TOEFL iBT

TOEFL iBT is the English test most often accepted by universities in the United States, and it is taken all over the world. It does not test what you know about English. It tests whether you can use it: read a page from a textbook, follow a lecture 讲座, answer an email, and speak back.

• It is made by ETS, an American organisation, and it is taken on a computer at a test centre or at home.
• Almost every Chinese student applying to a university in the United States or Canada may use it. Many universities in the UK, Australia and Europe accept it as well — but always check the page for your course, because the number they ask for is written there and nowhere else.
• Four skills are tested in one sitting: Reading, Listening, Writing and Speaking, in that order.

⚠ The test changed in January 2026, and most advice on the internet is older than that. If a book, a video or a shared question file talks about a 0 to 120 score, or about an "Integrated Writing" task where you read a passage and hear a lecture, it is describing the old test. The sections below describe the test you will actually sit.

The test is now adaptive 自适应: it looks at how you are doing and gives you items at a level that matches you. Two students sitting on the same day do not see the same questions.

• ETS asks you to allow about two hours in total. The exact time and the exact number of items vary, because the test adapts as you go.
• Two things follow from "adaptive", and both change how you should practise. First, you cannot work out your score from a number of right answers — the same 30 correct answers mean different things depending on how hard the items were. Second, the test gets harder when you do well. Meeting difficult items is a good sign, not a bad one.
• Notice how much of the test is now everyday English 日常英语: a notice, an email, an announcement, a short conversation. The old test was almost entirely academic. Practise both.

• You get four section scores and one overall score. Each runs from 1 to 6 in half-point steps: 4, 4.5, 5, 5.5, 6.
• The overall score is the average of the four sections, rounded to the nearest half point. So 5.5, 5, 5.5 and 5 average 5.25, which is reported as 5.5.
• The scale is lined up with the CEFR 欧洲语言共同参考框架, the ladder used across Europe:

• ⚠ Universities usually set a minimum overall score and a floor on each section. An overall 5 with a 3.5 in Speaking is not the same application as a flat 5 — the weakest section decides the result. Work on the lowest number, not the average.

• Until January 2028, every score report shows three things: your CEFR level, your 1 to 6 scores, and a comparable 0 to 120 overall score.
• That third number exists because universities write their requirement years in advance. A course page that still says "100 on the TOEFL iBT" can be compared against it.
• So when you read an offer, check which scale it is written on before you decide whether you have met it. The safest move is to look at the university's own page in the month you apply.

• The four sections that follow are one per skill, in the test's own order. Each explains what the tasks ask for, what the marker is actually looking at, and the mistakes that cost Chinese candidates marks most often.
• A number in these notes is a format fact, and format facts change. Every one here was checked on the ETS website on 13 September 2026. Before you book, check the two pages below yourself — it takes five minutes and it is the cheapest insurance you will ever buy.

• Do not buy a practice book printed before 2026. It is not a slightly old book; it is a book about a different test.
• Decide early which scale your universities use, then write the target number on the first page of your notebook. A target you can see is a target you work towards.
• Practise everyday English deliberately. Chinese candidates usually arrive strong on academic reading and weak on emails, notices and short conversations, because that is what school rewarded. The new test rewards both.
• Type, do not write. The whole test is on a computer, including the two writing tasks. If you type slowly in English, that alone costs you marks in a 23-minute section — practise on a keyboard from today.
• Sources, checked on 13 September 2026: TOEFL iBT score scale update, TOEFL iBT content and structure.

About 30 minutes, about 50 items. That is much faster than the old test, and the items are shorter — so the skill being tested is not endurance 耐力 any more. It is speed with accuracy.

• Three kinds of task appear: Complete the Words, Read in Daily Life and Read an Academic Passage. The first two are new in 2026.
• The section is adaptive, so the passages you see depend on how you are doing. Do not try to read the difficulty of the test as a sign of how you are performing.
• You cannot go back to a section once you have left it. Answer every item as you meet it.

⚠ There is no penalty 扣分 for a wrong answer. An item left blank scores exactly what a wrong answer scores: nothing. Never leave an item empty.

A short text with letters or whole words missing, which you supply.

• This is a test of grammar and vocabulary 词汇, not of finding information. You are not hunting through a passage; you are asking "what word belongs here?"
• Use the sentence around the gap. The word class 词性 is usually decided before the meaning is: after the you need a noun, after very an adjective, after to a base verb.
• Spelling counts. A word with a letter missing is a wrong word.
• Read the completed sentence back to yourself. If it does not sound like English, it is not.

Emails, notices 通知, timetables, advertisements and other short practical texts.

• The question is almost always what should the reader DO — or what has changed, or what is not allowed.
• Practical texts hide their key information in small places: a date, a room number, a word like except, unless, only, from Monday. Those words carry the answer far more often than the long sentences around them.
• Watch the register 语域. An email from a tutor is polite and indirect: "you may wish to consider" means do this. "It would be helpful if you could" is an instruction, not a comment.
• ⚠ A daily-life text is short, so students read it too fast and answer from memory of a similar text. Read the one in front of you.

A passage from the kind of book a first-year university course would set.

• Skim 略读 first, thirty seconds, for the shape: what is this about, how many parts has it, where does the argument turn? Then answer, and scan 扫读 back for each fact.
• The topic sentence 主题句 — usually the first sentence of a paragraph — tells you what that paragraph is for. When a question asks which paragraph contains something, you are matching against topic sentences, not reading everything again.
• A question about a word asks what it means in this passage, not what it means in general. Answer from the sentence, not from your dictionary memory.
• Guess an unknown word from its parts: a prefix 前缀 (un-, re-, over-) and a suffix 后缀 (-tion, -able, -ly) narrow the meaning and fix the word class before you have understood the root at all.
• An inference 推理 question asks what the passage lets you conclude, not what it says. The right answer is always supported by a line you could point at. If you cannot point at the line, it is the wrong answer.

• Translating while reading. Turning each sentence into Chinese in your head takes two to three times as long as reading it. At about 30 minutes for 50 items there is no room for it. This is not a habit you can drop on test day; it takes weeks of reading without a dictionary to lose.
• Subvocalising 默读出声 — saying each word silently. It caps your speed at speaking speed, around 150 words a minute, when you need double that.
• Hunting for a word from the question. The test writes questions in different words on purpose. A synonym 同义词 in the passage is the normal case, not a trick.
• Perfectionism on one item. Every item is worth the same. Two minutes spent rescuing one hard item costs you three easy ones later.

• Practise with a timer from the first day. Reading well and reading fast are two different skills, and only one of them is trained by reading slowly.
• Read one academic page and one practical text every day — a science article and an email, a history page and a noticeboard. The section now asks for both.
• Build vocabulary from the Academic Word List, but learn each word in a sentence. A word you have only met on a flashcard is a word you will not recognise inside a line of prose.
• After every practice set, write down why each wrong answer was wrong: did you misread the question, miss a word, run out of time, or not know the vocabulary? Four different problems need four different fixes, and only your own list tells you which one you have.
• Format facts in this section were checked on the ETS website on 13 September 2026: TOEFL iBT content and structure.

About 29 minutes, about 47 items. Four kinds of task: Listen and Choose a Response, Listen to a Conversation, Listen to an Announcement and Listen to an Academic Talk.

• Every recording is played once. There is no second chance, and there is no pause button.
• You may take notes 笔记 while you listen, on the paper the test centre gives you.
• The section is adaptive, so what you hear depends on how the earlier items went.

⚠ The single biggest cause of lost marks here is dwelling 纠结: a student misses one detail, keeps thinking about it, and misses the next thirty seconds as well. One missed item is one mark. Thirty seconds of not listening is five. Let it go and stay with the speaker.

You hear one short turn of speech and choose what would naturally come next.

• This is a test of everyday conversation, not of academic English. The right answer is the reply a real person would give.
• Listen to the function 功能 of what was said, not only the words: was it a request, an offer, a complaint, an apology, a suggestion? The reply has to match the function.
• Intonation 语调 carries meaning here. "You're coming to the meeting?" with a rising tune is a question; the same words falling are a statement.
• ⚠ An answer that repeats words from the prompt is usually wrong. Natural replies use different words.

• A conversation is two speakers, often a student and someone at a university — a tutor, a librarian, an office. Track who wants what: one speaker has a problem and the other offers a solution, and most questions sit on that line.
• An announcement is one speaker giving practical information: a change of room, a deadline, a procedure. Listen for what has changed and what the listener must do.
• In both, a change of direction is signalled before it happens. Actually, but, the thing is, having said that, on second thoughts — a signpost 路标词 tells you the next sentence matters.
• Numbers, dates, room names and prices are exactly the details these tasks ask about. Write them down as you hear them; do not trust your memory for a number.

A lecture-style talk on a study topic, with one main speaker.

• Do not try to write everything. Write the shape: the topic, then each new point on its own line, with a dash for the example that supports it. Your notes should look like the talk's outline, not like its transcript 文字稿.
• Lecturers signal structure: today I want to look at, there are three reasons, the first of these, which brings me to, so to summarise. Those phrases are the outline, spoken aloud.
• Listen for the lecturer's attitude 态度 as well as the facts. Surprisingly, of course, it is often claimed and a change of tone all tell you what the speaker thinks — and some questions ask exactly that.
• An example is there to support a point. If you catch the example but not the point, you have the less useful half; ask yourself "what is this an example of?"

• Listen once, like the test. Practising with replays trains a skill the test does not measure. Play a recording once and answer; only then replay it to see what you missed.
• Shadowing 跟读 — playing a sentence and saying it back immediately — is the fastest way to improve both listening and pronunciation, because it forces you to hear the whole sentence, not the words you already know.
• Accents: the test uses speakers from North America and elsewhere. Listen to a range on purpose, not only to the one you find easiest.
• Fifteen focused minutes a day beats two hours on Sunday. Listening is a habit of attention, and attention is trained by frequency.

• Practise taking notes with your hand while your ears keep working. Most students can do either but not both, and that is a skill you build in about two weeks.
• Use abbreviations you already know: arrows for cause and result, + and -, initials for long names. Inventing a system on test day costs you the first recording.
• If you miss an answer, mark the item, choose the best guess now, and move on. There is no penalty 扣分 for a wrong answer and a blank scores the same as a wrong one.
• ⚠ Watch the everyday tasks. Chinese candidates often score well on the academic talk and lose marks on the short conversation, because school listening practice is almost entirely academic.
• Format facts in this section were checked on the ETS website on 13 September 2026: TOEFL iBT content and structure.

About 23 minutes, about 12 items, across three kinds of task: Build a Sentence, Write an Email and Write for an Academic Discussion.

• You type everything. There is no handwriting anywhere in the test.
• Twenty-three minutes is short, so there is no time for a long plan — but there is always time for a thirty-second one, and it is the best thirty seconds you will spend.
• ⚠ The old Integrated Writing task, where you read a passage, heard a lecture and wrote about both, is gone from the 2026 test. If a practice book teaches it, the book is out of date.

You assemble or complete a sentence so that it is grammatically correct.

• Accuracy is the whole point. Nothing is being measured except whether the sentence is right.
• The traps are the ones Chinese candidates already know: articles 冠词 (a / the / nothing), agreement 主谓一致 (the data show, each student has), tense 时态 across a sentence, and the preposition 介词 that a particular verb takes (depend on, consist of, result in).
• Word order in English is fixed in ways Chinese is not: subject, verb, object; adverbs of frequency before the main verb; adjectives before the noun in a set order.
• Read your finished sentence once, slowly. Most errors here are visible on a second look and invisible on the first.

A short email that does a job: reply to a message, make a request, explain a problem, decline politely.

• Start by deciding who you are writing to and what you want to happen. Everything else follows from those two answers.
• Register 语域 is graded here. To a tutor or an office you are polite and slightly indirect: I was wondering whether, would it be possible to, I would be grateful if. To a classmate you are direct and warm.
• A good short email has four moves: why you are writing, the detail, what you are asking for, a close. Four sentences can carry all four.
• ⚠ Do not open with Dear Sir or Madam when the prompt names the person, and do not sign off Yours faithfully in a message to a classmate. Getting the register wrong is more visible than a grammar slip, because it is wrong in every sentence at once.
• Answer everything the prompt asks. An email that is beautifully written and leaves out one of two requests has failed at the job the task set.

You are shown a professor's question and two students' replies, and you add your own contribution to the discussion.

• This is the task that most resembles real university work, and it is scored on whether you can join a conversation, not on whether you can write an essay.
• A contribution that scores well usually does four things:
  1. States a position clearly, in one sentence.
  2. Gives a reason for it.
  3. Supports the reason with an example, a consequence or a piece of evidence 证据.
  4. Engages with a classmate — agreeing and extending, or disagreeing and saying why.
• That fourth move is what separates a good answer from an average one, and it is the one Chinese candidates leave out most often. I agree with Mei that... but I would add that... is worth more than another paragraph of your own opinion.
• Length: one solid paragraph. You have minutes, not an hour. Write fewer sentences and make each one carry weight.
• ⚠ Do not restate the professor's question before you start. It costs you a quarter of your time and earns nothing: the reader already knows what was asked.

Across the writing tasks, four things are judged, and they are the same four that any English marker looks at:

• A memorised phrase is a risk, not a shortcut. With the development of society and every coin has two sides appear in thousands of scripts and add nothing; a marker reads straight past them and the words you spent on them are gone.
• Precision beats decoration. Cost fell sharply after 2015 says more, and scores better, than there was a considerable diminution in the pecuniary outlay.
• A short correct sentence outranks a long broken one. Complexity only earns marks when it is accurate.

• Type in English every day, not just in practice tests. Typing speed is part of this section whether you like it or not.
• Plan for thirty seconds before the Academic Discussion task: position, reason, example, whose comment you will answer. Then write straight through.
• Leave sixty seconds to read your answer back. Look for articles, plurals and verb endings — those three account for most of the errors a Chinese candidate makes and can fix.
• Practise writing to a person: a tutor, an office, a classmate. An email with no sense of its reader is the commonest weak answer in this section.
• Format facts in this section were checked on the ETS website on 13 September 2026: TOEFL iBT content and structure.

About 8 minutes, about 11 items, in two kinds of task: Listen and Repeat and Take an Interview.

• You speak into a microphone 麦克风 at a computer. There is no examiner in the room, and no one reacts to what you say — which is exactly what makes it feel strange the first time.
• ⚠ The old independent and integrated speaking tasks, where you prepared for fifteen seconds and spoke for forty-five, are gone from the 2026 test.
• Eight minutes is short. Almost all of your preparation is therefore about starting quickly, not about having more to say.

You hear a sentence and say it back.

• This belongs to Speaking, and it is scored on what you say. It is not a listening warm-up.
• You are being heard on pronunciation 发音, on stress and on whether you reproduce the whole sentence, not on inventing anything new.
• The skill is holding a whole sentence in your head long enough to say it. That is trainable, and the training is simple: take any recording, play one sentence, say it back, and lengthen the sentences as you improve.
• Say it at a normal speed. Slowing down to be careful breaks the rhythm 节奏 of the sentence, and rhythm is part of what is being judged.
• If you miss a word, keep going and finish the sentence. A complete sentence with one wrong word is worth much more than half a perfect one.

You answer a series of spoken questions, as you would in a conversation.

• Answer the question that was asked, first. Then add one reason, and one example. That shape — answer, reason, example — fits almost every question and starts you speaking within a second.
• A silence is worse than an imperfect sentence. Fillers 填充词 that real speakers use — well, I suppose, that's an interesting one — buy you a moment and sound natural. Long pauses do not.
• Do not recite. A memorised answer is audible: the rhythm changes, the vocabulary jumps a level, and it usually does not quite fit the question. Markers discount it.
• If you lose your way mid-sentence, repair it out loud — sorry, what I mean is — and carry on. That is what fluent speakers do, and it is marked as fluency, not as failure.
• Give reasons, not lists. Because the bus is cheaper and I can read on it is one good answer; three unexplained items is a weaker one.

• Being understood is the standard, not sounding native. An accent 口音 is not an error. Sounds that change a word's meaning are.
• Word stress 重音 matters more than individual sounds. PHOtograph, phoTOgrapher, photoGRAPHic — the vowels change with the stress, and a listener tracks the stress first.
• Sentence stress 句重音 carries meaning: I didn't say she stole it means six different things depending on which word you lean on.
• Practise the sounds that Chinese does not use: final consonants (cost, asked, fifths), /θ/ and /ð/ (think, this), and the /l/–/n/ and /r/ distinctions. A few minutes a day for a month is enough to change how easily you are understood.

• Record yourself and listen back. It is uncomfortable and it is the single most useful thing you can do — you will hear pauses, repetitions and unfinished sentences you did not notice.
• Practise with a timer running, answering aloud, into a microphone. The format is the hardest part for most candidates and it is free to rehearse.
• Talk to yourself in English during ordinary tasks: describe what you are doing, argue with a podcast, explain your day. Fluency is built by speaking hours, not by reading about speaking.
• ⚠ A typed answer always flatters you. When you practise writing what you would say, you get no hesitation, no silence to fill, and as much time as you like. Speak it aloud instead.

• Start within one second of the prompt ending. The clock is short, and a slow start costs more than a poor sentence.
• Finish your sentences. An abandoned sentence reads as a breakdown; a simple completed one does not.
• Warm your voice up before the test — read aloud for five minutes. A cold first answer is a wasted one, and in an eight-minute section you cannot afford it.
• Do not try to use difficult vocabulary. Use the right word. Markers reward precision and hear straight through decoration.
• Format facts in this section were checked on the ETS website on 13 September 2026: TOEFL iBT content and structure.