How to Improve Your TOEFL Reading Score (2026 Format)

To improve your TOEFL reading score, you need to understand how the 2026 reading section works—and then build specific skills for each part of it.

The 2026 TOEFL reading section is shorter and more varied than the old format. Instead of two long academic passages, you’ll now encounter three different types of tasks across two adaptive modules. Each task type tests different reading skills and requires a different approach.

If you’ve studied for the TOEFL before, or if you’ve been using older prep materials, pay close attention: the reading section changed significantly in January 2026. Many tips you’ll find online describe a test that no longer exists. This guide covers the current format.

What’s Different About the 2026 TOEFL Reading Section

The 2026 reading section uses an adaptive format with two modules. You’ll have about 20 to 27 minutes for the entire section, depending on whether your test includes unscored pretest items (extra questions ETS uses for calibration — you can’t tell which ones they are).

Module 1 is the same difficulty for every student. Based on how well you do, Module 2 will be harder or easier. You can move between questions within the same module, but once you move to Module 2, you cannot go back to Module 1.

Each module contains four tasks:

The academic passages in 2026 are shorter than old TOEFL passages, but the types of questions are similar. The two new task types—Complete the Words and Read in Daily Life—are quite different from what most prep materials describe.

Pro tip: Magoosh’s free intro lesson on the TOEFL reading section walks you through each task type with examples. It’s a good place to start if you want to see the format before diving into practice.

Tip 1: Learn Each Task Type and How to Approach It

The biggest mistake students make is using the same reading approach for every task. Each task type tests different skills.

Complete the Words

In this task, you’ll see a short academic text—around 70 to 90 words—with 10 missing words. Each missing word has its first few letters shown. You fill in the rest.

This sounds like a vocabulary test. But it’s more than that.

Many of the missing words are structural words—words like “however,” “although,” “between,” or “therefore.” To fill these in correctly, you need to understand how the sentence works grammatically. Just knowing vocabulary isn’t enough.

What helps here:

• Think about grammar and sentence structure, not just word meaning
• Learn common word combinations (collocations). Academic writing uses many fixed phrases: “as a result of,” “in contrast to,” “play a role in.” Knowing these helps you fill in words you might not immediately recognize.
• Read for context. The words around the blank tell you what type of word is missing—a connector, a noun, a verb—before you even guess the specific word.
• Know your spelling. This task requires you to type missing letters, so knowing what a word means isn’t enough—you need to know how it’s spelled. Spelling used to matter mainly in the writing section, but Complete the Words makes it a reading skill too. Magoosh’s TOEFL vocabulary flashcards are a good way to study both meaning and spelling together, since each card shows the word in context.

Read in Daily Life

These are practical, everyday texts. You might read an email from a professor, a sign with instructions, or an announcement on a campus webpage. Each passage is short—just a paragraph or two—with two or three questions.

The questions don’t just test whether you understood the words. They test whether you understood the purpose of the text.

What helps here:

• Ask “why was this written?” before looking at the questions
• Pay attention to tone. Is the message urgent? Friendly? Informational?
• Look for what’s implied. Some questions ask about information that isn’t stated directly. The answer comes from reading between the lines.

Read an Academic Passage

These passages are 150 to 250 words long and cover university-style topics: history, psychology, environmental science, art, and more. You don’t need any background knowledge—everything you need is in the passage.

Questions may ask about specific details, the meaning of a word in context, the author’s purpose, or the overall structure of the argument.

What helps here:

• Read for the big picture first. What is the main idea? What is the author’s point?
• Then look for details when a question asks for something specific
• Match question keywords to the text. TOEFL questions often use synonyms for words in the passage. You’re looking for meaning, not an exact match.

For examples of what these question types look like, see our TOEFL reading sample questions.

Tip 2: Choose the Right Reading Strategy

For the multiple-choice passages—Read in Daily Life and Read an Academic Passage—there are two main approaches: passage-first and questions-first.

Passage-first: Read the full passage before looking at the questions. This helps you understand the overall structure and main idea. It’s the safer approach, especially for academic texts.

Questions-first: Read the questions first, then return to the passage to find the answers. This is faster but can feel disjointed.

Here’s how to match strategy to task type:

• Read in Daily Life → questions-first. These passages are short. You can quickly scan for the specific information each question is asking about.
• Read an Academic Passage → passage-first. You need to understand the argument as a whole before answering questions about details or structure.

Pro tip: Try both approaches during your practice sessions. Some students find that questions-first also works well for academic passages once they’re comfortable with the format. The right strategy is the one that works best for you.

Tip 3: Build Vocabulary and Grammar the Right Way

Vocabulary matters on the TOEFL reading section, but how you study it makes a difference.

Study words in context. Don’t just memorize word lists. When you learn a new word, read it in a complete sentence. Notice what words appear around it. This builds the kind of vocabulary understanding that helps with both Complete the Words and the academic passages.

Learn common collocations. Academic writing uses many fixed phrases. Knowing expressions like “in the absence of,” “contribute to,” “be associated with,” or “lead to” helps you recognize incomplete words even when you’re not sure of the exact vocabulary.

Build grammar awareness. The Complete the Words task frequently tests connector and function words—words that show relationships between ideas (because, however, therefore, despite, whereas). Reviewing these connectors and understanding when each is used can improve your performance significantly on this task.

To practice vocabulary in context, Magoosh’s TOEFL vocabulary flashcards show each word in example sentences so you learn how words are actually used, not just their definitions.

Tip 4: Manage Your Time

You have about 20 to 27 minutes for the entire reading section—both modules combined.

The most important rule: do not spend too long on any single question. If you’re unsure, make your best guess and keep moving. You can return to earlier questions within the same module, but once you move to Module 2, there’s no going back.

A few practical guidelines:

• Spend proportionally more time on the academic passages, which tend to have more complex questions
• For Complete the Words, move quickly—if a word doesn’t come to you, make a reasonable guess and continue
• For Read in Daily Life, the questions-first approach usually saves time because the passages are short

Pro tip: The students who struggle most with timing usually get stuck on difficult questions and try to “solve” them on the spot. A student who finishes at a steady pace—even with a few uncertain guesses—often outperforms a student who spends five minutes on a single question. Practice timed reading regularly so you develop a natural rhythm.

Tip 5: Read in English Every Day

The single most effective thing you can do for your TOEFL reading score isn’t a test strategy—it’s reading more English, every day, outside of test prep.

Regular reading builds the skills that every part of the reading section depends on: reading speed, vocabulary recognition, comfort with different sentence structures, and the ability to follow an argument without translating word by word. Students who read in English daily almost always improve faster than students who only practice with test questions.

What to read for academic passages:

• Wikipedia articles on science, history, or social science topics. Many sections are roughly the right length for TOEFL-style reading—150 to 250 words per section. If regular Wikipedia feels too dense, Simple English Wikipedia uses simpler vocabulary and sentence structures while covering the same topics.
• News articles from sources like The New York Times, BBC, or The Guardian. These build reading stamina and expose you to the kind of formal-but-accessible writing style the TOEFL uses.
• Popular science writing. Sites like Scientific American, National Geographic, or Smithsonian Magazine cover the same kinds of topics—psychology, biology, environmental science, history—that show up in TOEFL academic passages.

What to read for daily life tasks:

The Read in Daily Life task uses short, practical texts—emails, announcements, instructions, campus notices. To build comfort with these:

• Read real campus websites, event announcements, or library policies from any English-speaking university
• Pay attention to emails, notices, and instructions you encounter in English—read them carefully instead of skimming
• Practice identifying the purpose of short texts: is the writer informing you, requesting something, warning you, or inviting you?

How to read actively:

Don’t just read passively. For each passage or article:

1. Identify the main idea of each paragraph
2. Note unfamiliar vocabulary—but try to figure out the meaning from context before looking it up
3. After you finish, summarize the key point in one sentence

Aim for 15 to 20 minutes a day. Consistency matters more than long sessions. A student who reads for 15 minutes every day for a month will improve more than a student who reads for three hours once a week.

For more reading material recommendations, see our list of free TOEFL resources for reading practice.

How the TOEFL Reading Score Works in 2026

Understanding how the score is calculated can change how you approach Module 1.

Each question within a module is weighted equally. But the modules themselves are not weighted equally. A correct answer in a harder Module 2 contributes more to your final reading score than a correct answer in an easier Module 2.

What this means in practice:

1. Accuracy in Module 1 determines which Module 2 you get. Doing well in Module 1 unlocks the harder—and higher-scoring—second module.
2. Two students can answer the same number of questions correctly and receive different scores if one reached the harder module and the other didn’t.

The takeaway: focus on accuracy in Module 1. Don’t rush. A careful, confident first module is your best path to a higher reading score.

How to Practice

Consistent, focused practice is what moves the needle. Here’s how to make your preparation count.

Practice with official-quality questions. The closest you can get to the real test, the better. Magoosh includes 1,300+ official ETS-licensed questions and 4 official full-length practice tests built from actual TOEFL content. Take a free TOEFL practice test to see your baseline score before you start studying.

Track your progress over time. As you practice, pay attention to your reading speed and accuracy. Are you finishing within the time limit? Are you getting the same types of questions wrong? Tracking your performance helps you focus your study time where it matters most.

A Simple Reading Practice Plan

Reading improvement is gradual—you won’t see results overnight. But with a consistent routine, most students notice real progress within a few weeks. Here’s a plan to follow:

Weeks 1–2: Build the foundation

• 15–20 minutes per day of daily reading in English (academic articles + everyday texts)
• Study vocabulary flashcards for 10 minutes per day, paying attention to spelling
• Take a free TOEFL practice test to establish your baseline score
• Goal: Daily reading becomes a habit; you start noticing new vocabulary in context

Weeks 3–4: Add timed practice

• Continue daily reading (maintain the habit)
• Practice 1–2 timed reading tasks per day using official-quality questions
• Review every wrong answer: was it a vocabulary gap, a misread, or a time issue?
• Practice Complete the Words tasks specifically—focus on spelling and connectors
• Goal: You can finish tasks within the time limit; you know which question types give you trouble

Weeks 5–6: Simulate test conditions

• Take a full timed reading section (both modules, 27 minutes) at least twice per week
• Focus on Module 1 accuracy—remember, this determines your Module 2 difficulty
• Continue daily reading and vocabulary, but shift time toward practice tests
• Goal: You have a consistent strategy for each task type and can manage your time across both modules

On test day:

• Don’t rush Module 1—accuracy here matters more than speed
• Use questions-first for Read in Daily Life, passage-first for academic texts
• If you get stuck on a question, make your best guess and move on
• Trust your preparation—the reading habits you’ve built will carry you

If you’re looking for structured preparation, Magoosh’s TOEFL prep includes official ETS questions, video lessons, and a score guarantee. You can start with a free trial to see how it fits your plan.

More in this series:

• How to Improve Your TOEFL Speaking Score (2026 Format)
• How to Improve Your TOEFL Writing Score (2026 Format)
• How to Improve Your TOEFL Listening Score (2026 Format)