Build a Sentence on the New TOEFL iBT® Test (2026): How It Works, Grammar to Know, and Practice

In short

• Build a Sentence opens the Writing section of the 2026 TOEFL iBT® test: 10 items, each a two-person exchange where you put word tiles in order to make the second person's reply.
• Each item is right or wrong, 1 point or 0, checked against an answer key. ETS's Technical Manual counts them as 10 of the section's 20 raw points, beside up to 5 each for the email and the discussion post.
• ETS says the task measures your understanding of English sentence structure. Indirect questions, relative clauses, and word order in questions come up again and again in ETS's practice sets.
• Some items have one tile more than the reply needs. ETS doesn't mention this, but its practice sets include such items, and the spare tile is usually a grammar trap.

What the task looks like

From ETS's Writing section page, Test Overview, and Technical Manual. The 6 minutes is our arithmetic, not an ETS figure.

Three sample items

Our own items, built like ETS's. Each blank takes one tile; a tile can hold more than one word.

How to build each sentence

1. Read Speaker 1 first. The reply has to answer or react to it, so it tells you the topic and often the tense.
2. Use the given words and the end mark. A question mark means a question; the first given word (Do, Can, Students, I) fixes how the sentence starts.
3. Build the core: subject plus verb. Find which tile is the subject and which is the main verb, including any helper verb (will, have, can).
4. Attach everything else. Objects after the verb, then place and time phrases, then clauses starting with who, that, where, if, or because.
5. Check for a leftover tile. If one tile won't fit, it's probably the spare: a verb that doesn't agree with the subject, or a word that would make direct-question order. Not every item has one.
6. Read the whole reply once. If it doesn't sound like something a person would say back to Speaker 1, swap the two tiles you're least sure of.

The grammar it tests most

Our list, from the items in ETS's practice sets. In Full-Length Practice Test 1, four of the ten items are indirect questions and two have a spare tile; ETS's other sets range from none to most items for each.

Mistakes that cost points

• Direct-question order inside an indirect question: "Do you know where is it?" instead of "where it is".
• Using every tile when one is a spare, which usually breaks the agreement or the word order.
• Putting an adverb between a verb and its object: "I like very much it".
• Spending three minutes on one item. With about 6 minutes for all ten, give each one about 30 seconds and move on.

How to practice

• Explain why each order works. ETS's own Writing lesson plans ask students to say why a word order is right, and to review clauses and the words that join them. If you can explain it, you can rebuild it.
• Scramble your own sentences. Write ten short two-person exchanges, cut each reply into four to six pieces, add one wrong piece, and rebuild them the next day.
• Drill indirect questions. Turn ten direct questions into "Do you know…", "Can you tell me…", and "I wonder…" forms every day for a week.
• Use ETS's sets with answer keys. Full-Length Practice Tests 1 and 2 and five teacher tests on ETS's Preparing Students page each have ten Build a Sentence items.
• Practice the whole Writing section. Build a Sentence goes fast only when it's automatic, and every second saved goes to the email and the discussion. MockPrep's Writing section runs all three tasks with timers like the real test and scores them on the 1–6 scale minutes after you finish.

Templates and sample answers for the rest of the section are in Writing templates for the email and the discussion.