TOEFL 2026 practiceComplete the Words
Fill in the missing letters in a short paragraph. 145 passages in the bank.
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TOEFL Complete the Words Practice
Complete the Words gives you a short academic paragraph in which the second half of ten words has been removed, and you type the missing letters back in with no answer choices to lean on. Roughly half of the missing words are ordinary function words rather than difficult vocabulary, and every blank is scored on an exact spelling match with no partial credit, so a single wrong letter counts the same as leaving it blank. This practice mode gives you a fresh passage each time with the same ten-blank format, and scores every word the moment you submit so you can see exactly which endings and spellings need work. It is the largest single item type on the TOEFL 2026 Reading section by question count, so consistent practice here moves your Reading band more than any other single task.
Strategy tips
- 1Half the blanks are ordinary words like 'the' or 'that': fill those first and bank the points before the hard ones.
- 2Decide the part of speech before you look at the letters; grammar fixes the ending more often than meaning does.
- 3A right word in the wrong form (studying for studied) scores zero, so check the word ending before you move on.
- 4The first sentence never has a blank, so read it twice: it sets the topic that resolves the ambiguous gaps later.
Questions
How many Complete the Words questions are on the TOEFL 2026?
The ETS blueprint lists 30 Complete the Words items in the Reading section, out of 50 Reading items in total. Each paragraph carries exactly 10 incomplete words, so you can expect roughly three paragraphs across the section. That makes it the largest single item type in Reading by count.
Does spelling count on TOEFL Complete the Words?
Yes, and it is unforgiving. Each blank is machine scored on an exact match with no partial credit, so one wrong letter scores the same as an empty box. American spellings are the ones to default to.
How much of each word do you see?
Roughly the first half. The first sentence of the paragraph is left intact, and from the second sentence onward the second half of every second word is removed. The number of underscores or letter boxes tells you how many letters are missing.
How long should I spend on one Complete the Words paragraph?
Published estimates range from about 70 seconds to 3 minutes per paragraph. Budget around two minutes, which fits the section's 50 items in roughly 30 minutes of base time, and never let a single blank eat more than about eight seconds.
What is the best way to study for Complete the Words?
Not by memorizing rare academic vocabulary. Because the words removed are chosen by position rather than difficulty, about half the blanks are common words and word endings, so the most useful practice is drilling suffixes and spelling plus building your own C-test paragraphs from texts you have already read.