Reviewing practice and planning what's next

What this lesson teaches

Practice results only help when you read them correctly, find the cause of each miss, and let the biggest cause choose what you do next.

In this lesson you’ll read this course’s practice report and an official score report without reading too much into either, turn every miss into a log entry that names its cause, and write a two-week plan with real days in it.

Along the way you’ll practice the English of progress and goals: I’ve improved since Monday, from 3 of 5 to 5 of 5, fewer mistakes, On Tuesday, I’m going to ….

By the end of the lesson, you can

1. Describe progress and causes precisely: present perfect with for and since (I’ve practiced for two weeks), from … to … with numbers, fewer versus less, and past simple + because for the cause of a miss.
2. Write goals as concrete actions with a time (On Monday I’ll …, By Friday I’m going to …), and read report words exactly: answered, not answered, rubric review, band, overall, minimum.
3. Read a practice report and an official report correctly, log each miss by its cause, and choose your next practice from the biggest cause.

What’s inside

This orientation lesson is a brief, three teaching cycles with drills, and a debrief. How every course lesson is built.

Inside this lesson

Two reports that answer different questions

The course’s practice report lists what happened to each answer on one set, and the official ETS report gives bands from 1 to 6 in half steps. The lesson teaches you to read the practice report by status before looking at any percentage. Incorrect points to a skill or a trap, Not answered usually points to time, and Rubric review marks a writing or speaking response saved for you to compare with the model, with no automatic score.

A full glossary table explains every term on both reports, including the answer map and its filters, the overall band, and the comparable 0–120 score shown during the transition that began in January 2026. Because official Reading and Listening scoring weighs question difficulty, the lesson is firm that 80% on a practice set does not translate into a band or an old-scale score.

Writing a cause, not a feeling

The error-log cycle replaces symptom words such as “careless” or “rushed” with a five-part entry: the task and question, what you chose, what the evidence actually said, the cause named with a course tag, and the lesson that teaches the fix. The grammar is the past simple with because for a finished event, as in I chose B because it repeated the passage’s words.

A tag table gives the names shared across every debrief, including word-match trap, condition dropped, number slip, missed change, sound-alike trap, extra tile used, missed requirement, indirect start and not answered. In a worked example, a one-word note about a shuttle timetable becomes a precise number-slip entry that points to the announcements lesson on numbers and changes.

A two-week plan with real days in it

The last cycle covers the English of goals and progress. Plan lines combine will or be going to with an action, a practice type and on + a day or by + a deadline. Progress lines use the present perfect with for + a length of time or since + a starting point, from … to … for changing numbers, and fewer versus less.

You then build a plan from a tally of causes. The largest group goes first as targeted practice, mixed sets keep other tasks fresh once or twice a week, writing and speaking go on fixed days, and a full practice test comes at the end, followed by a fresh log. If the plan worked, the next tally shows fewer entries under the tag you targeted.

More in Finish strong

1. Pacing and test day
2. Reviewing practice and planning what's next (this lesson)

For the structure of the test itself, see the TOEFL format guide.