Home Edition
Notes	Scratch paper and pencils provided; you may not bring your own	One small desktop whiteboard, or one sheet of paper inside a transparent sheet protector, with an erasable marker; you show the proctor it is erased at the end
Equipment	Provided	Your own desktop or laptop (no tablet), one screen, internal or external speaker and microphone; no headsets or earphones; a camera you can move to show the room
Room	The test center's	A private room, alone, doors closed, desk cleared; you show the room on camera
Arrival	Arrive at least 30 minutes early with acceptable ID	Check in online; run ETS's equipment check beforehand

(ETS, At Home Testing Requirements; TOEFL iBT Home Edition; What to Expect When You Test at a Test Center; Teacher FAQ.) If your equipment or room does not meet the requirements on test day, you cannot test, and ETS states that you will not receive a refund or a free reschedule, so run the equipment check at the same time of day as your appointment (ETS, At Home Testing Requirements).

Rules that affect your strategy

• No scheduled breaks. The test runs straight through (ETS, Test Content and Structure; 2026–27 Information Bulletin). Practise sitting for the full test at least twice.
• Take notes. Notes are allowed in every section (ETS, Test Content and Structure). They matter most for conversations, announcements and talks.
• No writing assistance software and no mobile devices (ETS, Test Content and Structure).
• Attempt every section. If you do not answer at least one Reading question, one Listening question, one Speaking task and one Writing task, the test is not scored at all (ETS, Test Content and Structure).
• Retakes. There is no limit on how many times you take the test, but you cannot take it more than once in any 3-day period (ETS, 2026–27 Information Bulletin).

When ETS's documents disagree

ETS published several descriptions of the updated test before and after launch, and a few older documents are still online. The figures in this course come from the 2026 documents. You may still meet these differences:

• A July 2025 edition of the overview gave Reading as 35–48 items in about 27 minutes and Listening as 35–45 items in about 18 to 27 minutes, and warned that the number of items might change before launch (ETS, Updated TOEFL iBT Test Overview, July 2025 edition). The current pages give 50 and 47 items.
• The raw-point totals for Reading and Listening differ: the overview's score table lists raw scores of 0–30, while the blueprint lists 35 raw points for each. This does not change how you should prepare: every scored Reading and Listening item is worth one point.
• The accent lists differ slightly, as noted above.

Where ETS's sources do not settle something, such as the exact order of tasks within a stage, this course says so instead of guessing.

How to use this course with ETS's practice

1. Learn each task here. Each lesson explains a task, shows worked examples and common traps, and ends with practice in the test's format, with explanations.
2. Meet the real interface early. Take ETS's free Full-Length Practice Test 1 for the updated test in your first week (ETS, Test Preparation; Full-Length Practice Test 1). It shows you exactly what the screens look like, which this course cannot reproduce.
3. Practise under time. This course's full-length practice test mirrors the sections, task mix and timing. Recordings are read aloud by your browser's synthetic voice and play once, as on the test. Speaking and Writing are self-assessed with rubrics and model answers.
4. Finish with ETS's Practice Test 2 in your last week or two, timed and in one sitting (ETS, Full-Length Practice Test 2).

Check yourself

• In what order do the four sections come, and roughly how long is each?
• Which two sections are adaptive, and what happens when you finish the first stage?
• What are the three Reading tasks, the four Listening tasks, the three Writing tasks and the two Speaking tasks?
• How many times can you hear a recording in the Listening section?
• How long do you have for the email and for the academic discussion post, and which one has a recommended minimum length?
• What can you use for notes at a test center, and at home?
• Why should you treat every question as if it counts, even though some are unscored?
• A study guide describes a Reading task that is not in this lesson's tables. What should you check before using it?