United States · English testHow long is the Duolingo English Test?
Plan on about one hour without interruptions. The length of the middle part isn’t fixed: the test gives you more or fewer questions depending on how sure its grading engine is of your score, and some questions get harder or easier as you go.
The question pool is very large. Duolingo says someone would have to take the test more than 1,000 times to see a question repeated.
What’s in the Duolingo English Test format?
| Question type | How many | Time | Subscore |
|---|---|---|---|
| Read and Select | 15 to 18 | 5 seconds each | Reading |
| Fill in the Blanks | 6 to 9 | 20 seconds each | Reading |
| Read and Complete | 3 to 6 | 3 minutes each | Reading |
| Listen and Type | 6 to 9 | 1 minute each | Listening |
| Interactive Reading | 2 to 3 passages, 6 questions each | 7 or 8 minutes a passage | Reading |
| Interactive Listening | 2 to 3 conversations | 6 minutes 30 seconds, plus 75 seconds to summarize | Listening and Writing |
| Write About the Photo | 3 | 1 minute each | Writing |
| Interactive Writing | 1, in two parts | 5 minutes, then 3 | Writing |
| Speak About the Photo | 1 | 90 seconds | Speaking |
| Read, Then Speak | 1 | 90 seconds | Speaking |
| Interactive Speaking | 6 to 8 questions | 35 seconds each | Speaking |
| Writing Sample | 1 | 5 minutes | Writing |
| Speaking Sample | 1 | Up to 3 minutes | Speaking |
The counts and timings come from Duolingo’s Scoring Guide for Teachers, last updated October 16, 2026. Every test is different, so the numbers you get can vary.
Duolingo English Test speaking questions
There are four speaking tasks, and you answer each one out loud into your microphone. Only Interactive Speaking is adaptive.
- Speak About the Photo: 20 seconds to look at a real photo, then up to 90 seconds to describe it. You get one attempt and can’t record it again.
- Read, Then Speak: 20 seconds to read a question, often with bullet points to guide you, then up to 90 seconds to answer while it stays on screen.
- Interactive Speaking: a Duolingo character asks you 3 or 4 questions on each of two topics. You hear each question once, then have up to 35 seconds to answer, and each follow-up depends on how well you answered and what you said.
- Speaking Sample: up to 30 seconds to read the question, then up to 3 minutes to speak. Schools get it as a video.
Speaking answers are scored on content, discourse coherence, fluency, grammar, lexis (vocabulary) and pronunciation.
Writing tasks
- Write About the Photo: three photos, 1 minute each to describe what you see.
- Interactive Writing: 30 seconds to plan, 5 minutes for your first answer, then 3 minutes on a follow-up question about a new side of the same topic. Both answers are scored together.
- Summarize the Conversation: 75 seconds to sum up the conversation from Interactive Listening. It counts toward Writing and Listening.
- Writing Sample: 30 seconds to plan and 5 minutes to write. Schools read it along with your scores.
Writing is scored on content, discourse coherence, grammar and lexis, and US and UK spellings are both accepted.
Reading and listening tasks
These come first and move fast. In Read and Select you decide whether each word is a real English word, and a word you don’t answer within 5 seconds is marked wrong. Fill in the Blanks and Read and Complete ask you to finish words that are cut in half, and the spelling has to be right. In Listen and Type you hear a sentence up to three times and type it.
Interactive Reading gives you six questions on one passage, from filling gaps to highlighting an answer and choosing a title. Interactive Listening is built on a conversation between two students, or a student and a professor: you fill in what you heard, pick your replies in the conversation, then write a summary.
A blank and a wrong answer score the same, so always try. Some tasks give partial credit when you’re close.
Sources: Duolingo and 1 more. Checked October 2026.
- Duolingo: DET Scoring Guide for Teachers, updated October 16, 2026 (PDF) ↗
- Duolingo: Official Guide for Test Takers, 2026 (PDF) ↗
Rules and fees can change, so check the official site before your test.