Read in Daily Life: practice texts with answers and explanations
Notices, schedules, emails and announcements — the practical texts you would actually read on a campus, and questions about what they commit you to. It is the task people assume is easy because the vocabulary is easy, and then lose points on because they answered from the world rather than from the text.
1,229
Reading questions
225
Reading passages
Counted in our own database, servable items only. How each figure is counted
Worked Read in Daily Life texts, with every answer
Each text below is published whole, with its questions, the keyed answer and the reason each wrong option was written. Read what the text actually says before you answer — on this task type, plausible and stated are different things.
Passage 1
Airport Shuttle Departures
Schedule · Level 3 · 97 words · 3 questions
1. What can a standby rider expect?
- A.A discount on the fare.
- B.A seat only if reserved riders leave room.Answer
- C.A guaranteed seat on any run.
- D.Priority over reservation holders.
Why B (A seat only if reserved riders leave room.) is the answer: The schedule says standby riders board only if seats remain after reservations.
- A. No fare discount is mentioned.
- C. Standby is not guaranteed a seat.
- D. Standby comes after reservation holders, not before.
2. According to the schedule, which statement is NOT true?
- A.The 5:30 a.m. run operates on holidays.Answer
- B.Riders may bring one suitcase and one carry-on.
- C.There is a 6:00 p.m. departure.
- D.Travel time is about 40 minutes normally.
Why A (The 5:30 a.m. run operates on holidays.) is the answer: The schedule says the 5:30 a.m. run does not operate on holidays, so 'operates on holidays' is false.
- B. One suitcase and one carry-on per rider is allowed.
- C. A 6:00 p.m. departure is listed.
- D. Travel time is stated as about 40 minutes in normal traffic.
3. How far ahead must a rider reserve a seat?
- A.The night before.
- B.No reservation is needed.
- C.At least two hours before departure.Answer
- D.At least 40 minutes before departure.
Why C (At least two hours before departure.) is the answer: The schedule says to reserve online at least two hours before departure.
- A. No overnight requirement is stated.
- B. Standby riders board only if seats remain, so reservations matter.
- D. Forty minutes is the travel time, not the reservation window.
Passage 2
Art Supply Clearance Sale
Ad · Level 3 · 77 words · 3 questions
1. Why does the store say everything must go?
- A.Because it is making room for a spring restockAnswer
- B.Because gift cards are expiring
- C.Because it is closing permanently
- D.Because the products are defective
Why A (Because it is making room for a spring restock) 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.
2. How much do the easels cost during the sale?
- A.Half price
- B.Free
- C.$45
- D.$20Answer
Why D ($20) is the answer: The ad lists easels at '$20 (was $45).'
- A. Half price applies to loose brushes.
- B. Easels are discounted, not free.
- C. $45 was the original price.
3. According to the ad, all of the following are true EXCEPT:
- A.Clearance items can be returned within the week.Answer
- B.The first twenty shoppers get a free watercolor tube.
- C.Acrylic paint sets are 40% off.
- D.The sale runs this weekend only.
Why A (Clearance items can be returned within the week.) is the answer: The ad states clearance items are 'final sale — no returns or exchanges,' so returns are not allowed.
- B. The first twenty shoppers receive a free watercolor sample.
- C. Acrylic paint sets are listed at 40% off.
- D. The ad says 'This weekend only.'
These are Reach120 practice passages written for the 2026 task format. None of them is a real TOEFL test item, and nothing on this page is published, licensed, endorsed or reviewed by ETS. Difficulty levels are our own bank’s values.
What Read in Daily Life asks you to do
- You read a short practical text — a notice, a timetable, an email, a sign-up sheet, a policy note — of the kind that carries information rather than an argument.
- The questions ask what the text states, what follows from it, and what it does not settle: times, conditions, exceptions, who has to do what by when.
- The language is deliberately ordinary. What makes it hard is precision, not vocabulary.
What ETS states
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.
These are published blueprint values, which the specification states are subject to minor revisions until the official launch. The item count includes non-scored items, so items do not equal raw points — the specification lists a maximum of 1 point per scored item.
The specification lists an estimated Reading time of an 18–21 minute router plus a 9 minute module, in a two-stage router-plus-module adaptive design.
The times are estimated. Reading prints a single 9 minute module for both routes, unlike Listening, which prints two discrete module lengths.
Reading items are machine-scored selected responses, evaluated by rule-based algorithms per the specification’s item-type notes.
Machine-scored is not exclusive to Reading and Listening — Build a Sentence is machine-scored too. This says nothing about how Reach120 scores your practice.
Sourced from the ETS 2026 test specifications, read (link confirmed ). Everything outside this box is Reach120’s own reading of it.
What the task actually measures
- Whether you can find a specific fact in a text organised for scanning rather than for reading straight through.
- Whether you notice conditions and exceptions — "except on public holidays", "only if you registered before", "after 6pm" — which is where most of the distractors live.
- Whether you answer from the text rather than from what such a notice usually says. Prior experience of similar notices is exactly what the wrong options are built from.
How Read in Daily Life is scored
Each item has one keyed answer and is scored as a selected response, so an attempt is either right or wrong. What is worth studying is not the score but which distractor pulled you — the explanations below name the trap rather than repeating the key.
How to practice it
- 1Read the question before the text on this task type only. These texts are for scanning, and knowing what you are looking for is how they are meant to be used.
- 2Underline every condition word you see — unless, except, only, before, after, if. A daily-life text usually has more of them than an academic one of the same length.
- 3When you get one wrong, check whether the option you chose was false or merely unstated. Those are different mistakes and they need different fixes.
- 4Practice with the clock loose at first. Speed on this task comes from knowing where to look, and that arrives before it can be rushed.
Read in Daily Life: common questions
- How many Read in Daily Life questions are on the TOEFL?
- ETS publishes the Reading section as a whole — 50 items and 35 raw points across three task types — and does not publish a per-task-type count. Reading is also adaptive, so the number an individual sees depends on the module they are routed to.
- Is Read in Daily Life easier than the academic passage task?
- The vocabulary is easier and the texts are shorter, so most people find it faster. It is not automatically higher-scoring: the questions turn on conditions and exact wording, and a reader moving quickly through easy language is exactly who misses those.
- What kinds of texts count as daily life?
- Practical campus and everyday material — notices, schedules, emails, announcements, instructions, policy notes. The published examples on this page show the range the Reach120 bank currently serves; they are our practice texts, not ETS material.
- Can I practice this without an account?
- Yes. Every text on this page is free to read with its answers and explanations, and Reach120 keeps Reading practice uncapped on the free tier because those items are graded against an answer key rather than by a model.
Built against the TOEFL 2026 test specification, re-read on a 30-day cycle.
Read the Trust Center — how scoring, figures and independence are handled.