Updated October 2026
TOEFL 2026 Reading: the tasks and how to prepare
Reading comes first. It is delivered in two modules, mixes everyday texts with academic ones, and is the one section where you manage a single clock yourself.
How the section is built
Reading has two modules. Everyone sits a first module of mixed difficulty, and the result decides whether the second module is harder or easier. Each module has its own countdown, and inside a module you can move back and forth and change answers until the time runs out.
Three task types appear: Complete the Words, Read in Daily Life and Read an Academic Passage. The number of each differs between the two modules.
Complete the Words
You see a short academic paragraph in which the second half of several words is missing, and you type the missing letters. The task rewards a wide vocabulary and accurate spelling, but grammar does much of the work: the ending of a word is often fixed by its role in the sentence.
To prepare, read short academic paragraphs regularly and keep a list of the words you could not complete. Pay attention to word families (analyse, analysis, analytical), because the missing half is frequently the part that changes.
Read in Daily Life
These are short texts of the kind you meet on campus and in ordinary life: an email, a message thread, a notice, a schedule or a menu. Questions ask for the main purpose, a detail, or what someone is expected to do next.
The difficulty is rarely the vocabulary. It is in small conditions: a date that changed, an exception in the last line, who has to act. Read the whole text before the questions, and check the answer against the text instead of against your memory of it.
Read an Academic Passage
A short passage on a subject from a university course is followed by multiple-choice questions on main ideas, details, vocabulary in context and what the author implies. The passage is much shorter than in the earlier test, so each sentence carries more.
Practise summarising each paragraph in a few words as you read. Most wrong options are true statements that answer a different question, or statements that go a little further than the passage does.
Using the clock
Because the module has one clock for everything, the usual mistake is to spend too long on Complete the Words and arrive at the academic passage short of time. Decide in advance roughly how you will divide the module, and move on when a blank will not come.
Timed practice is the only way to learn your own pace. Sit complete modules, not single tasks, at least some of the time.
This is an independent summary written for test takers. ETS publishes the official specification of the test on its own website.