Complete the Words 3 — publication bias, induced demand and acidic oceans

On the TOEFL iBT® test as revised in January 2026, Complete the Words accounts for 30 of the 50 reading items, according to the published specification, and its range reaches up to C1 and above. At the top of that range, knowing roughly what a word means is no longer enough: the gap may accept several words of the right family, and only one has the exact sense the sentence needs.

This is the most demanding set of the three in this category, pitched at C1. Its three original paragraphs, each 80 to 90 words, come from research methods (why journals that publish only positive results distort the evidence, and how accepting studies before their data exist counters it), urban economics (why widening a congested highway brings only short-lived relief) and marine chemistry (how carbon dioxide absorbed by the oceans makes it harder for corals and plankton to build their skeletons). The first sentence of each paragraph stays whole and four later words lose their endings. The complete paragraph is printed beside every item.

Many of the items set real words against each other that look alike but mean different things: "temporary" against "temporal", "counter" against "count", "overstates" against "oversees", "underestimate" against "understand". Others test forms that careful readers still get wrong: an adjective joined to another by "but", a gerund subject that takes its own object, "remain" followed by an adjective, a passive where the subject is the thing used rather than the user, and an adverb of degree placed after a verb and its object. Each explanation says which clue settles the gap and why each of the other words fails.

How this differs from test day: on the test you type the missing letters yourself. Here each damaged word comes with four complete words to choose from, all beginning with the letters you can see, and the underscores never tell you how long the word is. Recognizing the right word among four is easier than producing it, so use the explanations to find the forms you hesitate over, then cover the options and try to write each word from its visible letters before you look.

The flashcards hold twelve words and phrases from the three paragraphs, such as "by chance", "induced demand" and "comes at a cost", each with its meaning as used there. The material offers the quiz and the flashcards.

Every paragraph and item here is written by Zestly. No ETS test material is reproduced, and facts about the test format are paraphrased from the published specification rather than copied from it.

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

• Choose between similar-looking words by exact meaning: temporary or temporal, counter or count, overstate or oversee
• Use the logic of a whole sentence (a contrast signaled by "yet", a cause given by "because") to choose a word
• Recognize a gerund subject that takes its own object
• Follow "make + object" and "remain" with an adjective
• Tell when a passive is needed because the subject is the thing acted on
• Place an adverb of degree after a verb and its object

Practice material written by Zestly, based on the ETS specification of the TOEFL iBT reading task Complete the Words (revised test, January 2026).