Does ETS look at your scratch paper after the test?

No. ETS doesn't grade, review, or evaluate your scratch paper. At a test center it's collected by the administrator at the end of your session. On Home Edition, the proctor has you erase your whiteboard or sheet protector and show it to the camera before you finish. You can write whatever helps you, in whatever format works for you.

Is scratch paper useful for TOEFL Speaking in 2026?

Barely, and only in one place. The 2026 Speaking section has just two task types — Listen and Repeat and Take an Interview — and neither one gives you prep time. For Listen and Repeat, you hear a sentence once and repeat it right away; there's no usable gap to write in. For Take an Interview, you speak for about 45 seconds as soon as the question plays. There's no version of the 2026 test where an older, prep-time speaking task shows up — that format was retired along with the rest of the pre-2026 Speaking section.

What is the best way to take notes during TOEFL Listening?

It depends on the task. Listen and Choose a Response is one sentence with four visible options — there's nothing worth writing down. For conversations, announcements, and academic talks, write short phrases and symbols rather than full sentences. For a conversation, a two-column structure works well: one column per speaker. For an announcement or academic talk, main points on the left and supporting details on the right. You likely won't get a second listen, so your notes need to be fast and selective, not exhaustive.

Can you use scratch paper for TOEFL Writing tasks?

Yes, and it's worth doing — differently for each task. For the email task, the prompt gives you three to five specific points to cover, and missing one directly costs you on task achievement, the most heavily weighted dimension. Copy that list onto your scratch paper and check items off as you write them in. For the academic discussion task, responding to the two classmates in the prompt by name is part of what's graded, not optional color — jot your position, which classmate you'll respond to and how, and one new point neither of them raised, before you start typing.

What happens if you run out of scratch paper during the test?

Raise your hand and ask the proctor for more. You just have to return every page you were already given first — you can't hold onto used sheets while also getting fresh ones.

Does using scratch paper affect your TOEFL score?

No. Your score comes entirely from your recorded speaking responses and typed writing answers. Listen and Repeat is scored on repeat accuracy, intelligibility, and fluency; Take an Interview adds delivery, language use, and topic development. Writing is scored on task achievement, coherence, lexical resource, and grammar. None of those dimensions have anything to do with how you used your scratch paper — good notes can support a better performance, but they don't factor into the band score directly.

TOEFL Scratch Paper Rules: What You Can Write Down and When

Q: Can you use scratch paper on the TOEFL?

Yes. At a test center, the administrator gives you pencils and scratch paper before the test starts, and you can ask for more if you run out — but only after handing back every page you already have. You may not bring your own paper. At home on TOEFL Home Edition, you can use one small whiteboard with an erasable marker, or one blank sheet of paper inside a transparent sheet protector with an erasable marker — a regular pen or pencil isn't allowed either way, and paper can't be removed from the sheet protector during the test. In both formats, scratch paper is only for use during the test itself — not before it starts, between sections, or during a break.

Most test-takers spend weeks drilling speaking and writing, then walk into the test unsure about something basic: can you actually use scratch paper on the TOEFL, and when does it actually help? The short answer is yes, with rules that differ by section and by test format. Here’s what those rules actually are.

Yes, you get scratch paper on the TOEFL

At a physical test center, the administrator gives you pencils and scratch paper before your test begins. You may not bring your own. If you fill a page, you can ask for more — but only after you’ve used and returned everything you were already given. You can’t hold onto notes from one page while collecting a fresh one.

One rule catches people off guard: scratch paper is only for use while the test is actually running. You can’t use it before the test starts, between sections, or during a break. At the end of your session, you hand back every page in full to the administrator.

TOEFL Home Edition works differently, but not the way people assume. You’re allowed one small whiteboard with an erasable marker, or one blank sheet of paper inside a transparent sheet protector with an erasable marker. A regular pen or pencil isn’t an option in either case.

If you use paper, it has to stay inside the sheet protector for the entire test — you can’t slide it out to write more freely. No digital notes, no sticky notes, nothing pre-written. A live proctor watches your workspace on camera the whole session, and anything that looks like prepared material is a violation.

What you can actually write down

ETS doesn’t grade your notes, review them for content, or penalize any particular note-taking style. The paper exists purely to support your thinking. That said, some uses are far more productive than others — and for two of the four sections, barely any use helps at all.

Reading

You can jot down main ideas, paragraph topics, or the author’s purpose as you read. Most test-takers write very little here because the passage stays visible on screen. Short paragraph labels are usually enough.

Listening

This is where scratch paper matters most — for three of its four task types. Listen and Choose a Response plays a single sentence and gives you four visible options to pick from. There’s no real content to note down, and no time to write it.

Listen to a Conversation, Listen to an Announcement, and Listen to an Academic Talk are different. Conversations and announcements run 20–30 seconds; academic talks run about 90 seconds. Don’t count on hearing any of them twice, so notes matter here.

For a conversation, split your paper into two columns, one per speaker. Jot a few words as each one talks. For an announcement or academic talk, one column for the main point and one for supporting details works well. You don’t need to transcribe sentences — short phrases and symbols are faster and just as useful.

Speaking

The 2026 TOEFL Speaking section has exactly two task types, and neither one gives you prep time. The old four-task Independent and Integrated format — the version where you’d read a passage or hear a short lecture before you had time to plan an answer — was retired along with the rest of the pre-2026 test. There’s no scenario on the current exam where that older, prep-time format shows up.

Task	Items	Prep time	Response time
Listen and Repeat (Q1–7)	7 sentences	None	About 5 seconds each
Take an Interview (Q8–11)	4 questions	None	About 45 seconds each

Listen and Repeat: you hear a sentence once and repeat it right back. There’s no realistic gap between hearing it and needing to speak — writing down what you heard just isn’t practical at that pace. Scratch paper doesn’t help here.

Take an Interview: the question plays and you start talking immediately for about 45 seconds. There’s no pause to sketch even a one-line outline before you speak. Scratch paper doesn’t help here either.

Each task is scored on its own rubric, not a shared one. Listen and Repeat is graded on repeat accuracy, intelligibility, and fluency. Take an Interview adds delivery, language use, and topic development.

Writing

The 2026 Writing section covers academic email writing and academic discussion posts. Both are typed directly into the interface, but scratch paper is worth using as planning space before you start — for different reasons on each task.

For email writing, the prompt gives you a short, specific list of points to cover — usually three to five. That checklist is graded directly: leaving one out costs you on task achievement, the most heavily weighted dimension. Before you type, copy each required point onto your scratch paper as a short line, then check it off as you write it into the email. A one-line note on tone (formal for a professor, semi-formal for a classmate) helps too, but the checklist is what actually protects your score.

For the academic discussion task, the two classmate replies in the prompt aren’t just background reading — responding to them by name is part of what’s graded. Before you type, jot three lines:

your position
which classmate you’ll respond to, and how
one new point neither of them raised

Test-takers under time pressure default to writing a generic opinion. They forget to engage the other two voices, and that’s exactly the gap graders check for.

A section-by-section summary

Section	Scratch paper useful?	What to write
Reading	Occasionally	Paragraph labels, main argument
Listening: Choose a Response	No	One sentence, four visible options — nothing to write
Listening: Conversation / Announcement / Talk	Yes, strongly	Key points, speaker stance, examples
Speaking: Listen and Repeat	No	No usable gap between hearing and speaking
Speaking: Take an Interview	No	No prep window available
Writing: Email	Yes	The prompt’s 3–5 required points, checked off
Writing: Academic Discussion	Yes	Position + which classmate to name + one new point

What not to do with your scratch paper

Don’t try to write full sentences during Listening. You’ll fall behind and miss the next point while still writing the last one. Symbols and abbreviations serve you better.

Don’t treat scratch paper as a lifeline for Speaking tasks that have no prep time. Staring at a blank sheet while the clock runs on Take an Interview is a real way to lose seconds you need.

Don’t use scratch paper before the test starts, between sections, or during a break. It’s only for active testing time — that rule applies at both a test center and on Home Edition.

Don’t leave the paper blank because you think it looks more serious. ETS doesn’t evaluate your notes. Using the paper aggressively is a test-taking skill, not a sign of weakness.

Notes help, but practice decides your score

Good note-taking habits can sharpen your listening comprehension and keep your writing on track. They won’t compensate for weak delivery, poor vocabulary, or underdeveloped responses.

The 2026 TOEFL scores Speaking and Writing on a 1–6 band scale in 0.5-point steps. Speaking splits into two separate rubrics: Listen and Repeat on repeat accuracy, intelligibility, and fluency, and Take an Interview on delivery, language use, and topic development.

Writing is evaluated on task achievement, coherence, lexical resource, and grammar. None of those dimensions measure whether you took good notes — they measure what came out of your mouth or appeared on screen.

If you want to understand what changed in the 2026 TOEFL format and how the new task types fit together, that context helps you plan your prep more accurately.

Practice the tasks that actually appear on the 2026 test

A lot of prep material still covers the old TOEFL format. Listen and Repeat and Take an Interview are specific to the 2026 version, and most tools haven’t caught up.

Toeflair at toeflair.com covers all four 2026 task types: Listen and Repeat, Take an Interview, academic email writing, and academic discussion posts. You record or write under real exam conditions, get AI feedback mapped to the ETS rubric dimensions, and can repractice the specific issue the feedback flagged instead of restarting an entire session. The free plan includes full AI feedback on every task type.

For the Listen and Repeat task specifically, dimension-level feedback tells you whether your score dropped because of pronunciation, pace, or accuracy — not just that something was off.