Comparing the Format of the Current, Shorter TOEFL with the Older TOEFL (prior to July 26, 2023)
This video is an introduction to the new TOEFL format that is released in July of 2023. We're gonna talk about the new features and many things that are staying the same about the test after the new releases in July of 2023. So let's dive in. So first some general information.
The changes are going to take place on July 26th, 2023, okay? And mostly these are changes related to, first of all, some new registration and scheduling experience processes. Okay, so if you have registered for the TOEFL in the past and received scores also from the TOEFL in the past, you're gonna notice a couple of differences. We'll talk a little bit about that.
But mostly we wanna focus in this video on the test content. There are some changes to the test content, and we will outline exactly what those are in this video. But again, many things have also stayed exactly the same, and we wanna understand what those things are as well. Okay, so first of all, what's the same?
So scoring is the same, all right. Now that means that the score is reported, okay, the overall numbers that go into reporting a particular score on the scales that TOEFL uses will not change, all right. Behind the scenes, they're going to be dealing with different numbers of questions to score.
But at least in terms of the score reports that are sent on your behalf and sent to you, those are gonna look the same. The listening section is exactly the same, except that there will be no experimental questions anymore. So sometimes on the TOEFL, well, all the time, they would give some questions that are actually not supposed to be scored.
They are simply testing new questions out on people who are taking their tests. TOEFL is gonna stop using that practice moving forward, none of the questions on the test are going to be there for experimental reasons, everything you take will be scored and that's a way that they're shortening the test overall. The speaking section is exactly the same, no changes there. Okay, and so one of the points that I wanna make in this video is, and I'll reiterate this later, if you spent time studying for the old version of the TOEFL, the pre-July 2023 version, you really haven't wasted your time.
Everything there, so many things, the things that you're looking at here in terms of like listening section and speaking section, are basically exactly the same and as we're gonna see in a moment even the changes to the reading and writing sections are not enormous, okay? There are some significant things to know but if you've been studying for the TOEFL so, Far, you haven't been wasting your time because so much of the test is gonna be exactly the same.
Let's look at what's gonna be different though, okay, first of all the test is going to be shorter and that's the main difference that you're gonna notice. If you've taken older versions before, that they have intentionally tried to cut out quite a bit from the test so that it's a shorter experience. The new test is gonna take two hours, whereas it used to be about three hours to take the full test.
So they've cut off an entire hour from the experience. They've done that by streamlining some of the instructions, okay? So if you go through you'll notice that some of your instructions are more streamlined, shorter, and more to the point in certain sections. There is a quicker writing task, okay? So there's a new writing task, we'll talk about that in a moment as well, it's called writing for an academic discussion, and that new task is only a ten-minute task.
It replaces one that was longer, 30 minutes. So that's quite a bit of time savings as well. There's also a shorter Reading section. The new reading section has 20 questions. Okay, so that's down quite a bit from the previous versions. And there's a removal as we talked about a moment ago of all unscored questions.
So these are the things they're implementing on the test to get the time needed down from 3 hours to a nice 2 hour experience moving forward. Okay, now let's dig into some of the details about some of the changes that I just mentioned specifically focusing on the reading and the writing sections. So in the old format of the test there used to be three or four reading passages. Okay, it would depend on your test that you were taking that day, how many you would receive.
But it'd always be three or four, and each of the sections had ten questions. Okay, so that section in the past took 54 to 72 minutes. Now you're only going to have two reading passages in your reading section, and those reading passages still have only ten questions each, so that means they've been able to cut down the time significantly. Now we're at 36 minutes for the reading section, which is quite a bit shorter than the former version.
For the writing section, they've also reduced the time but they've made a change to one of the question types. Okay, so in the past, you would have taken first of all integrated one, task 1, 20 minute section you can notice that's exactly the same as the new version, no changes there. What's changed is with the second task.
Now that task is called an academic discussion task. Okay, we've got some videos that you can watch, some lessons on this new question type in Magoosh and it is a 10 minute question. Okay, that's down from the essay writing task you used to have to do where you'd respond to a question, right? That they used to give you 30 minutes to write a longer response.
Now you've got 10 minutes to write basically what is a discussion post in an academic forum. A professor asks you a question and you're supposed to respond to it in 10 minutes and respond to some other classmates, hypothetical classmates that have also responded to the question, okay? It's a brand new question type and it's quite a bit shorter.
Okay, so some new strategies you need there. But the basic skills of writing, and approaching test questions, and all of that are not really overhauled, they're not extremely different from what they used to be. Although you're going to definitely want to prepare specifically for this new question type, the academic discussion question type.
Okay, all right, so beyond that. We just want to let you know that Magoosh has you covered in all of this, right? We've got new lesson videos for that new writing question type okay, and we have new questions in the system as well, so when you're practicing for the new academic discussion, question type, you'll be able to do that within Magoosh. Okay, so all of those new materials are there for you.
Okay? Otherwise, just want to encourage you something that I've mentioned earlier in the video. If you've studied for the TOEFL already for the older version of the test, yes, you need to update your knowledge on the new writing task version but otherwise everything is basically the same, Okay?
The same skills, the same style of questions, the same format. So once you get that new writing question under your belt, you're going to be good to go and you definitely have not wasted any time in the prep you've done so far. All right, so that's the new version of the test. Good luck with your studies.
Read full transcriptThe changes are going to take place on July 26th, 2023, okay? And mostly these are changes related to, first of all, some new registration and scheduling experience processes. Okay, so if you have registered for the TOEFL in the past and received scores also from the TOEFL in the past, you're gonna notice a couple of differences. We'll talk a little bit about that.
But mostly we wanna focus in this video on the test content. There are some changes to the test content, and we will outline exactly what those are in this video. But again, many things have also stayed exactly the same, and we wanna understand what those things are as well. Okay, so first of all, what's the same?
So scoring is the same, all right. Now that means that the score is reported, okay, the overall numbers that go into reporting a particular score on the scales that TOEFL uses will not change, all right. Behind the scenes, they're going to be dealing with different numbers of questions to score.
But at least in terms of the score reports that are sent on your behalf and sent to you, those are gonna look the same. The listening section is exactly the same, except that there will be no experimental questions anymore. So sometimes on the TOEFL, well, all the time, they would give some questions that are actually not supposed to be scored.
They are simply testing new questions out on people who are taking their tests. TOEFL is gonna stop using that practice moving forward, none of the questions on the test are going to be there for experimental reasons, everything you take will be scored and that's a way that they're shortening the test overall. The speaking section is exactly the same, no changes there. Okay, and so one of the points that I wanna make in this video is, and I'll reiterate this later, if you spent time studying for the old version of the TOEFL, the pre-July 2023 version, you really haven't wasted your time.
Everything there, so many things, the things that you're looking at here in terms of like listening section and speaking section, are basically exactly the same and as we're gonna see in a moment even the changes to the reading and writing sections are not enormous, okay? There are some significant things to know but if you've been studying for the TOEFL so, Far, you haven't been wasting your time because so much of the test is gonna be exactly the same.
Let's look at what's gonna be different though, okay, first of all the test is going to be shorter and that's the main difference that you're gonna notice. If you've taken older versions before, that they have intentionally tried to cut out quite a bit from the test so that it's a shorter experience. The new test is gonna take two hours, whereas it used to be about three hours to take the full test.
So they've cut off an entire hour from the experience. They've done that by streamlining some of the instructions, okay? So if you go through you'll notice that some of your instructions are more streamlined, shorter, and more to the point in certain sections. There is a quicker writing task, okay? So there's a new writing task, we'll talk about that in a moment as well, it's called writing for an academic discussion, and that new task is only a ten-minute task.
It replaces one that was longer, 30 minutes. So that's quite a bit of time savings as well. There's also a shorter Reading section. The new reading section has 20 questions. Okay, so that's down quite a bit from the previous versions. And there's a removal as we talked about a moment ago of all unscored questions.
So these are the things they're implementing on the test to get the time needed down from 3 hours to a nice 2 hour experience moving forward. Okay, now let's dig into some of the details about some of the changes that I just mentioned specifically focusing on the reading and the writing sections. So in the old format of the test there used to be three or four reading passages. Okay, it would depend on your test that you were taking that day, how many you would receive.
But it'd always be three or four, and each of the sections had ten questions. Okay, so that section in the past took 54 to 72 minutes. Now you're only going to have two reading passages in your reading section, and those reading passages still have only ten questions each, so that means they've been able to cut down the time significantly. Now we're at 36 minutes for the reading section, which is quite a bit shorter than the former version.
For the writing section, they've also reduced the time but they've made a change to one of the question types. Okay, so in the past, you would have taken first of all integrated one, task 1, 20 minute section you can notice that's exactly the same as the new version, no changes there. What's changed is with the second task.
Now that task is called an academic discussion task. Okay, we've got some videos that you can watch, some lessons on this new question type in Magoosh and it is a 10 minute question. Okay, that's down from the essay writing task you used to have to do where you'd respond to a question, right? That they used to give you 30 minutes to write a longer response.
Now you've got 10 minutes to write basically what is a discussion post in an academic forum. A professor asks you a question and you're supposed to respond to it in 10 minutes and respond to some other classmates, hypothetical classmates that have also responded to the question, okay? It's a brand new question type and it's quite a bit shorter.
Okay, so some new strategies you need there. But the basic skills of writing, and approaching test questions, and all of that are not really overhauled, they're not extremely different from what they used to be. Although you're going to definitely want to prepare specifically for this new question type, the academic discussion question type.
Okay, all right, so beyond that. We just want to let you know that Magoosh has you covered in all of this, right? We've got new lesson videos for that new writing question type okay, and we have new questions in the system as well, so when you're practicing for the new academic discussion, question type, you'll be able to do that within Magoosh. Okay, so all of those new materials are there for you.
Okay? Otherwise, just want to encourage you something that I've mentioned earlier in the video. If you've studied for the TOEFL already for the older version of the test, yes, you need to update your knowledge on the new writing task version but otherwise everything is basically the same, Okay?
The same skills, the same style of questions, the same format. So once you get that new writing question under your belt, you're going to be good to go and you definitely have not wasted any time in the prep you've done so far. All right, so that's the new version of the test. Good luck with your studies.
Related Blog Posts
On July 26, 2023, the TOEFL became shorter. For more details about the changes, please see this article.
