TOEFL iBT Reading from January 2026 · Lectura TOEFL iBT de enero de 2026
Returning a camera and completing a verb need different checks
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One reading task asks where a borrowed item goes; another asks which letters finish a word. Recognise the task before applying a single fast-search habit.
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ETS lists an approximate Reading base of 30 minutes and · y 50 items. Reading uses two-stage adaptivity, so actual time and items can vary.
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There are three task types, not one long paper in the old style.
Three reading tasks share a clock that has never once said, ‘Take your time.’
About how many minutes is TOEFL Reading? Use the figure ETS publishes.
ETS lists an approximate Reading base of 30 minutes and 50 items. Reading uses two-stage adaptivity; time and items may vary.
Complete the Words and Daily Life
- Complete the Words: a short text with partially missing words. Enter only the missing letters. You use grammar and vocabulary, not a passage map.
- Read in Daily Life: emails, notices and other short practical texts. These two are why practising only academic articles is no longer enough.
Complete: Reading has about ___ items.
About 50 items across the three task types.
Read an Academic Passage
- A short academic text with questions on it. You still need to find the main idea, a detail, and the writer's purpose.
- Do not spend the whole 30 minutes here. The other two tasks count as well.
Which Reading task uses everyday English, not a campus lecture?
Read in Daily Life uses notices, messages and similar practical texts. An Academic Passage is a short academic text, not a campus audio lecture.
How to practise
- Use official sample tasks in the Library and current ETS preparation materials. Read each resource’s instructions: a fixed sample or rehearsal does not reproduce the adaptive routing of the live test.
- For Complete the Words, read the whole sentence before you fill the gap. For Daily Life, answer from the text in front of you, not from what an email "usually" says.
Everyone sees the same Reading questions in the same order.
Reading uses two-stage adaptivity: earlier performance helps determine a later module. Candidates do not all follow one identical fixed question sequence.
2026 format
- Facts below follow the January 2026 test. A pre-2026 paper is a different exam.
- Sources, checked on 2 October 2026: TOEFL iBT content and structure, TOEFL iBT prepare.
Match each Reading task to what it is.
Practise all three. Only doing academic passages misses two of the three tasks.
Change the reading method when the task changes
- A campus notice asks where to return a borrowed camera. A word-completion passage asks which letters finish a verb. The same fast search cannot answer both.
- For the notice, locate the return instruction and any exception. For the gap, join the prefix to a possible ending and read the surrounding sentence for grammar and meaning.
- Section timing is an approximate published base time, not a promise that each question deserves an equal number of seconds.
- Identify the task, apply its evidence check and review the specific mistake rather than only the total correct.
- Try the transfer checks below before returning to the explanation. These are original self-checks, with no official score conversion.
Match the three distinctions from the worked case.
For the notice, locate the return instruction and any exception. For the gap, join the prefix to a possible ending and read the surrounding sentence for grammar and meaning.
Which check is essential for a partially missing word?
A campus notice asks where to return a borrowed camera. A word-completion passage asks which letters finish a verb. The same fast search cannot answer both. For the notice, locate the return instruction and any exception. For the gap, join the prefix to a possible ending and read the surrounding sentence for grammar and meaning.
Complete the worked-case label: Word completion → ____. Use the phrase in the diagram.
Identify the task, apply its evidence check and review the specific mistake rather than only the total correct.