What you need to know about the TOEFL Reading

The TOEFL Reading exercises cover a number of academic topics with passage
difficulty varying between an 8th grade level, which implies an appropriate text for
a 14-year old American junior high school student, and a 14th grade level, which
implies an appropriate text for a 20-year-old American college sophomore.

How many reading passages are on the TOEFL?

In the TOEFL iBT Reading section you have 60 minutes to:
 Read three academic texts, totaling around 2100 words
 Understand how to answer 10 different types of questions
 Answer 30 questions in total

The latest update for the TOEFL iBT test came on July 26, 2023. You can expect 20
questions that you will need to answer in 36 minutes. 10 TOEFL Reading questions
per passage. You will have 18 minutes to complete each passage. You have 36
minutes to complete the TOEFL Reading section. You will read two academics,
totaling around 1400 words.

TOEFL Reading Practice Step 1: Practice with short passages

If you’re like most students, then you want to practice in a way that looks exactly
like the test. You want to read a 700-word passage and answer 14 TOEFL reading
questions in less than 20 minutes.
Practicing for the test and replicating the conditions will help you prepare for the
format of the TOEFL, but it will not help you increase your reading comprehension
or English fluency.
Improvement comes when you reflect on your answers and identify why you did
something wrong.
Practice alone is not enough to help you improve, you must also reflect.
When you do a single reading passage and answer 14 questions about it, you are
reflecting on the entire experience, a 20-minute reading exercise, instead of a
single question. When you use these short reading passages, you get more
immediate feedback on your responses. This, in turn, will help you quickly identify
the question types and TOEFL reading topics you struggle with.

Besides providing you with more specific and immediate feedback, here are a few
more benefits of using short passages to practice:
1. More exposure to various topics
2. Study in short intervals of less than five minutes
 3. Learn more vocabulary in less time
4. Build your reading skills
5. Master question and answer strategy
Once you dive in and start to answer the questions you will find these short
passages to be the exact answer you have been looking for to help you improve
your TOEFL Reading skills.

TOEFL Reading Practice Step 2: Don’t forget to review the structure

Here are some of the most important points:
 Read three academic passages of 700 words
 Take 18 minutes per passage, 54 minutes in total
 Answer 10 questions per passage
There is no way to predict what kind of passages you will receive in your TOEFL
test, but here are some of the more popular TOEFL reading topics:

✔Biology ✔Ecology

✔History ✔Astronomy

✔Geology ✔Education

✔Psychology ✔Art

✔Environmental Science ✔Archaeology

In the chart below, all of the question types have been laid out and separated
based on frequency, common lexical structure, and the time it should take you to
answer each.

The Reading Section Question Types

Question
Question Type Frequency Time to Answer Question Phrasing
Value

“The word _________ in

1. Vocabulary 2-4 60 seconds 1 paragraph 2 is closest in
meaning to…"

2. Factual 3-6 90 seconds 1 “According to paragraph 4,

 what….”
Information “Which of the following…”
(Detail) “It is stated in paragraph 4
that…”

3. Negative “All of the following are

Factual mentioned in paragraph 3
Information 2-4 120 seconds 1 EXCEPT…”
(Negative “Which of the following is
Detail) NOT mentioned....”

“What can be inferred from

paragraph 5 about…”
4. Inference 2-4 90 seconds 1 “Paragraph 5 implies
that…”
“Paragraph 5 suggests…”

“In paragraph 6, the author

5. Rhetorical
discusses ________ in order
Purpose
2-4 90 seconds 1 to…”
(Author’s
“Why does the author
Purpose)
mention…”

“Which of the sentences

6. Sentence below best expresses the
Simplification 2-3 120 seconds 1 essential information in the
(Paraphrasing) highlighted sentence in
paragraph 4?”

7. Insert Text “In paragraph 2 there is a

(Sentence 2-3 120 seconds 1 missing sentence. Where
Insertion) would the sentence best fit?”

8. Reference
“The word _________ in
(Pronoun 0-1 60 seconds 1
paragraph 1 refers to…”
Referent)
 “An introductory sentence
for a brief summary of the
passage is provided below.
9. Prose
Complete the summary by
Summary 1-2 150 seconds 1
selecting the THREE answer
(Summary)
choices that express the most
important ideas in the
passage."

“Complete the table below

to summarize information
10. Fill In A
about _________ in the
Table 0-1 150 seconds 2-3
passage. Match the
(Organization)
appropriate statements to
_________”

TOEFL Reading Practice Step 3: Practice with a timer

If you have done some TOEFL Reading practice tests already, then you know that
time management is an issue for the reading section. Few people can read the
entire passage and answer all of the questions in a given passage in less than 18
minutes.
It takes skill to read a question, understand the meaning, identify the key words,
and find that information in the passage in less than two minutes. Even if you
understand the question and know where to look, it may still be challenging to
identify which information is essential to help you answer the question.
When you work through these short passages, you can answer based on question
type. Each passage will be followed by a single and predictable question.
But I can’t emphasize this enough…be sure to challenge yourself by setting a timer.
And keep in mind that some TOEFL questions take longer than others.
For example, in the case of vocabulary questions, give yourself only 60 seconds to
answer. However, if you are working on detail questions, set the timer for 90
seconds. (refer to the chart above for each question type’s timing)

TOEFL Reading Practice Step 4: Review your answers

Think of your favorite professional athlete. Now imagine the incredible amount of
work they endured to become one of the best at their sport.
Of course they practiced, but, more importantly, they watched the game film. After
the game, most professional athletes sit in a room and watch their performance. In
American football, players spend dozens of hours every week watching their
games because they understand that improvement comes through the study of
what went wrong in the past.
Improvement comes through the study of past performance.

Your TOEFL test is a performance of your English ability. Use the information you
get from practicing your reading comprehension skills to understand your
personal strengths and weaknesses. After you know what your problem is – for
example, you have trouble answering inference questions – map out a course of
action that will help you improve.
Most students only practice. Sure, everyone checks their answers, but only for a
score, not to gain a deeper understanding of why they were wrong and how they
can improve in the future.
Here are some questions to ask yourself after you have answered a question
wrong:

 Did I misread the passage or the question?

 Was there difficult vocabulary that I didn’t understand? Is this word part of
the Academic Word List?
 Is there a particular question type I struggle to answer? What’s the answer and
how do I fix it?
 What can I do to ensure I don’t make the same mistake again?

In the ELT world (English Language Teaching), this is referred to

as reflective practice. It’s popular in many other fields, like medicine and
management, but it has also become an important component of improving
teacher performance.
Failing to review your answers is just one of many mistakes students make when
preparing for the reading section of the TOEFL.

TOEFL Reading Practice Step 5: Improve your vocabulary

Now at this point you:
1. Understand why these short reading passages are so helpful
2. Reviewed the overall structure of the TOEFL Reading section
3. Know how important it is to set a timer and develop your time management
skills
4. Are ready to not only practice the questions, but review the answers

It’s now time to work on the most critical component of your TOEFL Reading
score: your vocabulary.

How can I improve my reading comprehension for the TOEFL?

Simply put, if you don’t understand the words, you can’t understand the passage. If
you are not getting the score you want in the reading section, then you must invest
the necessary time and energy into studying vocabulary. Now, there are thousands
of words in the English language, so it’s hard to know which are important.
There are a lot of vocabulary lists, but this is the only one you need for the TOEFL
Reading, READ THE FILE: The Ultimate Vocabulary List for the TOEFL
Originally developed in 2001 by Averil Coxhead, a distinguished linguist and
researcher, she found that there were certain words that consistently show up
throughout academic texts, regardless of the topic.
Unlike other TOEFL vocabulary lists, this one has been academically researched
and verified by working professionals in the English Language Teaching
Community.
If you know these 570 words, it will have a dramatic impact on your TOEFL Reading
score.

Conclusion

So, how can you improve your reading skills for the TOEFL?

 Practice with short passages

 Review the structure
 Use a timer
 Review your answers
 Improve your vocabulary