Run a TOEFL programme on evidence, not impressions

For TOEFL tests taken on or after January 21, 2026, official score reports use a 1–6 scale in half-band increments.

A requirement your programme publishes in the old numbers now describes a report your applicants no longer receive.

E-001 · source

During ETS's transition through January 2028, reports also include a comparable overall estimate on the previous 0–120 scale.

For the length of the transition an applicant may hand you a report carrying both, so a reader who knows only one of them can still misread it.

E-002

Before January 21, 2026, TOEFL iBT reported scores as ‘Reading (0-30) Listening (0-30) Speaking (0-30) Writing (0-30) Total (0-120).’

The wording most existing admissions pages and course handbooks still use, kept here so you can find the sentences that need rewriting.

E-023 · source

The current Writing section lists 12 items: 10 Build a Sentence items, one Write an Email task, and one Academic Discussion task.

The count matters for pacing: most of the writing section is the short task teachers tend to spend the least class time on.

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The 2026 specification lists the Writing section at 12 items and 20 maximum raw points.

What a whole writing section is worth in raw points, which is the figure to teach against rather than a converted band.

E-015

Per the 2026 specification, the maximum points per Build a Sentence item is 1.

Each of those items is worth the same whether it is easy or hard for the student in front of you.

E-016

Build a Sentence represents 10 of the 20 listed maximum raw points in the Writing specification.

Half the writing section sits in the task type that is quickest to drill, which is where a short course buys back the most.

E-004

The 2026 Reading and Listening sections use multistage adaptive designs; Speaking and Writing are linear.

Reading and listening adapt as the student works, so students sitting side by side can be answering different item sets, and the habit of comparing raw answers afterwards stops working.

E-005 · source

The 2026 specification lists the Reading section at 50 items and 35 raw points, with task types Complete the Words, Read in Daily Life, and Read an Academic Passage.

What a reading section costs in class time, and the task names to set homework by.

E-009 · source

The 2026 specification lists the Listening section at 47 items and 35 raw points, with task types Listen and Choose a Response, Listen to a Conversation, Listen to an Announcement, and Listen to an Academic Talk.

The same for listening, where the task names changed more than the skills did.

E-010

The 2026 specification lists the Speaking section at 11 items and 55 raw points, with task types Listen and Repeat (7 items) and Take an Interview (4 items).

The same for speaking, which is the section most prep courses under-serve.

E-011

The 2026 specification lists 120 total items, 145 total raw points, and an estimated total test time between 1 hour 23 minutes and 1 hour 29 minutes.

The whole test is shorter than the timetable slot many programmes still reserve for it.

E-012

The 2026 specification lists estimated section times of 18–21 min router plus a 9 min module (Reading), an 18 min router plus a 7 or 11 min module (Listening), 23 min (Writing), and 8 min (Speaking), in a two-stage router-plus-module adaptive design for Reading and Listening.

Section timings, for anyone building a mock schedule that matches the current test rather than the retired one.

E-014

Reading and Listening items are machine-scored selected responses; the Write an Email, Write for an Academic Discussion, and all Speaking tasks are AI-scored constructed responses, per the specification's item-type notes.

Which parts of the test are marked against a key and which are marked against a rubric. A class that treats the second kind as arithmetic will argue with every mark it gets.

E-013

ETS states that its mock-test scores come from a system it calls TOEFL AI Lite — ‘built for speed and immediate feedback, helping you identify strengths and weaknesses in real-time’ — and that ‘when you take the real test, it is scored by a different system called TOEFL AI Deep’, which ‘takes a more comprehensive approach’ and ‘integrates with advanced security protocols with a human in the loop, to ensure your official score is accurate, fair, and recognized by institutions worldwide.’ ETS also states: ‘You might see some small differences between your mock test scores and your real test scores, and that's totally normal.’

Worth reading in full before any practice tool, this one included, is treated by a programme as a predictor of a real result.

E-030 · source