The TOEFL test has four sections, each worth up to 30 points, with no pass or fail scores. Raw scores are converted to a 30-point scale, and institutions may require specific scores in each section.
To interpret your TOEFL results, you need to compare your actual scores with the highest possible scores and with the scores required by the educational institution, business, or government agency that requires your scores. There are four sections on the TOEFL, each worth up to 30 points, and the combined scores make up your total score. There are no pass or fail scores, but you must complete at least one question or essay from each section to receive official TOEFL scores.
The first scores on the TOEFL results are from the reading section of the test. This section has 36 to 70 tasks and questions, consisting of reading texts and answering questions. The listening section is similar and requires you to listen and answer questions. Both reading and listening often have academic topics as the subject, such as selections from a book or from classroom lessons.
Your raw score in each of these sections is the number of questions answered correctly. The raw score is converted to a 30-point scale. A score of 22 to 30 is considered a high score; 15 to 21 is intermediate; anything below 15 is low. A free service is offered by the Educational Testing Service (ETS) to match your reading score to a Lexile measure. A Lexile measure indicates the ability or level of your reading skills and can help you choose appropriate reading material in the future.
The speaking section contains six tasks, each of which are given a raw score of 0 to 4. Answers that are clear, with few pronunciation errors, are highly intelligible, and are spoken without excessive pausing or other vocal padding typically receive a score of 3 or 4. The combined raw scores of the six sections are converted into a 30-point scale. A score of 26-30 is considered good, 18-25 fair, 10-17 limited, and 0-9 poor.
In the writing section, there are two essays with a score of 0 to 5 points. Raw scores are combined and converted into a 0-30 point scale to compose the TOEFL results score. As with the spoken part, a score of 4 or 5 on the written part will be free, or nearly free, of grammatical errors, highly intelligible, and well organized. An answer that gets 0 or 1 will be almost unintelligible or completely off topic.
To fully understand your scores, look at the scores in each individual section. You may find that you have good or excellent scores in most sections, but are weak in another that affects your total score. Many institutions simply require a score higher than some cutoff point, such as a score of 100 or higher. Others may require specific scores in each section.
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