Thirty-nine questions in sixty minutes — ninety-two seconds each
The reading paper looks like the gentlest of the four and quietly costs candidates the most points. The texts get longer and the questions get subtler exactly as your remaining time runs out.
- Questions
- 39
- Total time
- 60 min
- Per question, on average
- 92 s
- Score range
- 342 - 699
A pacing exam wearing a comprehension exam's clothes
Sixty minutes across thirty-nine questions averages ninety-two seconds each, but the paper is not flat. The first fifteen questions can be answered in half a minute; the last ten need three or four minutes each, because the texts are long and the questions turn on implication rather than fact.
Candidates who run out of time almost always spent it at the front. Banking minutes on the easy questions is the whole strategy, and it is only learnable by sitting full-length papers with the clock running.
- Full-length papers, in the exam's order of rising difficulty.
- Practice mode marks as you go; test mode marks only at hand-in.
- Every answer explained, including the distractor that made the wrong one look right.
How the paper is built
From a two-line notice to a full opinion article, with the question types changing as the texts grow.
39
Questions
60 min
Total time
- Early questions are literal: the answer is a phrase you can point to in the text.
- Later ones are inferential — tone, intention, and what the writer implies but does not say.
- The final documents are long enough that reading them twice is not an option at exam pace.
What the practice papers give you
Full-length papers, in the exam's order of rising difficulty, marked the way the exam marks them.
Marked on the server
The score in your history is the score you got — nothing is computed in the browser, so a refresh cannot improve it.
The right answer, explained
Every question comes back with the reasoning, including why the distractor you chose was built to look right.
Timed or untimed
Practice mode marks each question as you answer it; test mode holds everything back until you hand in, on the exam's clock.
How the practice works
Four steps, from a cold paper to a score you can rely on.
- 1
Choose a paper
Full-length papers at the exam's question count, ordered from easiest to hardest the way the exam orders them.
- 2
Practice or test mode
Practice marks each answer as you give it; test mode runs the clock and reveals nothing until you hand in.
- 3
See every answer explained
Not just the correct option — why it is correct, and what the other three were designed to catch.
- 4
Track the score across papers
Every attempt is kept, so the number that matters — how you do in the last ten questions — becomes visible.
How to gain twenty points on the reading paper
Four adjustments that cost nothing in vocabulary and pay out immediately.
Practise reading- 1
Bank time early. Be at question 20 with more than half the hour left, or the last texts get read at a skim.
- 2
Read the questions before the long texts. On documents of that length, knowing what to look for is worth more than reading well.
- 3
Eliminate rather than choose. Two of the four options are usually removable on grammar or on scope alone.
- 4
Never leave a blank. There is no penalty for a wrong answer, so an unanswered question is a discarded point.
Frequently asked questions
Thirty-nine, over 60 minutes, ordered from easiest to hardest.
Everything from signs, adverts and short messages at the start to press articles and opinion pieces at the end, all in authentic-style French.
No. A wrong answer scores the same as a blank, so guessing on a question you cannot finish is strictly better than leaving it.
On a scale of 342 to 699 points, which IRCC converts into an NCLC level — 453 to 498 is NCLC 7.
Keep going
The rest of the TCF Canada preparation, one page per thing you have to get right.
Sit a paper with the clock running
Thirty-nine questions, sixty minutes, marked with every answer explained.
No credit card required
This is a practice tool, not the official TEF/TCF exam. Scores and levels are estimates to guide your preparation.