What are the Different Types of TOEIC® Questions?

The TOEIC® is an acronym for Test Of English for International Communication, which is an examination used to evaluate the overall English-language skills of non-native speakers for corporate or business purposes. This is used to measure the English-communication level of test takers in the workplace. The Educational Testing Service (ETS), a United States-based non-profit organization that serves as the developer and administrator, creates the TOEIC® questions, which cover a vast array of subject areas, including finance, health, office management, manufacturing, entertainment, travel and dining. The nature of the TOEIC® questions are determined by the two major types of the test: the Listening & Reading Test and the Speaking & Writing Test.

There are 200 TOEIC® multiple-choice questions in the Listening & Reading Test, which measure English listening and reading comprehension. These are evenly divided into two 100-question sections, which correspond with the "listening" and "reading" parts of the test. The listening phase, which is timed for 45 minutes, consists of four parts called photographs, question-response, conversations and short talks. This section requires test takers to answer the questions based on the recorded conversations they listen to.

The second batch of TOEIC® questions that comprise the reading phase is timed for 75 minutes. This is split into three parts: incomplete sentences, error recognition or text completion and reading comprehension. In this section, test takers answer questions by reading the materials provided them. A section of approximately 30 minutes is added to the Listening & Reading Test to answer questions of a biographical nature.

There are fewer questions in the Speaking & Writing Test section. The speaking part has 11 questions, while the writing part has eight. Unlike the multiple-choice format of the Listening & Writing Test, these TOEIC® questions are open-ended. They involve tasks such as describing the details of a picture, answering questions as an interviewee, solving problems in the workplace and giving business-related opinions. The speaking section usually offers 20 minutes of allotted time, while the writing section provides an hour for completion.

The Listening & Reading Test's TOEIC® questions are scored on a scale of 10 to 990 points. The resulting certificate is awarded in any of the five colored tiers: gold (860-990), blue (730-855), green (470-725), brown (220-465) or orange (10-215). Each part of the Speaking & Writing Test has a 0-to-200 scoring range, with eight tiers of demonstrated English proficiency.