Four question types, every one of them under a clock. Work through them at test speed with the answer keys closed, then open the keys and count what the clock cost you rather than what your English cost you.
On the real test these appear one at a time with five seconds each and no way back. Cover the key, work down the grid at that speed, and only then check. The invented words below are the kind the test actually uses: real endings on the wrong stems, and real words missing a letter.
Select the real English words. You have 5 seconds for each word.
Which of these are real English words
sunshine — real word
somether — not a word
designer — real word
unhappiment — not a word
obscure — real word
substancial — not a word
curriculum — real word
ambitionate — not a word
muffle — real word
beleive — not a word
medicine — real word
unclumb — not a word
shoal — real word
favoritte — not a word
fungi — real word
catchhy — not a word
skedaddle — real word
allowd — not a word
One sentence, one damaged word, twenty seconds. The letters you are given are always the start of the word, and the number of underscores is the number of letters missing. Grammar narrows the answer before meaning does: work out the part of speech first.
Type the missing letters to complete the word. You have 20 seconds for each sentence.
1. The museum is only op__ on weekends during the winter months.
2. She kept a detailed rec___ of every experiment she carried out in the laboratory.
3. The committee will cons____ the proposal again at its next meeting.
4. Heavy rain caused a serious de___ in the delivery of the equipment.
5. The results were surprising, alth____ nobody had expected such a large difference.
6. Students must sub___ their assignments before midnight on Friday.
Answer key
1. open
2. record
3. consider
4. delay
5. although
6. submit
Type the missing letters to complete the word. You have 20 seconds for each sentence.
1. The city council voted to pres____ the old railway station rather than demolish it.
2. It took several months to re____ the damage caused by the flood.
3. Her argument was clear, but the evidence she gave was not very conv______.
4. The train was cancelled, so we had to find an alter______ way of getting home.
5. Please comp____ the form and return it to the reception desk.
6. The company has a strict policy on the prot______ of customer data.
Answer key
1. preserve
2. repair
3. convincing
4. alternative
5. complete
6. protection
A short passage with several words cut in half. Read the whole thing before typing anything: the title and the first and last sentences are never damaged, so they hand you the topic for free. Damaged words are never adjacent, and never proper nouns or acronyms.
Type the missing letters to complete the text below. You have 3 minutes.
Coins have been used as a form of currency for thousands of years, dating back to anc____ civilizations like the Greeks, Romans, and Chinese. They were initially made from valu____ metals such as gold, silver, and bronze, and were used as a medium of exchange for goods and serv____. Over time, the composition and design of coins evol___ and became more sophisticated, refl______ the cultural and political changes of the societies that used them.
Answer key
1. ancient
2. valuable
3. services
4. evolved
5. reflecting
Type the missing letters to complete the text below. You have 3 minutes.
Anytime you have ever played a game, there has most likely been a set of rul__ that control how the game is played. The rules tell each play__ what he or she can and cannot do, so that the game is played fair__. Without them, one person could simply cla__ to have won, and nobody would be able to dis____ whether that claim was true.
Answer key
1. rules
2. player
3. fairly
4. claim
5. dispute
Six questions on one passage, in a fixed order, sharing a single seven or eight minute clock. The text is revealed to you in stages: you see the first half, then the second half, then the whole thing. Each question teaches you something you can use on the next one.
The full passage. On the real test you never see all of it at once until step three.
For most of the twentieth century, the sleeper train was the ordinary way to cross Europe. Then budget airlines arrived, and by 2010 most operators had cut their night services entirely: a bed on rails could not compete with a fare of thirty euros. The reversal, when it came, had little to do with nostalgia. Austrian Railways bought the sleeping cars that German Railways was selling off and ran them as a serious commercial business rather than a heritage curiosity, and the routes filled. Passengers who chose them talked less about romance than about arithmetic: a night on a train replaces both a flight and a hotel room, and the traveller wakes in the middle of a city rather than at an airport an hour outside it. Governments noticed something else. A sleeper carries a passenger between two capitals for a small fraction of the emissions of the equivalent flight, which makes it one of the very few transport policies that reduces emissions without asking anyone to travel less. The obstacles that remain are unglamorous. Rolling stock is expensive and takes years to build, track access charges are set by each country a train crosses, and a service that runs through four states needs four sets of permissions. Even so, the map of European night trains has grown every year since 2016, and it is now larger than it was when the airlines first arrived.
Step 1 of 6 — Select the correct word for each blank.
For most of the twentieth century, the sleeper train was the [ 1 ] way to cross Europe. Then budget airlines arrived, and by 2010 most operators had [ 2 ] their night services entirely: a bed on rails could not [ 3 ] with a fare of thirty euros. The [ 4 ], when it came, had little to do with nostalgia.
1. ordinary / ancient / forbidden / final
2. extended / cut / praised / counted
3. agree / arrive / compete / belong
4. delay / reversal / warning / purchase
Answer key
1. ordinary
2. cut
3. compete
4. reversal
Step 2 of 6 — Select the best sentence to fill the blank.
Austrian Railways bought the sleeping cars that German Railways was selling off and ran them as a serious commercial business rather than a heritage curiosity, and the routes filled. [ missing sentence ] A night on a train replaces both a flight and a hotel room, and the traveller wakes in the middle of a city rather than at an airport an hour outside it.
Answer key
. Passengers who chose them talked less about romance than about arithmetic.
Step 3 of 6 — Highlight the part of the text that answers the question.
According to the passage, why did governments become interested in night trains?
Find the answer in the passage above and highlight only the words that answer it. Partial credit is given for a highlight that overlaps the correct span.
Correct span
A sleeper carries a passenger between two capitals for a small fraction of the emissions of the equivalent flight
Step 4 of 6 — Highlight the part of the text that answers the question.
What practical difficulty does the passage give for running a train across several countries?
Find the answer in the passage above and highlight only the words that answer it. Partial credit is given for a highlight that overlaps the correct span.
Correct span
a service that runs through four states needs four sets of permissions
Step 5 of 6 — Select the sentence that best describes the main idea of the passage.
Answer key
. European night trains are returning because they make commercial, practical and environmental sense, despite real operational obstacles.
Step 6 of 6 — Select the best title for the passage.
Answer key
. Why the Night Train Came Back
Written by Kirill O'Nayd
English test expert and educator at TestSucceed, where he builds the Duolingo English Test practice tasks and mock tests and has spent years taking apart how computer-adaptive, AI-graded exams award their points. See all TestSucceed preparation materials.