TOEFL Study Plan: 4-Week Schedule for the New TOEFL iBT

A good TOEFL study plan takes about four weeks at 60–90 minutes a day: take a practice test in the new format, learn all 12 task types, spend two weeks on your weakest section, and finish with full-length practice tests. If you need a big jump in your English level, not just familiarity with the test, plan for eight weeks or more.

The TOEFL iBT was redesigned on January 21, 2026, and many study plans online still describe the old test. This guide is built on the current format from ETS: what each section contains, how the new 1–6 scores work, a week-by-week plan, how to use spaced repetition for vocabulary, and the free official practice materials.

The 4-week (1-month) TOEFL study plan

This plan assumes six study days a week at 60–90 minutes a day, with the test at the end of week four.

In your error log, record the task type, what you chose, the right answer, and the reason you missed it: didn't know the word, misheard, missed the speaker's purpose, ran out of time, or a grammar slip in your writing. After a week, sort by reason. That list is your plan for week 3.

If you have 8 weeks

Give each phase two weeks. Use the extra time for reading and listening outside test material (articles, lectures, podcasts in English), and take a full practice test every second weekend. ETS publishes a free 8-week prep planner you can use alongside this one.

If you have 2 weeks or less

Learn the format and the timing; you can't rebuild your English in two weeks. Take one full practice test, practice every task type at least twice, and do daily Speaking and Writing tasks under time so the clock doesn't surprise you.

What changed in the TOEFL iBT in 2026?

The redesigned TOEFL iBT launched on January 21, 2026. The main changes:

• Shorter, focused tasks replace the long academic passages and lectures of the old test.
• New task types such as Complete the Words, Build a Sentence, Listen and Repeat, and Take an Interview.
• A 1–6 score scale in half-point steps, aligned with the CEFR, instead of 0–120.
• Adaptive sections: the test adjusts as you go, so the number of items and the time can vary slightly.

If a book, app, or course still talks about long reading passages with 10 questions each, integrated speaking tasks, or a "score out of 120" as the main result, it was written for the old test.

What is the new TOEFL iBT format?

That adds up to about 90 minutes of testing, but ETS tells you to allow about two hours including directions. A few practical rules from ETS:

• You can take the test at a test center or at home (TOEFL iBT Home Edition) with a live human proctor.
• There are no scheduled breaks.
• You can take notes: scratch paper at a test center, or a small whiteboard or a sheet in a transparent sleeve at home.
• Don't skip a section. ETS says that if you skip any section, none of your sections will be scored.

How is the new TOEFL scored?

You get a score from 1 to 6, in half-point steps, for each of the four sections, plus an overall score. The overall score is the average of the four sections, rounded to the nearest half band. For two years after January 2026, your score report also shows a comparable 0–120 total, because many universities still list requirements in the old format.

There's no pass mark. Each institution sets its own requirement, so check yours and work backwards with the table: an old requirement of 100, for example, falls in the range ETS maps to an overall 5. Scores appear in your ETS account three days after the test and are valid for two years.

How to study for each TOEFL section

Reading

Complete the Words gives you a short text with partially missing words. You need to know the word and spell it, so passive recognition isn't enough. Read in Daily Life uses notices, messages, and short informational texts; practice spotting the purpose and any implied meaning. Read an Academic Passage is short and self-contained, so you don't need background knowledge, only careful reading.

Practice: one timed set of each type a day in weeks 1–2. For every miss, write the word or the line of text that held the answer.

Listening

Four task types, all with short clips. Listen and Choose a Response tests whether you understand intent: is the speaker asking, refusing, or suggesting? Conversations, announcements, and academic talks test main ideas, details, and inferences. Accents can include North American, British, New Zealand, and Australian English.

Practice: one mixed set a day. Afterwards, replay any clip you missed and write down the exact words that gave the answer.

Writing

Build a Sentence asks you to arrange words into a grammatical sentence or question. It's pure structure, so drill question forms ("Could you tell me where the library is?") and word order with adverbs. Write an Email tests clear, polite, on-topic writing for a campus or social situation. Write for an Academic Discussion asks you to state and support an opinion in an online class discussion and respond to others.

Practice: keep two short templates in your head, one for emails (purpose, details, request, polite close) and one for discussions (position, reason, example, response to a classmate). Then write under time and read your answer aloud to catch errors.

Speaking

Listen and Repeat asks you to repeat short sentences exactly. Shadowing helps: play a sentence, pause, repeat it, and compare with the recording. Take an Interview asks about your experiences and opinions on campus and academic topics. Record answers, listen back, and fix one thing each time: filler words, pauses, or a recurring grammar error.

How to use spaced repetition for TOEFL vocabulary

Vocabulary now shows up directly in Complete the Words and indirectly in every other task. Two rules make the biggest difference.

1. Learn the word you'd need to write, not just recognize. Put the sentence on the front with a gap, and make yourself type or write the full word before you flip.

2. Don't retire a word the first time you get it right. In a study in Science, students learned 40 Swahili–English word pairs. When pairs kept being tested after the first correct answer, students recalled about 80% a week later. When pairs were dropped from testing, recall fell to about a third, even with extra study. And students had no idea: every group predicted it would remember about half.

So keep words in a spaced review rotation and let the intervals grow: the next day, a few days later, a week later. A flashcard app does the scheduling for you. Our spaced repetition guide explains the intervals, and memorizing vocabulary techniques covers how to make words stick in context. If you'd rather not type every card, the Active Recalling flashcard generator can draft cards from an article or your notes; edit any that aren't phrased the way you'd use them.

Official TOEFL practice resources

• TOEFL TestReady: ETS's official prep portal, with practice tests, courses, guides, and progress tracking.
• TOEFL iBT Test Prep Planner: a free 8-week plan from ETS (a downloadable PDF) with tips, skill-building activities, and sample questions.
• TOEFL iBT Sample Test: ETS's official sample test, useful for a first look at the task types.
• Section pages on ets.org for Reading, Listening, Writing, and Speaking, which describe exactly what each task measures.

Be careful with older "Official Guide" books and free mock tests online. Anything published before 2026 practices the old tasks, and unofficial new-format tests vary in quality.

A realistic daily TOEFL study routine

That's about 70–85 minutes. On weekends, do a longer block, such as a full section or a full practice test. In the final week, keep the routine short and protect your sleep; our exam preparation guide covers the night before and test morning. For more ways to build English outside test prep, see learning a new language effectively, and if you're also taking IELTS, compare this with our IELTS study plan.