TOEFL (Test of English as a Foreign Language), one of the world’s most widely known English aptitude tests, has changed its iBT (Internet-Based Test) format on July 26 2023. Some features remain the same while others change, and we’re here to tell you what you need to know! In case you were wondering if you needed to know about this, let us tell you before you ask that colleges around the world often ask for English proficiency test scores, so yes, you might need that TOEFL score after all (depending on the requirements of the school and course you are considering applying to!)

Let’s start with the easy stuff which is what’s staying the same. Firstly, since the changes are made to the internet-based tests (both Home Edition and those you take at test centers) and not to paper-based tests, even though they may not be as convenient. Most question types have not changed either, in fact the only question type that has changed is the Writing task (more on that later), as the Integrated Writing task stays in the new format. All this to say, if you've already been preparing for the TOEFL, all your efforts thus far will not go to waste. Third and the biggest non-change is the score scale; the new iBT will be scored out of the same 120!

On to the actual question: what is different? For starters, the entire test is shorter. That is because the Reading section has gone from 3-4 passages with 10 questions each (30-40 questions) in 54–72 minutes to a fixed 2 passages with 10 each (20 questions) in 35 minutes. Similarly, the Listening section reduced its number of questions from 28-39 to a fixed 28 and its time limit from 41-57 minutes to a fixed 36 minutes. In addition to these, all unscored questions have been removed, and the new test takes about 2 hours to complete as opposed to the 3 hours it used to take.

Now for what is arguably the biggest change: the Independent Writing task (30 minutes) has been replaced with the shorter Writing for an Academic Discussion task (10 minutes.) The new task presents an online class discussion and you will be required to post your own opinion after reading the question asked by the professor and the responses other students have posted. The score range on the Writing for an Academic Discussion task will be the same as the one for the Integrated Writing task (0-5.)

The same day that the format change took effect, the TOEFL Go app was released. Available on mobile and desktop, TOEFL Go offers a complete mock test, practice questions, scoring and feedback to help understand past mistakes. Additionally, you can find practice questions for Writing for an Academic Discussion task here: https://www.ets.org/toefl/ibt-enhancements/prep.html.