Reading Strategies
TOEFL 2026 — the most practiced Reading questions, October 2026
How this list was measured
Every entry below is ranked by the number of different Reach120 learners who submitted an answer to it during October 2026 — not by how often the question was shown, and not by anything anyone chose to feature. One learner practicing the same question repeatedly counts once.
A question needs at least 3 different learners to appear at all, a task type needs at least 5 such questions before it is ranked, and Reading needs at least 10 learners in the month before this post is generated.
At most 8 questions per task type are listed.
Two things are removed before anything is counted, so that nothing in this order was put there by us: Reach120's own accounts — staff, test users and the internal harnesses that exercise the product — and the fallback questions the app hands out when there is no question bank to draw from, which measure our own placement rather than anybody's choice.
The exact learner counts are deliberately not published — the order is the finding, the headcount is not. This ranking measures practice, not opinion: it is not a vote and it is not a quality judgement by us or by ETS. Where a question has separately been rated by enough learners or tutors to carry a verification mark, that mark is shown next to it and explained at the end.
Try it — one real Reading item
This passage and question come from the same bank Reach120 learners practice against. Answer it here — Reading is free and unlimited on every account.
Art Supply Clearance Sale
CLEARANCE AT PALETTE & CO.!
Everything must go before our spring restock. This weekend only:
- Sketchbooks: buy two, get one free - Acrylic paint sets: 40% off - Easels: $20 (was $45) - Loose brushes: half price
Clearance items are final sale — no returns or exchanges. Gift cards still work on regular-priced stock. Doors open Saturday at 9 AM; the first twenty shoppers get a free sample tube of watercolor.
Store is at 88 Canal Street, next to the framing shop.
Why A is the answer: The ad says 'Everything must go before our spring restock,' linking the sale to new stock coming in.
- B. Gift cards still work; no expiration is mentioned.
- C. A restock implies the store is continuing, not closing.
- D. Nothing suggests the items are defective.
Reading passages
1. Islands Born From Fire
Task type: COMPLETE_THE_WORDS
Subject area: geology
How it opens: In the middle of the ocean, brand-new islands can rise from the sea____ through repeated volcanic eru____. Deep beneath the crust, hot mol____ rock forces its way upward through cracks and weak points. As the material reaches the cold water, it cools and har____ into solid layers of dark bas____. With each eruption,…
2. Seeing With Sound
Task type: COMPLETE_THE_WORDS
Subject area: animal behavior
How it opens: Hunting in total darkness, a bat loc____ its prey by listening to ech____ rather than by sight. As it flies, the animal emi____ rapid bursts of high-pitched sound that spr____ outward through the night air. When these calls strike a moth or a wall, they bou____ back toward the bat as returning echoes. By mea____ the…
3. Rivers of Ice on the Move
Task type: COMPLETE_THE_WORDS
Subject area: earth science
How it opens: Glaciers may look frozen and still, but they slowly cre____ downhill under their own eno____ weight. At the base, pressure and fri____ melt a thin film of water that lets the ice slide across the bed____. Higher in the glacier, the ice itself bends and def____ like thick putty, a process scientists call int____ flow.…
4. Mapping the Ties of Family
Task type: READ_AN_ACADEMIC_PASSAGE
Subject area: Social science
How it opens: When early anthropologists visited communities very different from their own, one of the first puzzles they faced was how people organized their families. The words for relatives did not always translate neatly. In some societies, a single term covered a mother and all of her sisters, while in others each relationship…
5. Carrying Water Across Roman Valleys
Task type: COMPLETE_THE_WORDS
Subject area: engineering history
How it opens: Roman engineers built aqu____ to bring fresh water from distant hills into crowded cities. The channels sloped downward at a gentle, carefully calculated gra____ so that gra____ alone kept the water flowing. Where a valley int____ the route, workers raised tall stone arches to support the con____ high above the…
6. Fitness Center Schedule Update
Task type: READ_IN_DAILY_LIFE
Subject area: Campus notice
How it opens: NOTICE — Rec Center Front Desk Starting Monday, the fitness center will open at 6:30 a.m. instead of 7:00 a.m. on weekdays. Weekend hours are unchanged. The upstairs cardio room will be closed for floor repairs from Monday through Wednesday, so treadmills and bikes have been moved to the main gym for those three days.…
7. The Dance of the Honeybee
Task type: COMPLETE_THE_WORDS
Subject area: animal behavior
How it opens: When a for____ honeybee returns to the hive, she sha____ the location of a rich food sou____ through a special dance. If the flowers are close, she per____ a simple round dance that tells other bees to search nearby. For dis____ patches, she switches to the waggle dance, moving in a figure eight while vib____ her…
8. How Memory Is Stored
Task type: COMPLETE_THE_WORDS
Subject area: Psychology
How it opens: Human memory does not work like a video recording that captures events exactly. Instead, the brain recon____ each memory partly from stored fragments and partly from expectation. This is why two witnesses can rec____ the same event quite differently. Psychologists distinguish short-term memory, which holds information…
Practice Reading passages on Reach120
About the verification marks
No question in this list carries a verification mark yet. A mark is earned from learner and tutor ratings, which are still accumulating, so an unmarked question here means "not yet rated enough" — not "rated badly".
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