TOEFL 2026 Listening – Four New Tasks and Preparation Strategies

Marta spent two months practicing note-taking during five-minute lectures. She had a system – abbreviations, arrows, color-coding for main ideas and details. When she sat down for the new TOEFL in February 2026, she started the recording and waited for a lecture. Instead, she heard a single sentence – a short question from a professor to a student – and had to choose the best response. No notes. No five-minute monologues. Her entire strategy was obsolete.

This isn’t an anecdote made up for the article – it’s a real scenario faced by students preparing for the TOEFL 2026 Listening section. ETS (Educational Testing Service) has completely redesigned the Listening section. Instead of long academic lectures and meticulous note-taking, the new format emphasizes quick comprehension, contextual response, and adaptive difficulty. Audio clips range from a single sentence to a maximum of 250 words – a revolution compared to the old TOEFL, where a single lecture could last 5-7 minutes.

In this guide, we break down the new Listening section. You’ll learn about the four new task types, how the adaptive testing format works, where test-takers often lose the most points – and how to prepare for a section that demands a completely different approach than the old TOEFL. If you’re planning to study in the UK, the Netherlands, or at universities requiring a language certificate, this article is for you.

Listen and Choose a Response – The Newest Challenge

Let’s start with a task that didn’t exist in any previous version of the TOEFL. Listen and Choose a Response is a type where you hear a single sentence – a question, request, comment, or statement spoken by one person – and you must choose the best response from the given options. Sounds simple? On paper, yes. In practice, it’s one of the most challenging tasks for many test-takers.

Why? Because this task tests something that can’t be learned from a textbook – pragmatic language understanding. It’s not about whether you understand the words. It’s about whether you understand the intention, tone, and social context. When a professor says, “I was hoping you could stop by my office” – it’s not an expression of hope. It’s a directive. When a student asks, “Do you think the library has extended hours during finals?” – it’s not always about opening hours. Sometimes it’s a request to confirm information they already know.

Non-native English speakers, even those with good English, tend to interpret statements literally. In many languages, “Could you close the window?” is a polite request – and it is in English too. But the nuances of pragmatics go further. “That paper isn’t going to write itself” isn’t a comment on the essay’s autonomy – it’s motivation to work. The new TOEFL tests precisely these kinds of situations.

What do these tasks look like?

Typical scenario: you hear a one-sentence statement in an academic or campus context. For example:

• A professor to a student after class: “I noticed you haven’t signed up for a lab section yet.”
• A student to a librarian: “I’m looking for the reserve readings for Professor Kim’s class.”
• An administrative staff member: “The deadline for course changes was actually yesterday.”

After each recording, you’ll see 3–4 response options. Your task is to choose the one that best fits as a natural, appropriate reaction – not literal, not grammatically correct, but pragmatically accurate.

Strategies for Listen and Choose a Response

Focus on tone, not just words. Before you start analyzing the content, pay attention to the intonation. Is the person asking, requesting, suggesting, or criticizing? Tone in English carries a huge amount of information – rising intonation at the end of a declarative sentence can indicate surprise or disbelief.

Eliminate overly formal or overly casual responses. The TOEFL tests an academic context – the response should fit a student-professor or student-administrator conversation. “Yeah, whatever” is too casual. “I would be delighted to comply with your suggestion” is too formal. Look for the happy medium.

Practice with podcasts and TV shows. This is the only TOEFL task type that cannot be mastered by reading. You need to listen to natural English – BBC Radio 4, NPR, academic podcasts, and even sitcoms set in universities. On platforms like prepclass.io, you’ll find dedicated pragmatics exercises that simulate this exact format.

Don’t overthink it. These tasks are fast – you’ll hear the sentence once and must respond. There’s no replay. Your first intuition, based on thousands of hours of exposure to English, is usually better than overanalysis.

Listen to a Conversation – Campus Dialogue

If the old TOEFL had conversations between students and professors, the new TOEFL has them too – but in a condensed form. Listen to a Conversation is a dialogue consisting of approximately 10 turns between two people. Scenarios are always set in a campus context: a student talks to a professor about a term paper, to a librarian about access to materials, or to a dorm staff member about changing rooms.

Crucially, these conversations are not artificial. ETS has moved away from sterile, textbook dialogues in favor of natural conversations with hesitations, mid-sentence pauses, and topic shifts. You’ll hear “um,” “well,” “actually,” “the thing is” – all those fillers that carry information in real English. “Well…” at the beginning of a professor’s response often signals that they’re about to say something the student doesn’t want to hear. “Actually…” indicates a correction of a previous assumption.

Question Types for Conversations

After each conversation, you’ll get a few multiple-choice questions. Recurring question types include:

Main idea – “What is the conversation mainly about?” This question tests whether you grasped the main topic, not individual details. The trap: answer options often include topics that appeared in the conversation but were not its main subject. A student might have mentioned their schedule, but the conversation was about changing the topic of their term paper.

Detail questions – “According to the professor, what is required before submitting the revised draft?” Here you need to recall specific information. Without notes. This is where the new TOEFL’s short recordings are paradoxically easier – you have less information to remember, but you must do it on the first listen.

Speaker attitude / inference – “What does the student imply when she says…?” Here we return to pragmatics. It’s not about what the person said, but what they meant. “I guess I could try that approach” could mean enthusiasm or skepticism – it depends on the tone.

Strategies for Conversations

A key strategy is: listen most carefully to the beginning and end of the conversation. The beginning establishes the topic (main idea). The end establishes the solution or action plan – and these are often what’s asked about. The middle of the conversation provides details, but rarely contains the answer to a main idea question.

Pay attention to discourse markers: “What I’d suggest is…”, “The thing you need to know is…”, “Let me explain why…”. These phrases are signposts – key information follows them. Test-takers, accustomed to their native conversational patterns, might miss these signals because a phrase like “powiedzmy, że…” (let’s say that…) in Polish doesn’t carry the same weight as “What I’d suggest is…” in English.

Practice with materials where dialogues are structured in a format identical to the new TOEFL – 10 turns, natural language, questions about speakers’ intentions and attitudes.

Listen to an Announcement – Information Requiring Action

This is a completely new task type that wasn’t on the old TOEFL. Listen to an Announcement is a short announcement – the kind you’d hear on campus, before a lecture, or in a dorm. A professor informs about an exam date change. A library staff member announces a change in opening hours. A course coordinator explains new rules for submitting assignments.

Why did ETS add this type? Because listening to announcements is one of the most practical language skills for an international student. When you land on a campus in Edinburgh or Amsterdam, your ability to pick out key information from quickly spoken announcements will determine whether you miss a deadline or not.

What do Announcement Questions Test?

Questions concentrate on three areas:

Purpose of the announcement – “What is the purpose of the announcement?” Here it’s not about the content, but the intention. An announcement about a lecture hall change has a different purpose than an announcement about a new research project – even if both start with “I have an important update.”

Key details – dates, locations, room numbers, times. This is information you must catch on the first listen. You won’t be able to replay it. ETS tests whether you can pick out “Room 204B” in the stream of speech when the speaker pronounces it quickly and without emphasis.

Required action – “What does the speaker want students to do?” This is a crucial question. Announcements almost always end with an instruction – “Make sure to…” or “Don’t forget to…” or “You’ll need to…”. This part of the announcement is the most important and most frequently appears in questions.

Strategies for Announcements

Listen most carefully to the end. In announcements, information about the required action appears at the end – just like in real life. A professor might talk about the reasons for a change, but the crucial “submit your papers to the new portal by Friday” will be in the last sentence.

Remember numbers and names. Announcements are short, so there aren’t many details to remember. But those that do appear – room number, date, time – are almost guaranteed to be in the questions. Develop a mental “filter”: when you hear a number or a proper noun, consciously register it.

Recognize the type of announcement in the first few seconds. Is it a logistical change (room, deadline)? A new policy (assignment submission rules)? An event (seminar, guest lecture)? The type of announcement tells you what to pay attention to.

Listen to an Academic Talk – A Short Lecture After the Revolution

This task, at first glance, looks like the old TOEFL Listening – but it is fundamentally different. Listen to an Academic Talk is a short lecture lasting 100–250 words. Compare this to the old TOEFL, where lectures were 500–800 words and lasted 4–6 minutes. The new format is not so much a lecture as a lecture fragment – one point, one thesis, a few explanatory sentences.

Topics include natural sciences (biology, chemistry, earth physics), social sciences (psychology, economics, sociology), humanities (art history, philosophy, literature), and arts (music, architecture). You don’t need specialized knowledge – the lecture provides all the information necessary to answer the questions.

How Does Academic Talk Differ from the Old Lecture Format?

The differences are dramatic and require a completely different approach:

On the old TOEFL, you had to manage information – take notes, filter, organize. A lecture might have had 3 main points, 6 examples, and a conclusion. Now? An Academic Talk has one thesis and one elaboration. It’s like reading a single paragraph instead of an entire chapter.

On the old TOEFL, you could replay a segment (replay questions). On the new one – there is no replay. You hear the recording once. But because it’s short, it’s paradoxically easier to remember key information.

On the old TOEFL, you took notes. On the new one – you do not take notes. This means your working memory needs to be active for 60–90 seconds, not 5 minutes. This is easier for the brain but requires intense concentration for a short period.

Strategies for Academic Talks

Listen for the thesis in the first few sentences. In short lectures (100–250 words), the speaker doesn’t have time for an elaborate introduction. The thesis appears in the first 2–3 sentences – “Today I want to talk about…”, “What’s interesting about this phenomenon is…”, “Recent research has shown that…”. If you catch the thesis, you have the foundation to answer most questions.

Look for contrast. Short academic talks on the TOEFL are often built on contrast – “Scientists used to think X, but recent evidence suggests Y.” Questions almost always relate to that second part (Y), because it carries the new information.

Don’t try to remember everything. 250 words is a lot of information to hear once. Focus on: (1) what the topic is, (2) what the main thesis is, (3) what one key example or piece of evidence is. These three elements will cover 90% of the questions.

Are you preparing for TOEFL and other exams simultaneously? Check out how the Listening section fits into the entire new TOEFL 2026 format and how it compares to IELTS Listening.

The Adaptive System – How TOEFL Adjusts Difficulty

The new TOEFL Listening uses a multi-stage adaptive testing format – similar in concept to what College Board introduced for the SAT exam. Instead of a single set of questions of fixed difficulty, the test is divided into modules, and the difficulty of the second module depends on your performance in the first.

What does this mean in practice? You start with a module of varied difficulty – easy, medium, and difficult questions. The ETS algorithm assesses your level based on the correctness of your answers. If you perform well, the second module is more challenging – but you receive more points for harder questions, which raises your potential score ceiling. If you perform poorly, the second module is easier, but your maximum score is limited.

For test-takers, this has specific strategic consequences. You cannot afford a “warm-up” – the first module determines the score range available to you. Every answer in Module 1 carries weight because it influences the routing. This doesn’t mean you have to answer everything correctly – but a series of early mistakes can push you onto an easier path, from which it’s difficult to recover.

The adaptive system also has an advantage: the test is shorter and more precise. Instead of 57 minutes on questions, many of which are too easy or too difficult for your level, you get questions tailored to your actual ability. This is less frustrating and fairer – but it requires full concentration from the very first question.

An important technical note: you cannot return to questions from a previous module once you’ve moved on to the next. Within a single module, you can mark questions for review and return to them, but after clicking “Next Module” – the decision is final.

Preparation Plan – From Foundations to Score

Preparing for TOEFL 2026 Listening requires a different approach than preparing for the old version of the exam. It’s no longer about building endurance for long lectures – it’s about reaction speed, pragmatic understanding, and the ability to process short, dense audio fragments.

Foundation: Daily Exposure to English (Months 1–2)

Before you start strictly exam-focused exercises, you need a foundation of listening comprehension. This is not a stage you can skip – even if your English is at a B2 level. The new TOEFL Listening tests natural speech pace, informal phrases, and pragmatics – things you won’t learn from a textbook.

What to do daily? A minimum of 30 minutes of English audio: podcasts (e.g., BBC Global News, TED Talks Daily, The Moth – the latter is great for practicing narrative comprehension), YouTube (academic channels like CrashCourse, Veritasium, 3Blue1Brown), movies, and TV series without subtitles. Key: do not read transcripts. Your brain needs to learn to process sound, not text.

Format Practice Phase (Months 3–6)

Here you start working with materials tailored to the new TOEFL. Platforms like prepclass.io offer exercises for each of the four task types – Listen and Choose a Response, Conversation, Announcement, and Academic Talk. Key principles:

Practice without notes. From the very beginning. Don’t take “side” notes, don’t pause recordings. Recreate exam conditions from day one. Your working memory will adapt – but it needs time.

Analyze mistakes. After each practice session, review the questions you answered incorrectly. It’s not enough to read the correct answer – you need to understand why your answer was wrong. Did you miss a detail? Interpret literally? Fail to catch the tone?

Mix task types. Don’t spend the entire day practicing only Conversations. On the actual exam, task types are mixed – your brain needs to be able to switch between modes (quick response → longer dialogue → announcement → lecture).

Practice Test Phase (Months 7–8)

The last two months before the exam are for full practice tests under exam conditions. Not just the Listening section – the entire TOEFL, because sections influence each other (fatigue after Reading and Listening impacts Speaking and Writing). Complete a minimum of 2 full practice tests per week.

After each test: analyze. How many points for each task type? Where are you losing the most? Is there a recurring pattern? If you consistently lose points on Listen and Choose a Response – you need more pragmatics practice. If on Academic Talks – work on quickly identifying the thesis.

Compare your TOEFL scores with university requirements – check what TOEFL score you need for studies in Europe and how TOEFL compares to IELTS.

Tools and Resources

Preparing for TOEFL 2026 Listening requires appropriate materials – absolutely do not use old ETS materials with 5-minute lectures. Here’s what works:

prepclass.io – a dedicated platform for new TOEFL preparation with all 4 task types in a format identical to the exam. Adaptive exercises, detailed explanations, progress tracking. This is the number one tool.

ETS TOEFL Practice – official materials from the exam creators. Always start with an official diagnostic test to establish a baseline. ETS materials are the closest to the real exam in terms of difficulty level and question style.

BBC Learning English – free materials for building a listening comprehension foundation. The “6 Minute English” series is ideal for practicing short audio forms. “The English We Speak” teaches idioms and colloquialisms that appear in Listen and Choose a Response.

TED Talks – short lectures (5–18 minutes), but you can use fragments of them as Academic Talk exercises. Listen to the first minute of a lecture, stop, and answer: what is the thesis? What example did the speaker provide?

Wondering how the Listening section fits into the entire exam? Read our guides to the other sections: TOEFL 2026 Reading, TOEFL 2026 Speaking, and TOEFL 2026 Writing. And if you’re planning for the SAT besides TOEFL, practice on okiro.io – a platform created by College Council specifically for the Digital SAT.

Summary – The New Listening Requires a New Approach

TOEFL 2026 Listening is a fundamentally different exam from what you might know from preparation materials of a few years ago. Instead of a marathon of 5-minute lectures with notes, you have a sprint of short recordings with no replay and no notes. The four new task types – Listen and Choose a Response, Conversation, Announcement, and Academic Talk – test various aspects of spoken English comprehension, from pragmatics and detail understanding to the ability to grasp the main thesis from a short lecture.

For test-takers, this is both good and bad news. Good: you don’t need to build endurance for long listening passages – recordings are short and concise. Bad: you must react quickly, understand pragmatics, and cope without notes. These are skills built through systematic exposure to natural English – not by memorizing “exam tricks.”

Next Steps

1. Take a diagnostic test – using ETS materials or on prepclass.io, to understand your starting point in the new format
2. Assess your weak points – are you losing points on pragmatics (Listen and Choose), details (Announcements), or main ideas (Academic Talks)?
3. Plan 8 weeks of preparation – following the plan in this article, with daily 30–45-minute sessions
4. Practice without notes from day one – don’t build a habit you’ll have to unlearn
5. Read the guides for the other sections – Reading, Speaking, Writing
6. Check out the complete guide to TOEFL 2026 – to understand how Listening fits into the entire exam
7. Compare options – if you’re unsure whether TOEFL is better for you than IELTS, read our TOEFL vs IELTS comparison

Start preparing today – and remember that the new TOEFL rewards those who listen daily, not those who marathon practice once a week. Consistency beats intensity. Good luck.