Complete the Words on the New TOEFL iBT® Test (2026): Format, Strategy, and Practice

In short

• Complete the Words is the first Reading task type on the 2026 TOEFL iBT® test. You get a short academic paragraph with 10 words cut in half, and you type the missing letters.
• The first sentence is complete. After it, ETS deletes "the second half of every second word", so you always see the start of each word and the boxes for the rest.
• ETS says it tests vocabulary and understanding meaning from context. Its research blog adds syntax and spelling: the word has to fit the sentence and be spelled right.
• Each Reading module includes a Complete the Words paragraph, so 20 of the section's scored questions come from this task on either path. That makes it the largest single task in Reading.

What the task looks like

From ETS's Test Overview, test blueprint, and Technical Manual (Table 1). A module can also contain unscored tryout questions.

On screen, each missing letter is a small box right after the letters you can see. In ETS's answer keys, an even-length word loses exactly half its letters, and an odd-length word loses the longer half: a five-letter word shows two letters and hides three. So the number of boxes tells you how long the whole word is.

A sample paragraph

Our own paragraph, built the way ETS describes the task. Try it before reading the answers.

How to solve it, step by step

1. Read the first sentence carefully. It's the only complete sentence before the gaps, and it gives the topic. Every word you fill in has to fit that topic.
2. Read to the end of the paragraph once. The words after a gap are often the best clue, and the last sentence is usually complete too.
3. Decide what kind of word each gap needs. This is the method ETS's own Reading lesson plans teach: noun, verb, adjective, or adverb first, then the letters.
4. Count the boxes. The letters you see plus the boxes give the length of the word. If two words fit the meaning, only one usually fits the length.
5. Check the ending. Most lost points are endings: a plural -s, a verb that agrees with its subject, a past tense -ed, or the wrong word form (-tion, -ive, -ly).
6. Spell it out fully in your head before typing. The answer is graded as a word, so a near miss in spelling is still wrong.

Mistakes that cost points

• Filling in each word on its own. Short function words (the, of, which, while) are easy points, but only if you read them with the words around them.
• Ignoring the box count. "lenlen plus 3 missing letters" can only be length; "lengthy" would need four boxes.
• Writing the right word in the wrong form: "differ" for different, "succeed" for success.
• Spending too long on one word. The module has one clock, and you can come back with Back while you're still in the same module. You can't return to module 1 once module 2 starts.

How to practice

• Make your own items. Take any paragraph from a textbook or a science news site, cover the second half of every second word after the first sentence, and fill them in a day later.
• Learn word families, not single words. ETS suggests studying roots, prefixes, and suffixes. Knowing that a gap after "the" needs a noun, and how that noun ends, is most of the task.
• Write words out. Because spelling counts, type the academic words you learn instead of only reading them.
• Use ETS's free items. The Interactive Sample has one of each task type, and the practice test PDFs on ETS's Preparing Students page each start every module with a Complete the Words paragraph, with answer keys.

Then practice under the real clock. Complete the Words is quick once you're used to it, and the time you save goes to the reading passages later in the module. MockPrep's Reading section runs two adaptive modules like the real test, with Complete the Words in each, and scores you on the 1–6 scale as soon as you finish.

The rest of the Reading section is in Read in Daily Life and Read an Academic Passage, and the whole test is in what changed in 2026.