Daily life texts 2 — a library hold, a bus change, a bakery post and a rental ad
Four everyday texts at about CEFR B2, with eleven questions of the kinds set on Read in Daily Life, the reading task type of the TOEFL iBT® test that uses short, non-academic texts. At this level the specification expects you to read with some independence, adjusting how you read to the kind of text in front of you, and to follow what a writer is doing as well as what they say.
The texts are an email from a public library about a book on hold, a service-change notice for a city bus route with a weekday and weekend timetable, a social media post in which a neighborhood bakery announces a two-week closure, and a short apartment rental ad full of conditions. Each text is printed in full inside every question about it.
Three of the questions ask about the writer's purpose: why the library mentions its Saturday closing time, what the bakery admits before its customers can complain, and how the landlord prefers to be contacted. Others ask you to read a timetable and find the next departure, to decide where a rider should wait while two stops are closed, and to test four would-be tenants against the pets, lease, subletting and smoking rules in the ad. One question turns on an informal expression that a quick reader may take literally.
As on the test, the wrong options reuse details from the text: a closed stop, a weekend frequency, a cost that is in fact included in the rent.
This material is offered as a quiz and as a set of flashcards. The flashcards carry the everyday expressions the texts actually use, each with its meaning in that context, so you can review them after the quiz or on their own.
On test day the reading section is adaptive, the texts stay on screen beside the items, and each item is worth one point. Here the texts are printed inside each question instead, every answer comes with an explanation that names the words that settle it and says why the other options fail, and you can repeat the set as often as you like. It is practice for the task type, not a simulation of a scored test, and it does not predict a score.
Every text and question here is written by Zestly. No ETS test material is reproduced, the businesses and people in the texts are invented, 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.
- Identify why a writer includes a particular piece of information in an email
- Read a timetable and work out the next departure from a stated pattern
- Apply a temporary service change to a rider's real situation
- Recognize what a business admits or concedes in a social media post
- Interpret an informal expression such as "don't sleep on them" from its context
- Test several people against a set of conditions in an ad and find the one who fits
Practice material written by Zestly, based on the ets.org description of the TOEFL iBT Reading task Read in Daily Life (test revised January 2026).
Sample question
An email from a public library: "Subject: Item on hold, pick up by Saturday. Hello Priya, the book you requested, Cities of Water, is now waiting for you at the Elm Street branch. We'll keep it on the hold shelf for seven days, until Saturday, October 10. After that it goes to the next person on the waiting list, and you'll need to place a new request. You may pick it up yourself, or someone else may collect it for you if they bring your library card. Please note that the Elm Street branch closes at 5:00 p.m. on Saturdays, not 8:00 p.m. as on weekdays. Westfield Public Library" What happens if Priya has not collected the book by the end of October 10?
- She is charged a fine for every extra day.
- It is offered to another reader, and she would have to request it again.
- It is sent to a different branch for her.
- The library keeps it for her for another seven days.
See the answer
It is offered to another reader, and she would have to request it again.
The email says that after October 10 "it goes to the next person on the waiting list, and you'll need to place a new request." No fine, no transfer to another branch and no automatic extension is mentioned.