5 Quick-Answer Tricks for TOEFL ITP

The TOEFL® ITP tests more than your English: it tests strategy and speed. There are 140 questions in about 115 minutes across three sections: Listening (50 questions), Structure & Written Expression (40 questions in 25 minutes), and Reading (50 questions in 55 minutes). Many test takers lose points not because they don’t know the answer, but because they spend too long on one question.

This article collects 5 fast elimination tricks you can use across sections. Each trick comes with its limits, so you know when it applies and when it doesn’t. (The slides below are in Indonesian.)

Trick 1 (Structure): Cross Out Prepositional Phrases

Subject-verb agreement questions often place a plural noun between the subject and the verb to mislead you.

The quality of the courses ___ good.

Cross out of the courses → the subject is The quality (singular) → the answer is is.

A phrase starting with a preposition (in, on, at, of, with, for, from, between) is extra information. The noun inside it is not the subject, so cross it out and the real subject appears.

Exceptions you must remember:

Quantity + of. With some of, all of, most of, half of, none of, a lot of, and percentages, the verb follows the noun after of. All of the water is clean, but All of the students are here.
One of / each of / every one of stay singular: One of the books is missing.
To + verb is an infinitive, not a preposition. In To learn English is fun, the phrase to learn English is the subject.

To strengthen the grammar basics behind this, see the Parts of Speech Guide and the 12 Tenses Guide.

Trick 2 (Listening Part A): Focus on the Second Speaker, Avoid Sound-Alikes

In Listening Part A, the answer is almost always in what the second speaker says. If you miss part of the first line, don’t panic.

Speaker 1: Are you coming to the meeting today? Speaker 2: I feel quite under the weather.

❌ He checks the weather. (repeats a word from the audio) ✅ He feels unwell. (paraphrases the meaning)

Be suspicious of options that repeat words or sounds from the audio. The right answer is usually a paraphrase. The full set of patterns is in TOEFL ITP Listening Part A Patterns & Traps, and the idiom list is in 10 Listening Part A Idioms.

Trick 3 (Structure): Connectors = Verbs − 1

Every clause has one main verb. If a sentence has two clauses, it needs one connector. The formula:

Number of connectors = number of main verbs − 1

___ the rain was heavy, the game continued.

Main verbs: was and continued (2) → you need 1 clause connector. ❌ Despite (a preposition, followed by a noun, not a clause) ✅ Although (a clause connector)

Important: count only main verbs with a tense (was, continued, has finished). Don’t count to + verb (infinitives), gerunds (swimming is fun), or participles used as modifiers (Built in 1900, the house…). Connectors also include relative pronouns such as who, which, and that.

Trick 4 (Reading): Main Idea from Topic Sentences

For “What does the passage mainly discuss?”, you don’t need to read 300+ words in detail.

Read the first and second sentences of the first paragraph.
Read the first sentence of each following paragraph.
Find the recurring topic and choose the option that covers the whole passage.

Academic texts usually put the main point at the start of a paragraph (the topic sentence), so this is normally enough. But it’s a tendency, not a fixed rule: sometimes the first sentence is just an introduction and the main point comes in the second sentence or at the end of the paragraph. If in doubt, also check the last sentence of the first paragraph.

Other question types are explained in 5 TOEFL ITP Reading Question Types, and timing strategy in 5 TOEFL ITP Reading Tricks.

Trick 5 (Elimination): Distrust Absolute Words

Academic language tends to be cautious. Scientific writers rarely claim something holds 100% of the time. So in inference and detail questions, options with absolute words are often wrong.

Absolute words (be suspicious)	Moderate words (safer)
always, never	often, sometimes, tend to
all, none	most, some, many
completely, impossible	may, might, likely, suggest

❌ Volcanoes are always completely unpredictable. ✅ Volcanoes may often prove difficult to predict.

The limit: if the passage itself makes an absolute claim (for example “All mammals breathe air”), an option that restates it can be correct. Use this trick to break a tie between two options, not to ignore the text.

The 5 Tricks at a Glance

No	Section	Trick	Limit
1	Structure	Cross out prepositional phrases	Except some/all/most of and to + verb
2	Listening A	Focus on speaker 2 + paraphrase	Still use the context from speaker 1
3	Structure	Connectors = main verbs − 1	Count only verbs with a tense
4	Reading	Main idea from topic sentences	The main point is sometimes elsewhere
5	Elimination	Distrust absolute words	Can be right if the text is absolute

Quick Quiz

The list of items ___ on the desk. (is / are)
Most of the information ___ outdated. (is / are)
___ she studied hard, she failed the exam. (Despite / Although)

Answers:

is (cross out of items, the subject is the list).
is (quantity most of: follow information, which is uncountable).
Although (two main verbs, studied and failed, so you need a clause connector).

Turn These Tricks into Reflexes

Tricks only help once they’re automatic. The fastest way there is to work through lots of questions and read the explanations.

Kawan EPT (formerly Kawan TOEFL) has 7,400+ questions with an explanation for every answer option, Grammar lessons (33 topics), Reading Strategies (11 topics), Listening Strategies (7 topics, with audio), 3-in-1 quick practice, a full 140-question simulation with a score estimate from 310 to 677, and Weakness Drill. Free on Google Play Store.

Want the full format overview first? Read the TOEFL ITP Guide.