What Is the New TOEFL Like? Test Day, Tricky Tasks and Scores

The TOEFL iBT that started on 21 January 2026 takes about two hours, has no scheduled break and reports scores from 1 to 6. Three short tasks cause a lot of the trouble: a sentence you repeat word for word, a reply you build from word tiles, and words with their second halves missing.

This guide covers test day at a test center and at home, those three tasks, and how to read your score. We checked the rules against ETS's current pages and documents on 15 October 2026 and added anonymized results from PrepEx practice. For one test taker's account of a real sitting, read Michael Goodine's review of the TOEFL he took on 28 February 2026.

Try Listen and Repeat free Go to the three tasks

The new TOEFL at a glance

You take the four sections in this order. The times are ETS's base figures. They leave out directions, and they vary a little because Reading and Listening adapt to you.

In Reading and Listening, how you do in the first part decides whether the second part is easier or harder. Writing and Speaking don't adapt. A few rules are easy to miss:

• There is no break. ETS has no scheduled break anywhere in the test. At home, taking one can get your test canceled.
• Some questions don't count. ETS's specification says Reading and Listening include unscored questions that try out items for future tests. You can't tell which ones they are.
• Every section needs an answer. If you don't answer at least one Reading question, one Listening question, one Writing task and one Speaking task, none of your sections is scored.
• Recordings play once. Goodine found he used his notes for conversations and announcements even more than for the lectures, because of small details such as which day an event was on.

Speaking ends with a four-question interview. ETS gives 45 seconds per answer, and Goodine reports that you start speaking as soon as each question ends, with no preparation time.

What happens at a test center

Arrive at least 30 minutes before your appointment. If you arrive or check in after the start time, you can't take the test and the fee isn't refunded. ETS also suggests signing in to your account the day before to check that the time and building haven't changed.

Bring ID in exactly the same name as your ETS account. ETS recommends two forms of ID in case the first is questioned. Check-in can include a photo, fingerprints, a signature comparison, voice and photo identification, and a hand-held metal detector. Phones, watches and other devices stay out of the testing room, and so do food and drink unless you have an approved accommodation.

The center gives you pencils and scratch paper. You can't write on it before the test starts or between sections. You get more only after handing back what you have, and you return every sheet at the end. You wear the center's headset and microphone.

Other people in the room will be speaking into their microphones at some point. Goodine arrived early, was allowed to start about 40 minutes before his appointment and reached Speaking before anyone else in the room. He also suggests calling local centers to ask whether they have received the newer noise-cancelling headphones that ETS has been sending out.

What happens at home

The TOEFL iBT Home Edition is the same test on your own computer, with a live human proctor watching through your camera. If your equipment or room doesn't meet the requirements on the day, you can't test, and ETS doesn't refund the fee or reschedule for free. ETS itself suggests a test center if your computer doesn't meet the requirements.

Equipment

• A desktop or laptop running Windows 11 or later, or macOS 10.13 or later. No tablets or phones, one screen and one keyboard.
• Speakers, not headphones. Headsets and earphones aren't allowed, and your microphone can't be part of a headset.
• A camera you can move, because the proctor asks for a 360-degree view of the room, including your desk and the area under it.
• Some test takers must also set up a phone or tablet as a second camera, and verify their identity beforehand with the Entrust IDVaaS app. ETS's at-home pages and your My TOEFL Home dashboard explain when these apply.

Install the TOEFL Test App from My TOEFL Home and run its equipment check. The check includes your bandwidth, so ETS suggests running it several times, including on the same day of the week and at the same time of day as your appointment.

Your room and your notes

• You must be alone with the door closed, and nobody can come in. Public places such as parks and cafés don't qualify.
• Cover glass walls or doors and large open windows, and clear the walls of anything related to the test.
• Sit on an ordinary chair at a desk, not on a bed or sofa, with the computer plugged in. No food or drink.
• Keep your ears and face visible. Take off headphones, smartwatches, jewelry and hair accessories before check-in; wedding and engagement rings can stay. Face masks aren't allowed.
• Paper notes aren't allowed. Use one small whiteboard with an erasable marker, or one sheet of paper inside a clear sheet protector with an erasable marker. At the end you erase it and show the proctor both sides.

Check-in and the test itself

You can start checking in up to 15 minutes before your appointment and no later than 30 minutes after it. After that the test is canceled and the fee isn't refunded. Have your ID ready, plus a phone or hand-held mirror for the check-in. You wait in a virtual waiting room, connect the second camera if you need one, show your ID to the proctor, scan the room with your camera and go through a final equipment check. Your test timer starts after that.

ETS lists talking out loud to yourself, looking away from the screen, moving out of camera view and taking a break as behavior that can invalidate a home test. Screen-sharing and remote-access software has to be off before you start, and ETS names Grammarly and spell check alongside tools such as Zoom and TeamViewer. ETS also says AI software monitors activity on your computer and alerts the proctor to unusual behavior or room conditions.

One instruction will look wrong: the test shows directions for a headset check. At home, ignore them. ETS says headsets are not used or allowed when you test at home.

If something breaks, speak and wave to get the proctor's attention, or use the chat. If your connection drops for a moment, you are reconnected automatically. If you can't get back in, start the check-in again.

Three short tasks that catch people out

Listen and Repeat, Build a Sentence and Complete the Words look easy on the sample pages. They are scored strictly, they move fast, and each carries a big share of its section. Goodine called Build a Sentence surprisingly difficult for students and said Listen and Repeat had become known for its difficulty.

The PrepEx figures below come from PrepEx practice data, 21 January–14 October 2026. PrepEx scored the attempts, repeat attempts are included and internal test accounts are excluded. They describe practice, not official ETS results.

Listen and Repeat: the sentences get long quickly

Speaking opens with seven sentences set in one campus or academic scene. In ETS's sample, a zoo manager is training you to welcome visitors. After each sentence there is a short pause, then you repeat exactly what you heard, with 8 to 12 seconds at most to record. The sentences get longer and more complex as you go, from a single simple clause to sentences with dependent and relative clauses. Goodine counted 9 to 11 syllables in the first two sentences on his test and 19 to 23 in the last two. He also warns that many people start talking before the beep that follows the pause.

Each sentence is scored from 0 to 5. ETS's scoring guide gives a 5 for an exact, fully intelligible repetition. A 4 means the meaning survived with small slips: one or two small words missing or changed, a wrong tense or plural ending, or two words swapped. A response that repeats the first part and then stops is typical of a 2. If you lose a word, keep going to the end of the sentence.

Listen and Repeat also carries most of the Speaking points. Speaking has 55 raw points: seven Listen and Repeat sentences and four interview answers, each worth up to 5, so 35 of the 55 come from Listen and Repeat. ETS doesn't publish exactly how raw points become the 1–6 band.

In complete PrepEx Listen and Repeat sets, the average score fell from 3.9 on the first sentence to 2.0 on the seventh. In our sets the first sentence averages 6 words and the seventh 15. Of the first sentences, 45% scored 5; of the seventh, 5% did, and 66% scored 2 or less.

So spend your practice on the long sentences. Listen in meaning groups rather than single words, for example “The library on the second floor / stays open until midnight / during the exam period”. Record yourself and compare it with the transcript. Our Listen and Repeat guide has audio examples, and you can try a free set with AI feedback.

Build a Sentence: half of Writing's raw points

Writing starts with ten short exchanges. You see one line of a conversation and a reply whose words and phrases are out of order, and you drag them into a grammatical reply. Some replies are questions. Each sentence is worth one point and is scored by machine. The email and the discussion are worth up to 5 each, so the ten sentences make up half of Writing's 20 raw points. ETS gives the email 7 minutes and the academic discussion 10, in a section of about 23 minutes, which leaves roughly six minutes for the ten sentences. Goodine reported about seven on his test.

Not every tile belongs in the answer. In ETS's own sample, one of the seven tiles is left over, a singular verb that doesn't agree with the plural subject, and the reply puts a relative clause between that subject and its verb.

In PrepEx Build a Sentence practice, 70% of sentences were put together correctly. Sentences with a relative clause were right 57% of the time, compared with 82% for sentences in the present simple.

Find the main verb first, then its subject, and check that they agree even when a clause sits between them. Then place the question word or auxiliary, and check whether a tile is left over. Our Build a Sentence guide covers the common patterns, and you can practice a free set.

Complete the Words: spelling counts

Complete the Words gives you short academic paragraphs of about 70 to 100 words. The first sentence is complete. After that, the second half of every second word is missing, and you type in the missing letters. Each paragraph has ten gaps, and ETS's specification lists 30 Complete the Words items in a Reading section of 50. The gaps show how many letters are missing, and the visible half of the word plus the grammar of the sentence usually points to one answer.

Points are lost on spelling and word form. In PrepEx practice, 67.5% of gaps were filled in correctly, about two in three. Of the misses, 66% were a different word or form, 25% were a close misspelling a letter or two off, and 10% were left empty.

Read the whole paragraph before you type, decide what kind of word each gap needs, count the missing letters and check the spelling. A gap you leave empty can't score, so put in your best guess. Our Complete the Words guide explains the patterns, and you can try a free paragraph.

How the 1–6 score works

You get a score from 1 to 6 for each section and for the test overall, in half-point steps. The overall score is the average of the four sections, rounded to the nearest half. ETS's examples: an average of 5.125 becomes 5, and 5.25 becomes 5.5. There is no pass mark. Each university or organization sets its own requirement.

The bands line up with the CEFR: 6 is C2, 5 to 5.5 is C1, 4 to 4.5 is B2, 3 to 3.5 is B1, 2 to 2.5 is A2 and 1 to 1.5 is A1.

For two years after January 2026, your report also shows a comparable score on the old 0–120 scale, so a program that still lists 0–120 can read it without any conversion. ETS says that number is the midpoint of the 0–120 range for your band, so it moves in steps rather than point by point. ETS's comparison table gives these ranges for the overall score:

ETS lists where each 0–120 range starts; each range ends where the next band begins. Its table also gives 0–30 equivalents for each section. If a program sets section minimums, check those as well as the overall score. Our TOEFL statistics page collects other score facts with their sources.

At the end of the test you see unofficial Reading and Listening scores and choose whether to report or cancel all your scores. Canceled scores can be reinstated within 60 days for a fee. Once you report them, you can't cancel. Official scores reach your ETS account three days after the test, and the PDF a day after that. You can ask for a review of Speaking or Writing within 30 days, for a fee, unless you have already asked for your scores to be sent to an institution. Reading and Listening can't be reviewed. Our guide to TOEFL score timing covers deadlines.

Your report also shows MyBest scores, your best score in each section from tests in the last two years. On a report that uses the 1–6 scale, older 0–120 section scores are converted for this part.

Before your test

1. Choose where to test. If your computer, room or connection is in doubt, book a test center.
2. For the Home Edition, run the equipment check on the same weekday and at the same time as your appointment, and get a small whiteboard or a clear sheet protector, plus an erasable marker.
3. For a test center, check your appointment the day before, bring two forms of ID in your account name and arrive at least 30 minutes early.
4. Practice the three short tasks under time: long Listen and Repeat sentences, ten Build a Sentence items in about six minutes, and Complete the Words paragraphs with a spelling check.
5. Take a full timed practice test to get used to two hours without a break. Our TOEFL practice-test guide explains how to unlock one.
6. Check what each program asks for: the overall score, any section minimums, and whether it lists 1–6 or 0–120.

For the full list of what changed from the old test and a first week of practice, read our TOEFL 2026 changes guide.

Practice Build a Sentence free Plan a full practice test

Sources and how we checked

We checked these ETS sources on 15 October 2026:

• TOEFL iBT test content and structure: sections, items, base times, breaks, notes and scoring.
• Updated TOEFL iBT Test Overview (PDF): task descriptions and samples, timings, raw score ranges, the CEFR mapping, the score comparison table and the scoring guides.
• TOEFL iBT 2026 Update: Test Blueprint and Specifications (PDF): items by task, unscored items and points per item. ETS notes that the specification may change.
• Understanding TOEFL scores: the 1–6 scale, the comparable 0–120 score, score timing, cancellation, review and MyBest scores.
• Equipment and environment requirements for at-home testing and your at-home test day.
• What to expect at a test center and the 2026–27 TOEFL iBT Information Bulletin (PDF), in effect from July 2026 to June 2027.

First-hand observations come from Michael Goodine's TOEFL 2026 review, written after he took the test at a test center on 28 February 2026. Details such as item counts and timers can change, so check ETS's pages before your test.

The PrepEx figures come from PrepEx practice data, 21 January–14 October 2026: more than 2 million scored practice answers since the new test launched. PrepEx scored every attempt, repeat attempts are included and internal test accounts are excluded. The Listen and Repeat sentence lengths are those of our practice sets, not ETS's.