Zestly

TOEFL iBT® Test

Zestly practice for the TOEFL iBT® test — reading, the written tasks and the spoken interview, in the task types the current test uses.

Read this first: the test changed on 21 January 2026

If you have been preparing from a book, a video or a course that describes two reading passages of ten questions, an integrated writing task built on a lecture, four speaking tasks and a score out of 120, you are preparing for a test that no longer exists. ETS rebuilt this test and the new form has been in use since 21 January 2026.

What changed, in the order it will affect you:

• The task types are new. Reading is now Complete the Words, Read in Daily Life and Read an Academic Passage. Writing is Build a Sentence, Write an Email and Write for an Academic Discussion. Speaking is Listen and Repeat and Take an Interview. The old independent essay and the lecture-plus-reading integrated tasks are gone.
• The scale is new. Score reports now use 1 to 6 in half points, aligned to the CEFR — four section scores and an overall score that is their average, rounded to the nearest half point. For a two-year transition after January 2026 you also get a comparable overall score on the old 0–120 scale, given as the midpoint of the matching range.
• The test is shorter and it adapts. About 1 hour 23 to 1 hour 29 minutes of testing, 120 items. Reading and listening are two-stage adaptive — a router section decides whether you get the lower or the upper module next. Writing and speaking are linear: everyone taking a given form gets the same tasks.

There are no pass marks. ETS sets none; the university or agency sets its own requirement, and it is often a minimum in each section rather than an overall figure.

What the test contains

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

Reading and listening items are worth one point each. Some items in those two sections are unscored trial items — you cannot tell which, so treat all of them as real. There are no scheduled breaks.

What is here, and what is not

Listening is not covered, and cannot be. A question here is text; it has no audio. Listening is 47 of the 120 items — a full quarter of your result — and pretending to prepare you for it with silent questions would be worse than saying nothing. ETS publishes a free sample test with the real audio; it is linked below.

Listen and Repeat is not covered either, for the same reason: 7 of the 11 speaking items play a sentence you have to repeat back, and there is no sentence to hear here. Take an Interview, the other 4 items, is covered in full.

Two more task types are here in an adapted form, and the categories say so on their own pages. Complete the Words and Build a Sentence are typed-response tasks on the real test — you complete a partly-shown word, or drag words into order. Neither can be set as a multiple-choice question without changing what your finger does. They are practised here as choices between candidate answers, which drills the same knowledge — word form, collocation, syntax — while being honest that the motion on test day is different.

So: reading is covered in full, writing is covered apart from the typing motion of Build a Sentence, speaking is covered for the interview, and listening is not covered at all.

How each part is practised here

Reading materials keep the text on screen beside every question, as the real test keeps the stimulus visible while you answer. Academic passages run to the length the published specification describes; the daily-life texts are the short, non-academic things the test uses — a notice, a menu, a sign, an email, a post.

Writing is a printed paper you answer by hand and photograph. The email and the academic discussion post are both here. The check comes back task by task and names what the answer did not do, rather than issuing a band — the real thing is scored by ETS, not by us, and a number from us would be a number you cannot bank.

Speaking runs the interview out loud with an examiner that asks and does not help, then reports on what a rater listens for. Use the microphone. An answer you can think is not an answer you can say.

How to use these materials

1. Check which format your preparation is written for before you trust it. Anything that mentions a 120-point score without mentioning 1–6 was written before January 2026.
2. Find out the requirement you actually have to meet — overall, or a minimum in each section — from the institution itself.
3. Do the listening somewhere with audio. It is a quarter of the test and it is not here.
4. Read the explanation even when you were right. On inference and purpose questions, knowing why the other three options fail is the whole skill.
5. Say the interview answers aloud, timed. Eight minutes of speaking is very little room to warm up in.

Official sources

Every fact above is taken from ETS and is paraphrased rather than reproduced. Read it at the source:

• Test content and the section table: ets.org — test content
• The full blueprint, task type by task type: test specifications, 2026 update (PDF)
• The 1–6 scale and the transition arrangement: ets.org — understanding your scores
• Free official sample test, including the listening audio this track does not provide: ets.org — sample test
• Preparation hub: ets.org — prepare
• Registration, identification, policies: information bulletin (PDF)

Format details on this page were checked against those sources on 16 September 2026.

Every passage, question, writing prompt and interview question here is written by Zestly. No official test material is reproduced, and no result from this tool is an official score. Booking, fees, identification, test dates and the scores you need are matters for ETS and for the institution asking you for them.

TOEFL iBT® is a registered trademark of ETS. This product is not endorsed or approved by ETS.