DET vs TOEFL: one of them shows the university your actual English
Aman Batth · 12 min read · · Updated
Both are accepted almost everywhere, so acceptance is not the deciding question. The one difference that should decide it is barely written about — the Duolingo English Test sends the institution a recording of your speaking and your written sample alongside your score, and TOEFL does not work that way.
Almost every DET vs TOEFL comparison you will read puts the same five rows in a table: price, length, where you sit it, how fast results come back, what the score looks like. Those rows are real, and we will cover them.
But they are not the row that should decide it, because there is a structural difference between these two tests that most comparison pages never mention at all.
One of these tests puts your actual voice and your actual writing in front of the admissions office. The other sends a score report.
That is not a minor detail. It changes what "preparing" even means.
First, the row everybody leads with: acceptance
Both tests clear the bar, and neither number should move you.
| Accepted by | |
|---|---|
| TOEFL iBT | over 13,500 institutions in more than 160 countries |
| Duolingo English Test | 6,500+ institutions worldwide |
TOEFL's number is larger. It is also almost never the constraint, because you are not applying to thirteen thousand universities — you are applying to four or five programmes, and acceptance is set per programme, not per university. A department that has not updated its web page is not the same thing as a department that refuses the test.
So do the only check that matters: open the admissions page of the exact programme you want, and if it lists only one test, email the office and get the answer in writing — we go through that check in detail in which universities accept the DET. Everything below assumes both tests are open to you.
The difference that should actually decide it
At the end of the Duolingo English Test, after the adaptive section, come two longer tasks: a Writing Sample and a Speaking Sample. They are scored — Duolingo's technical manual lists them among the open-ended writing and speaking task types that feed the Writing and Speaking subscores, and the overall score is the average of the four subscores (Duolingo English Test Technical Manual, Table 2 and sections 3.1, 3.2 and 5.2).
And then they are also sent on. The manual states that the recording of your spoken response and your written response are each "provided to institutions with which the test taker shares their results", and Duolingo tells institutions they can "access candidates' scores, certificates, and samples in a free, secure dashboard". A person in that admissions office can press play on you.
TOEFL does not work like this. What ETS sends is an official score report, and ETS describes what is on it as your performance "across four key areas: Reading, Listening, Speaking, and Writing" — section scores, an overall score, and MyBest scores (ETS, understanding your scores). ETS also states that TOEFL is "only scored by a centralized scoring team, never at the test center", and gives as a benefit of that method that it minimises "the rater bias that can occur with face-to-face interviews". No recording and no essay is listed among the contents of that report.
Neither design is better. They are opposite bets:
- TOEFL's bet: a number is fairer than a human impression, so standardise the number and send only that.
- The DET's bet: admissions officers want to know whether you can actually hold a conversation, so score the samples and hand them over, and let a human judge them too.
What that changes about preparing
If the institution only ever sees numbers, then every minute of preparation is aimed at the scoring rubric, and nothing else exists.
If a human may listen to your recording, two things become true that no scoring guide will tell you:
- Those two tasks are the only part that is both scored and handed over. The Writing Sample runs five minutes and the Speaking Sample three — about eight minutes of the hour. Every other task ends at the scoring engine. These two go to the scoring engine and to a person who is deciding on your application. Nothing else you do in the test carries both.
- Coherence beats complexity on the sample. Write to be understood rather than to display range. A tired admissions officer at 4pm cannot follow a sentence with four subordinate clauses and a memorised idiom in it. Answer the prompt, structure it, finish your sentences.
If the idea of being listened to is genuinely uncomfortable, that is a legitimate reason to sit TOEFL. It is a much better reason than the ones usually given.
TOEFL changed in January 2026, and most comparison pages have not caught up
This is the part where older DET vs TOEFL articles quietly became wrong. Check the date on anything you read about TOEFL, including this paragraph.
As of 21 January 2026, TOEFL iBT score reports use a 1–6 scale in half-point increments, and — this is the part that breaks everyone's mental model — "the overall score will be the average of all four sections, rounded to the nearest half band" (ETS). The old total was a sum out of 120. It is now a mean out of 6.
The 0–120 number has not vanished, but read the terms carefully: for a two-year transition period after January 2026 you also receive "a comparable overall score on the 0–120 scale, representing the midpoint of the corresponding total range." A comparable overall, as an estimate, for two years. Not a section-by-section equivalent, and not forever.
Two practical consequences:
- The scale is far coarser, so small gains can vanish. Each section used to have 31 reportable points; it now has about 11 half-band levels, and the overall is rounded to the nearest half band on top of that. Compensation between sections works exactly as it did — an average is a sum divided by four — but a strong section now has much less resolution with which to offset a weak one, and a real improvement can round away to the same band. Where a weak section genuinely blocks you, that is the institution setting a per-section minimum, not the new scale.
- Universities are mid-migration. ETS says institutions "are updating at different times, and some may still list requirements using the 0 to 120 format." Your report carries both, so you do not need to convert anything — but you do need to read the requirement you are being measured against rather than assuming.
The content changed too. The current TOEFL iBT is about two hours, and its task list is not the one you may remember:
| Section | Tasks | Items | Base time |
|---|---|---|---|
| Reading | Complete the Words · Read in Daily Life · Read an Academic Passage | 50 | 30 min |
| Listening | Listen and Choose a Response · Listen to a Conversation · Listen to an Announcement · Listen to an Academic Talk | 47 | 29 min |
| Writing | Build a Sentence · Write an Email · Write for an Academic Discussion | 12 | 23 min |
| Speaking | Listen and Repeat · Take an Interview | 11 | 8 min |
Source: ETS test content and structure. ETS notes that test time does not include directions and that "as the test adapts, test time and items may vary".
Look at that table next to what you know about the DET. Short adaptive items. Complete the words. Listen and repeat. Build a sentence. An interview task. The two tests have moved considerably closer together in the kind of thing they ask you to do — which is another reason to stop choosing between them on format and choose on the thing that has not converged.
Reading the two score reports
The DET reports four individual subscores — Speaking, Writing, Reading, Listening — which average to your overall, plus four integrated subscores (Production, Literacy, Comprehension, Conversation), each of which is the average of two of the individual ones (Duolingo, understand scoring). The scale is 10–160 in five-point steps.
So both tests now give you four skills and an averaged overall. The difference is granularity and arithmetic, not philosophy. If you want the DET side in full — what each subscore is built from and where its points are actually won — we have written that up separately in Duolingo English Test scores explained, and the DET score chart puts the 10–160 scale next to IELTS and CEFR.
One warning about that chart and every chart like it: it maps DET to TOEFL's 0–120 scale, because that is what the published comparison research is built on. With TOEFL now reporting 1–6, treat any DET-to-TOEFL conversion as indicative rather than exact until the equivalence studies are re-published.
Length, delivery, and the "at home" myth
This row is usually written as DET at home, TOEFL at a test centre. That has not been true for some time.
| Duolingo English Test | TOEFL iBT | |
|---|---|---|
| Length | About one hour end to end | "Approximately two hours" |
| Where | At home, no appointment needed | Test centre or TOEFL iBT Home Edition, at home |
| Booking | None — sit it when you choose | A scheduled slot; the Home Edition is "monitored by a live human proctor" |
| Results | Within 2 days | "Available in your ETS account 3 days after your test date" |
| Sending scores | Unlimited sharing, free | Four free score reports included; additional recipients cost a fee |
The honest version of the delivery difference is not home versus centre. It is appointment versus no appointment. You can sit the DET at 2am on a Sunday because you decided to. TOEFL at home still means booking a slot and being watched by a person in real time.
The honest version of the cost difference is not a single number either — both fees vary by country and change, so check each official site rather than trusting any blog's figure, this one included. What is structural, and will still be true when the prices move, is the score-sending model: TOEFL includes four reports and charges per recipient after that, while the DET's sharing is unlimited. If you are applying to nine programmes, that is not a rounding error.
For how these two sit against everything else you might be considering, see how long English test results take.
So which one
Take the DET if: your programmes accept it, you need a result inside a week, you are applying to many institutions, and you are comfortable with an admissions officer listening to a recording of you. That recording is an opportunity if your spoken English is better than your test-taking.
Take TOEFL if: a programme you cannot give up asks for it specifically, you want the largest published acceptance list, or you would rather be represented by a number than by a recording. Check the programme page either way.
Do not choose on price alone. The gap between the two fees is smaller than the cost of an extra application cycle, and both are cheaper than missing an intake.
And check which universities accept the DET before you book anything, because that check is free and takes ten minutes.
What we can help with, and what we cannot
Straight answer: we do not run TOEFL mocks. If you read the above and decided on TOEFL, we are not your practice platform, and ETS's own materials are the right place to start. We would rather tell you that than sell you something adjacent.
What we do run is the DET. Fifteen full-length Duolingo English Test mocks under the real timers, on the 10–160 scale, and your first full scored mock is free with no card — the free tier is that one mock plus a daily cap on AI-scored speaking attempts and a small lifetime cap on writing ones; unlimited retakes come with a paid plan, and we would rather say that here than meet you at a paywall halfway through the second mock.
The part that is relevant to everything above: the Writing Sample and the Speaking Sample are scored inside every mock, not treated as unscored practice, and your writing and speaking come back marked per criterion — content, grammar, vocabulary and coherence on writing; content, pronunciation and fluency on speaking — rather than as a single number, so you find out whether the problem is task response or grammatical range. Different problems, different fixes.
- Duolingo English Test scores explained — what each subscore is built from
- DET score chart — 10–160 against IELTS and CEFR
- Universities that accept the DET — check before you book
- How long English test results take — planning around a deadline
Frequently asked questions
Is the Duolingo English Test easier than TOEFL?
It is shorter, which is not the same as easier. The DET runs about an hour against TOEFL's approximately two, but it is adaptive, so answering well makes the following items harder. Duolingo positions the test as costing "a fraction of the cost of other tests", though both fees move and should be checked live. The more useful difference is that the DET sends universities the recording of your Speaking Sample and your Writing Sample alongside your score, so part of your performance is read by a person as well as scored by a rubric.
Do universities prefer TOEFL over the Duolingo English Test?
Some programmes still list only TOEFL, and a few genuinely require it. But ETS reports acceptance at over 13,500 institutions in more than 160 countries and Duolingo reports 6,500-plus, and acceptance is set per programme rather than per university. Check the exact programme page and, if it lists only one test, email the admissions office rather than guessing from the website.
What does the university actually receive with a Duolingo English Test score?
Your score and subscores, plus the recording of your Speaking Sample and your written Writing Sample. Both tasks are scored and also shared: Duolingo's technical manual says each response is provided to the institutions you share your results with, and Duolingo gives those institutions a dashboard where they can access candidates' scores, certificates and samples. A TOEFL score report is a set of scores — ETS describes it as your performance across Reading, Listening, Speaking and Writing, with no equivalent recording or essay attached.
Did the TOEFL score scale change in 2026?
Yes. From 21 January 2026, TOEFL iBT reports a 1 to 6 scale in half-point increments, and the overall score is the average of the four section scores rounded to the nearest half band rather than the old sum out of 120. For a two-year transition period you also receive a comparable overall score on the 0 to 120 scale. Anything written before that date describes a different score report.
Can I take TOEFL at home like the Duolingo English Test?
Yes. ETS offers the TOEFL iBT Home Edition, taken on a computer at home and monitored by a live human proctor. The real difference is scheduling rather than location: the DET needs no appointment, while the Home Edition still means booking a slot and being watched in real time.
Which test should I take if my deadline is next week?
The DET, assuming your programmes accept it. Results arrive within two days and there is no appointment to secure, whereas TOEFL scores appear in your ETS account three days after the test date and you still need a slot for the test itself. Confirm current turnaround on both official sites before betting a deadline on either.