Receptive Skills: Reading and Listening

Reading

The Reading section is now shorter (about half an hour) and includes three task types, mixing short everyday texts with longer academic passages:

1. Complete the Words — fill in missing letters to complete words in a paragraph. This tests understanding of vocabulary in context.

2. Read in Daily Life — shorter, practical texts like notices, emails, or forum posts of about 150-200 words.

3. Read an Academic Passage — the traditional longer academic reading, now adaptive in difficulty.

Important features:

• Because it's adaptive, doing well early on this test gives you access to (and credit for) harder material. So taking time to ensure accuracy at the beginning rather than trying to rush ahead is a better strategy. 

• For word completion, improving vocabulary is important and ways to do that are discussed below.

• This section is also going to require practice reading shorter everyday texts to build precision and speed.  Social media posts, commentaries, e-mails, message boards and the like across a range of topics can be helpful reading material. 

• Preparation for the academic passages, although they are shorter, will still require long form skimming where you can recognize themes, repeated words, and take notes. But be aware that answering the first (easiest) questions accurately is the key to moving on to the harder but higher credit questions. 

• Be aware that questions will become more difficult as you go along.  The good news is that your earlier successes have given you an opportunity to attempt the more difficult ones. 

Listening

Listening now has four task types, combining short everyday communication audio with traditional academic lectures:

1. Listen and Choose a Response — hear a short statement or question (no text shown) and pick the best response.

2. Listen to a Conversation — short campus/daily-life conversations, followed by a couple of questions each.

3. Listen to an Announcement — short campus or classroom announcements with follow-up questions.

4. Listen to an Academic Talk — the traditional lecture-style listening.

Important features:

• As with Reading, this section is adaptive, so focus and accuracy early on matter. 

• Some of the responses will be expected in 8-10 seconds on the shorter listening sections so use the practice tests to understand the amount of time you should be spending on each task.  Practice listening to pieces like short conversations or interviews or radio and TV shows without taking notes. Timed drills can get you used to responding more quickly to what you hear.

• For the academic talk section, you still can't replay the audio, but you can take notes — use symbols, abbreviations, and keywords rather than trying to transcribe everything. If you miss a detail, stay calm and focus on the next point rather than dwelling on it.

Productive Skills: Writing and Speaking

Writing

Writing is shorter (about 23 minutes total) and now has three tasks instead of two:

1. Build a Sentence — arrange a scrambled set of words into a correct sentence responding to a prompt. This tests grammar and sentence construction directly.

2. Write an Email — write a short, functional email responding to a specific situation (about 7 minutes). Focus on tone, clarity, and hitting every point the prompt asks for.

3. Write for an Academic Discussion — this task carries over from the old format: post a response to a class discussion board, supporting an opinion on a topic.

Important features:

• For sentence construction, drills are available to accustom you to this grammatical task.  Familiarity does help.  Drills can be found here: 

• https://prepex.ai/free-build-a-sentence-toefl-2026

• https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Rd8qsznTogM

• https://magoosh.com/toefl/toefl-build-a-sentence/ 

• Prepare to write an email by learning the words and conventions used in standard emails and writing emails to an advanced English speaker to get some feedback. Practice writing these emails within 7 minutes on a variety of topics. 

• For the Academic Discussion task, the old advice still applies: organize paragraphs logically and open with strong sentences, taking clear positions. Leave a minute at the end of each task to proofread for grammar and spelling.

Speaking

Speaking is now much shorter (about 8 minutes) and has two task types, both testing spontaneous, natural response rather than long prepared answers:

1. Listen and Repeat — hear a phrase or sentence and repeat it back, testing pronunciation and accuracy under time pressure.

2. Take an Interview — answer a short series of questions (4) on the same topic, one after another, with no extended prep time. This replaces the old separate independent/integrated speaking tasks.

Important features:

• TOEFL has a video explaining exactly what is expected in this section which you should review. https://www.ets.org/toefl/test-takers/ibt/about/content/speaking.html 

• Listen and repeat takes practice doing just that.  Practice clear enunciation and quick recall using any number of sources. Start with short, simple sentences and build in length and complexity.

• Practicing an interview with questions and answers that have a natural pacing with another English speaker is a great preparation for this. Be clear and direct. You will have only a few moments to think before you answer so tape yourself and listen so you can learn to do this more quickly and efficiently.  Use lots of different topics so you can develop a wide-ranging conversational vocabulary about your goals, experiences, opinions, etc . 

Tutor advice: 

Try learning five words per day, 25 per week, and 100 per month! But don't just grab random words — create association groups so you learn in context. For example, take a category (Education) and break it into sections (people, groups, actions, feelings, etc.), then fill each section with words you want to learn.

Every week, commit to a category and keep a table of the words you're practicing. Add a definition from a dictionary phrased with your own words. Try to add synonyms and antonyms to your notes as well. Some sites have suggestions of words to learn, but remember, make your own notes and learn them in groups by context to remember them well!

Which vocabulary should you learn? 

Use a TOEFL vocabulary list or select words that you might not be completely familiar with in news articles. You should be able to use the words confidently, not just recognize them.  Here are some other vocabulary study strategies.

There are several possible ways to practice the actual test-taking. 

First, you can take the TOEFL free sample test which comes with real questions that have been used on previous tests and sample answers for the writing and speaking sections. The only disadvantage is that, while these tests have the answers of the listening and reading sections, you won’t be able to have your speaking and writing sections scored. 

In addition, here are some practice tips from ETS, the organization that makes the test.

The Official YouTube channel for the TOEFL test has many good resources and tips!

There is also a free interactive practice test (requires registration) available from the TOEFL designers:

https://www.ets.org/toefl/test-takers/ibt/prepare/sample-test-jan-2026-1.html

And a version adapted for PDF that does not require registration: https://www.ets.org/pdfs/toefl/toefl-ibt-full-length-practice-test-1.pdf   

Remember that tutors in Coffee Time are available to work with you on the practice materials and help you use new vocabulary. 

Happy studying for the TOEFL!!

Uniandes Coffee Time offers workshops to help with test-taking skills. Follow us on FB and Instagram: @coffeetimeuniandes to hear about workshops and events!