Free interactive practice
In Read and Complete, some words in a short passage lose their second half. Type the missing letters, one per box, before the clock runs out. Practice four real-format passages below and check your answers instantly. Built to the official 2026 Duolingo English Test format.
Read and Complete is one of the reading question types on the Duolingo English Test (DET). You see a short passage of about four to six sentences in which the second half of several words has been removed. Your job is to type the missing letters to rebuild each word. According to Duolingo's official DET guide, this type appears three to six times on the test, you have roughly three minutes per passage, only American spelling is accepted, and it feeds your Reading and Literacy subscores. The examples below follow that official 2026 format.
You are given the first half of each word (rounded down) and you supply the rest, one letter per box. So "country" appears as c o u followed by four empty boxes, and you type n t r y. The word "moved" appears as m o plus three boxes ("ved"), and "everything" appears as e v e r y plus five boxes ("thing"). The number of boxes tells you exactly how many letters are missing.
1. Read the entire sentence first. The missing word is almost always fixed by the words around it, so meaning beats guessing letters. 2. Watch the grammar. The part of speech (noun, verb, adjective) usually narrows the word to a single answer. 3. Use American spelling. British forms like "colour" and "centre" are marked wrong here, so train on "color" and "center".
The Duolingo English Test combines several question types. To prepare well, practice all of them:
For a comparison of the DET with the TOEFL, including which universities accept each, see our TOEFL vs DET 2026 comparison. To understand TOEFL scoring, see the TOEFL 2026 score guide. And to practice the TOEFL itself, visit the free TOEFL practice test.
If you want an expert to help you prepare, Epic Exam Prep has prepared students for English proficiency exams since 2010.
Read and Complete presents an academic paragraph where several words are missing their second half. The first letters of each word are shown, and you type the remaining letters. Each passage has a 3-minute timer. The task measures vocabulary, spelling, and reading comprehension in context. Only American English spelling is accepted.
The Duolingo English Test typically includes 3 to 6 Read and Complete passages, each taking about 3 minutes. The exact number depends on the adaptive routing of your specific test.
American spelling only. If you type the British spelling of a word, it is marked wrong. For example, type recognize, not recognise. Practice with American spelling before test day.