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This section measures your ability to understand academic passages in English. There is one passage in this practice test. Give yourself 20 minutes to read the passage and answer the questions about it. You may look back at the passage when answering the questions. You can skip questions and go back to them later as long as there is time remaining. Please note: The practice questions are real  TOEFL i BT ®  test questions, but the testing experience has been adapted for presentation in this course. Your performance on this practice test is not a predictor of how you might perform on the actual  TOEFL i BT ®  test.  Your scores for this practice test will show correct vs. incorrect choices. You will also see an explanation for why each answer choice is correct or incorrect. Scores and scoring information are for preparation use only; they are not official or scaled scores.

People often ask, “How do you decide what to put on the test?” and “How do you create the test?” Producing a Stimulus and Questions The development of TOEFL test content begins with test developers who are experts in a wide variety of subjects. These test developers search for source material that is typical of what can be found in a first- or second-year university-level class. They consult textbooks and published research studies, work with professors and researchers, and draw on their own expertise to produce what we call a  stimulus —material such as a reading passage or a lecture. They then create questions which ask about the content of the stimulus. But things don’t end there. Fairness, Reliability and Validity Next, the stimulus and questions go through multiple reviews by other experts. They are reviewed for content  accuracy . They are also reviewed for  fairness ,  reliability  and  validity . To be fair, test content must not be ...

The   TOEFL   test is the most widely respected English-language test in the world, recognized by more than 10,000 colleges, universities and agencies in more than 130 countries, including Australia, Canada, the United Kingdom and the United States. To search institutions that accept TOEFL scores, visit the  TOEFL Destination Search (opens new window) . You can search by institution name, location or TOEFL score requirement. Be sure to confirm any institution’s information (such as score requirements) with the institution directly. Here are some important notes about using TOEFL scores in Australia and the United Kingdom (UK): Australia : TOEFL scores are accepted for student visas, and also for a number of additional visa categories including skilled migration, post-study work, temporary graduate and permanent residence. Get more details about Australian visas from the  Department of Immigration and Border Protection (opens new window) . TOEFL scores are ...

Two useful reading skills that you will need to use when you're doing the IELTS Reading Test are skimming and scanning. So what do we mean by these terms? Well, skimming is what you do when you pick up a newspaper or go to an online news site and look at the headlines. You want to find out what's happening in the world so your eyes roam quickly over the page to identify the main idea, or ideas. You don't need to read every word to get the main idea. Also, with skimming, you shouldn’t spend a lot of time thinking about unknown words. Scanning means reading a text quickly to find specific words or information, such as names, places, or dates. It's important to know what you're looking for before you start so that you can do this efficiently. Now let's look at some examples of how you can use skimming and scanning skills in the IELTS Test. This is a short demonstration of skimming. Here's an article about a new discovery which may lead to a new f...

About the Reading Section The first section of the   TOEFL iBT ®   test is the Reading section. This section uses reading passages from university-level textbooks that introduce a topic. The passages may have been changed slightly to make them appropriate for testing purposes, but they are real academic materials. Topics of the reading passages can vary, but you do not need to have any prior knowledge of the topics.  Everything you need to know to answer the questions is in the passages, because the questions are testing your English skills, not your knowledge of the topic. There are 3 or 4 reading passages of about 700 words each. For each passage, there are 12 to 14 multiple-choice questions. You will  be able to to see the reading passage as you answer each question. Most questions have four choices and a single correct answer. Some questions ask you to select two or more correct answers from a larger group of choices. You will have 60 to 80...