TOEFL Listen and Repeat practice
In the TOEFL iBT Listen and Repeat task you hear seven short sentences set on a campus or in a class, and you say each one back exactly as you heard it, with the sentences getting longer as you go. You can practise the same skill free in Sada with real sentences from recorded talks, said after the speaker, recorded and played beside the original. Sada shows which of your words it recognised and compares your timing; it does not grade individual sounds and its result is not a TOEFL score.
Practise one sentence now
The exercise opens on one line from Angela Lee Duckworth’s talk at 0:31: “I gave out homework assignments.” Listen to the whole sentence, then say it back in the pause after it. Record your take and open Compare to play it beside the original. No account is needed, and recordings stay on your device.
Seven sentences from school and college, short to long
These school and college lines come from separate talks, not one campus scenario or a timed TOEFL simulation. Listen first, look away from the caption and repeat. Hold the action and its details in order; in Compare, check whether the ending survived as the lines got longer.
These are practice excerpts from talks, not a complete test or official test questions. Word recognition is not an exam score. Listen to your take before deciding a word was missing.
After Compare, retry the same line with one change. Return to this page with your browser’s Back button (from Compare, go back until this guide returns), then choose the next sentence. The numbers show the practice order, not saved progress or exam difficulty levels.
Practice line 1 of 7
Classroom actions
2.0 seconds of source audio
“I gave out homework assignments.”
Angela Lee Duckworth · 0:31 · Practise this line →
Five words. Keep “gave out” linked, and say the S at the end of “assignments”.
Repeat again without looking at the caption: keep the ending “out homework assignments.” in order. In Compare, listen for it in your recording before deciding what to retry.
Next sentence — line 2: And like any teacher, I made quizzes and tests.
Practice line 2 of 7
Classroom actions
2.9 seconds of source audio
“And like any teacher, I made quizzes and tests.”
Angela Lee Duckworth · 0:28 · Practise this line →
Two plurals that are easy to drop: “quizzes” has an extra syllable, “tests” ends in two sounds.
Repeat again without looking at the caption: keep the ending “quizzes and tests.” in order. In Compare, listen for it in your recording before deciding what to retry.
Next sentence — line 3: When I got to law school, I didn't do very well.
Practice line 3 of 7
Longer school and college accounts
3.6 seconds of source audio
“When I got to law school, I didn't do very well.”
Dan Pink · 0:50 · Practise this line →
Two halves with a pause at the comma. “Didn’t do” is quick; “very well” carries the stress.
Repeat again without looking at the caption: keep the ending “do very well.” in order. In Compare, listen for it in your recording before deciding what to retry.
Next sentence — line 4: I went to teach seventh graders math in the New York City public schools.
Practice line 4 of 7
Longer school and college accounts
4.4 seconds of source audio
“I went to teach seventh graders math in the New York City public schools.”
Angela Lee Duckworth · 0:23 · Practise this line →
Fourteen words. Hold it as three chunks: “I went to teach”, “seventh graders math”, “in the New York City public schools”.
Repeat again without looking at the caption: keep the ending “City public schools.” in order. In Compare, listen for it in your recording before deciding what to retry.
Next sentence — line 5: Seven years ago, a student came to me and asked me to invest in his company.
Practice line 5 of 7
Longer school and college accounts
4.4 seconds of source audio
“Seven years ago, a student came to me and asked me to invest in his company.”
Adam Grant · 0:13 · Practise this line →
A short story in one sentence. Keep the order of events: came to me, asked me, to invest.
Repeat again without looking at the caption: keep the ending “in his company.” in order. In Compare, listen for it in your recording before deciding what to retry.
Practice line 6 of 7
Keep the explanation and contrast
6.8 seconds of source audio
“So in college, I was a government major, which means I had to write a lot of papers.”
Tim Urban · 0:12 · Practise this line →
Eighteen words, said quickly. Do not stop after “major”: “which means” joins the second half.
Repeat again without looking at the caption: keep the ending “lot of papers.” in order. In Compare, listen for it in your recording before deciding what to retry.
Practice line 7 of 7
Keep the explanation and contrast
7.7 seconds of source audio
“What struck me was that IQ was not the only difference between my best and my worst students.”
Angela Lee Duckworth · 0:36 · Practise this line →
Eighteen words too. Its meaning is in the contrast between “my best and my worst students”; keep both.
Repeat again without looking at the caption: keep the ending “my worst students.” in order. In Compare, listen for it in your recording before deciding what to retry.
End of this set. Try the first line again and listen for the one thing you changed. Play your first take and your newest take in Compare’s “First try vs now”.
Key facts
- Any captioned YouTube video
- No extension, works on phone and computer
- No account needed to practise; a free, optional account keeps your history on every device
- Free, no paid plan
- Recordings stay on your device
- Repeat and Shadow modes
- Word recognition and timing feedback (not per-sound grading)
How the task works
According to ETS’s description of the Speaking section and its 2026 test specifications and task overview, checked on 11 October 2026:
| Part of the task | In the test |
|---|---|
| Sentences | Seven, within one scenario set in an academic or campus situation |
| What you do | Listen to each sentence, then repeat exactly what was said after a pause |
| Length | The sentences get progressively longer and more complex |
| Time to answer | At most 8 to 12 seconds to record each response |
| What it measures | Processing spoken English and producing speech that is accurate and clearly intelligible |
Sada is not connected with ETS. Its lines are not test items, and the words it recognised are not a TOEFL score and do not predict one. For the real format, use ETS’s official practice materials.
How each sentence is scored
ETS’s Speaking Scoring Guide rates each Listen and Repeat response from 0 to 5. The top score is for a word-for-word repeat: “The response exactly repeats the prompt.” A 4 means “The response captures the meaning expressed in the prompt, but it is not an exact repetition.” Further down, a 2 means “The response is missing a significant part of the prompt and/or is highly inaccurate.” A 0 is no response, or speech that cannot be understood.
So a dropped small word, a changed ending or a swapped word costs points even when the meaning survives, and stopping halfway through a long sentence costs more. Those are the slips Compare shows you: a word you dropped or changed is marked as not recognised. Sada does not apply ETS’s scale, and its result is not a TOEFL score.
What Sada can and cannot tell you
After each take, Compare marks the words it recognised and the ones it missed, so a word you dropped shows at once, even when you did not hear yourself drop it. In After the speaker mode it also gives your pace against the speaker’s, for example “20% slower than the speaker”, so you can tell whether you stopped in the middle of the sentence.
It does not grade individual sounds, stress or intonation. A missed word can come from noise or a distant microphone, so play your take before judging it.
How to practise each sentence
- Listen once, without speaking. Hear the whole sentence before you try it, as in the test.
- Say it back in the pause. Look away from the caption, so you repeat from memory and not by reading.
- Record and compare. Play your take beside the original and look at the words Sada did not recognise.
- Fix one thing and record again. Usually a dropped small word or ending, or a stop in the middle of a chunk.
- Move to a longer line. When a long line is hard to remember, split it into chunks of three to five words and hold them in order.
For a short session, try two or three lines, each followed by listening to your take and retrying one phrase. Then play your first take and your newest one in Compare’s “First try vs now”.
Why remembering a long sentence is hard, and what helps
Most learners lose the end of a long sentence because they try to hold it word by word. Native listeners hold it as a few meaningful chunks. Practise hearing those chunks: in the lines above, notice where the speaker pauses, and repeat each chunk in one breath. For more on chunks, linking and keeping up with natural speed, see how to speak English fluently without hesitation.
Keep going
More real lines to repeat, from short to long: listen and repeat practice. If you grew up speaking an Indian language, the sounds and rhythms that can change a word are in English pronunciation for Indian speakers. Preparing for IELTS instead? See shadowing for IELTS Speaking; for PTE Academic, see PTE Repeat Sentence practice. To understand Compare in detail, read about the pronunciation checker. Which other tests have a repeat or read-aloud task, and which have none: speaking tests with a repeat task.
Questions people ask
How many sentences are there, and how long are they?
ETS describes seven sentences within one academic or campus scenario. They get longer and more complex, and you have at most 8 to 12 seconds to record each response. The ETS pages we read give no word count; the practice lines on this page run from 5 to 18 words.
How can I practise TOEFL Listen and Repeat for free?
Repeat real English sentences from short to long, out loud, and record yourself so you can hear what you dropped. In Sada each line on this page opens in After the speaker mode, and Compare shows which of your words were recognised. It is free and needs no account.
How is TOEFL Listen and Repeat scored?
ETS’s Speaking Scoring Guide rates each response from 0 to 5. A 5 exactly repeats the sentence; a 4 keeps its meaning but is not an exact repetition; lower scores miss a significant part or cannot be understood. Sada is not connected with ETS and does not give a TOEFL score: it shows which of your words it recognised and your timing against the speaker.
Should I read the sentence while I repeat it?
Only at first. The task gives you no text, so practise saying each line without looking at the caption.
What if I cannot remember a long sentence?
Split it into chunks of a few words and hold the chunks, not the single words. Start with the shorter lines on this page and move up one line at a time.
Is it free?
Yes. Sada is free, with no account and no paid plan, and works in the browser on a phone or a computer. Recordings stay on your device.
Practise again tomorrow? Get one short sentence a day, ready to record in one tap.
You don't need to speak fast.
A slow line to begin with: listen to how “don’t need to” runs together, then say it at the speaker’s pace.
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