TOEFL iBT Reading in 2026: 50 items, 30 minutes, and a C-test

What changed, and why most guides are wrong

TOEFL iBT has now been rebuilt twice. The pre-2023 test had three or four passages of about 700 words and ran 54 to 72 minutes. The 2023 version cut that to two passages, 20 questions and 35 minutes. The version live since 21 January 2026 keeps neither shape.

This matters for a practical reason. Search for the TOEFL Reading format today and the top results — including the cached description of ETS's own page — still describe the 2023 test, down to the glossary of technical terms. The live page at the same address says something else. Anything you read about this section should be dated, and anything older than January 2026 describes a test that no longer exists.

The current column is from the ETS content page and the 2026 specifications document, checked 20 September 2026.

The section in numbers

According to ETS, Reading comes first and has 50 items with an approximate base time of 30 minutes. There are no scheduled breaks anywhere in the test, and the whole thing now runs about two hours including instructions. Scratch paper is allowed.

The section is a two-stage adaptive test. The 2026 specifications describe a router of 18 to 21 minutes followed by a single nine-minute module, either lower or upper, selected by your performance in the router. Up to fifteen of the fifty items are unscored trial questions, which is why the scored total is 35.

Note one inconsistency in ETS's own documents: the specifications and the Technical Manual give 35 scored points, while a table in the Test Overview still shows 0–30, which looks like a leftover from the old scale.

One thing ETS does not state anywhere is whether you can go back to a question you have already answered. What the specifications do say is that "All texts remain visible throughout the task", so the text stays on screen while you work through its questions. Treat any confident claim about navigation between items as unverified.

The three task types

The names below are ETS's own, and the Test Overview PDF shows a worked example of each with the answer key. It is free and it is the single most useful document for seeing what the section now looks like.

Complete the Words

A text of about 70 to 100 words in which exactly ten words are truncated: the first sentence is left whole, and after that "the second half of every second word is deleted". You type the missing letters. ETS calls this a C-test and says in its own blog for institutions that it gives information about vocabulary, syntax and spelling. Target levels are B1 to C1 and above.

Read in Daily Life

A short practical text, "anywhere from about 15 to 150 words", with two or three questions. ETS lists posters, signs, notices, menus, a social post or a web page, schedules, letters, message threads, adverts, news items, forms, invoices and receipts. Target levels A1 to C1.

Read an Academic Passage

A text of about 200 words with usually five questions on factual information, vocabulary in context, inference, connections between ideas, and the purpose of a part or of the whole. Subjects, in ETS's wording: "history, art and music, business and economics, life science, physical science, and social science". No background knowledge is required; everything needed is in the text. Target levels B1 to C2.

Where the marks actually are

This is the part worth reading twice. The Technical Manual publishes how the 35 scored items are distributed across the router and the two modules.

Scored items only; unscored trial items are additional. Technical Manual, table 1.

Whichever module you get, 20 of your 35 points come from Complete the Words. That is 57% of the Reading score decided by a task with no comprehension questions at all. Reading an academic passage — the thing everyone pictures when they hear "TOEFL Reading" — is worth 5 points on the easier path and 10 on the harder one.

The honest consequence for preparation: practising passage-question technique now moves a small part of the score. What moves the large part is knowing words well enough to reconstruct them from half their letters and from the sentence around them. That is a property of words you have met many times, in many contexts.

How the score works now

Since January 2026 every section and the total are reported on a scale of 1 to 6 in half points, and the total is the average of the four sections rounded to the nearest half. For two years, until January 2028, the report also carries a comparable total on the old 0–120 scale — but that number is the midpoint of the matching range, not a conversion of your answers. A score report now shows three things: a CEFR level, the 1–6 scores, and that comparable total.

From the ETS page for institutions. The point of the new scale is that 5 means C1 in whichever section it appears.

There is no published table converting raw answers into that score, and there cannot be a single one: the Technical Manual explains that the score depends both on how many items you got right and on the difficulty of the module you were routed to. If you see a raw-to-scale table for the 2026 test, it is someone's guess.

ETS also publishes an honest limitation of its own CEFR mapping: the alignment for Reading was obtained indirectly, by linking to the previous TOEFL scale, with data collected before the updated test launched.

Practical details from the scores page: results are valid for two years; unofficial Reading and Listening scores appear immediately, official ones after three days; MyBest Scores combine your highest section scores from any administration in those two years, and each university decides whether to accept them. Reading cannot be sent for rescoring — that is available only for Speaking and Writing. The old performance bands (Advanced, High-Intermediate and so on) belong to the 0–30 scale and have been replaced by CEFR levels in the new reporting.

There is no official TOEFL word list

Plenty of sites sell one. ETS does not publish one: there is no vocabulary list on ets.org, none in the specifications, and none in the Technical Manual. Any "official TOEFL word list" you find online is someone else's compilation.

What ETS does say is that the academic passage questions require "a broad range of academic vocabulary", including figurative and idiomatic expressions, and that the C-test measures vocabulary, syntax and spelling. Text difficulty is calibrated with the TextEvaluator tool rather than against a word list: mid-range texts score 800 to 1100, harder ones 1100 to 1360 and above.

There is ETS research on the vocabulary of TOEFL texts — Chen and Sheehan (2015), TOEFL iBT Research Report No. 26 — but it analyses the previous test, so treat its numbers as history rather than as a target. Research on C-tests themselves is more relevant now that they carry most of the section: Eckes and Grotjahn (2006) and Harsch and Hartig (2016), both in Language Testing, examine what C-tests measure.

The free official material

• Updated TOEFL iBT Test Overview (PDF, 2026): the structure of the test plus a worked example of all three Reading task types with answer keys. Start here.
• Test Blueprint and Specifications, 2026 (PDF): item counts, scored points, timings and the target CEFR level of each task type.
• TOEFL iBT Technical Manual: how the adaptive modules work and how scored items are distributed — the source of the table above.
• Information Bulletin 2026–2027 (PDF): rules, policies and fees.
• The preparation page lists a free sample test and TOEFL Practice Online, but its catalogue loads through a script and we could not verify what is free there today — check it yourself rather than trusting a summary.

Note also what is missing. ETS has taken down its own "Improving Your Reading Skills" page and its Reading practice sets — both now return 404. The one piece of current advice is in the ETS three-month study plan, and it is about reading: news items, short essays and academic articles, topped up with magazines on subjects that interest you. Older ETS blog tips about skimming long passages were written for a test that no longer exists.

How this differs from IELTS Reading

The two sections now have almost nothing in common beyond the word "reading".

TOEFL figures from the 2026 specifications; IELTS figures from ielts.org. ETS also publishes a TOEFL-to-IELTS concordance, but it was built on the previous TOEFL and comes from an interested party.

If you are choosing between them, the difference in what is being measured is now substantial. IELTS Reading rewards sustained reading of long argued text under time pressure. TOEFL Reading rewards fast, precise recognition of words and short texts. Both improve from the same underlying habit, but the exam skills barely transfer.

Where Readlang Mobile fits, and where it does not

Readlang Mobile is an iPhone and iPad app for reading in a foreign language. Tap a word and the translation appears in the line; tap the first and last word of a phrase to translate the phrase. Everything you translate is saved to a word list; practising those saved words is a Premium feature. Paste the link to an article and it opens in the reader — which is how you get the news items and short academic pieces that ETS's own study plan recommends.

Given where the marks now are, the useful thing an app like this does is volume: meeting the same words often enough, in enough different sentences, that half a word is enough to recognise it. No app teaches you the C-test format, and knowing the format is worth one look at the Test Overview PDF.

The built-in library is public-domain books graded from A1 to C1 — good for building the habit, but they are classics rather than contemporary academic prose, so for TOEFL-style material you bring your own links.

The free plan allows 30 translations a day. Premium is $8.99 a month or $59.99 a year and removes the limit. There are no practice tests, no C-test drills and no timer in the app, and it runs only on iPhone and iPad.

Questions people ask