What to study for the Duolingo English Test

Spend your time where the items are

The frequencies are published, so prioritising is arithmetic rather than guesswork:

1. Read and Select (15–18 items) — the single most frequent item. Decide which displayed words are real English and which are invented.
2. Fill in the Blanks (6–9) and Listen and Type (6–9) — the next tier, and both are mechanical enough to improve quickly.
3. Interactive Reading (2 × 6) and Interactive Listening (2 × 8–10) — long sets, so a good performance is worth a lot.
4. Read and Complete (3–6) — restoring words from partial letters.
5. Everything else appears once or in a single small set.

Read and Select: the rule that costs marks

Selecting an invented word is penalised. This is not a "choose everything that might be real" item — if you do not recognise a word, leave it.

• The fakes are morphologically plausible: a real prefix, a real suffix, a stem that does not exist.
• If you are constructing a meaning rather than recalling one, that is the signal it is fake. A word you know arrives with a meaning attached.
• Trust the first instant. Recognition is fast by nature and deliberating rarely converts a maybe correctly.
• Preparation is wide reading, not word lists — learning definitions builds exactly the reasoned, constructed knowledge these items catch out.

Listening and typing

• Listen and Type — dictation under an adaptive clock. Type what you caught; a partially correct sentence still earns. Spelling counts.
• Interactive Listening — a conversation where you choose how to respond and then summarise at the end. Track the *situation*, not the sentences: who wants what, what has been agreed.
• The summary is where the marks are. Two or three sentences in your own words about purpose and outcome beat a transcript.

Writing and speaking

• Write About the Photo (3 items) — a sentence or two describing an image. Be concrete and grammatical rather than ambitious.
• Speak About the Photo and Read, Then Speak — start immediately, keep going through any stumble, and do not restart.
• Interactive Speaking (6–8 questions) — a structured exchange; answer what was asked and add one detail.
• The Writing and Speaking Samples are unscored by the engine but sent to institutions. Treat them as part of the application.

The habits the engine rewards

• Answer and move. There is no going back, so dwelling costs you the next item as well.
• Do not read difficulty as failure. Hard questions usually mean you are being placed high.
• Never select what you do not recognise on the penalised items.
• Read widely in English, daily. It is the only thing that grows the recognition vocabulary the most frequent item tests.

A two-week shape

1. Days 1–3 — the official practice test, twice, to meet every question type and the interface.
2. Days 4–10 — one academic article a day, underlining every word you recognise but could not define. That set is exactly what Read and Select tests.
3. Days 4–10, also — ten minutes of dictation daily for Listen and Type.
4. Days 11–13 — recorded speaking practice, played back once for pace and continuity.
5. Day 14 — a full practice run at the time of day you intend to sit the real test.