How to Practice for the Duolingo English Test (2025)

The Duolingo English Test is not just cheaper and more convenient than other English proficiency tests like TOEFL and IETLS. The DET is also easy to prepare for.

In this post, we will go through 4 simple steps that will enable you to prepare well so that you can get the highest score.

👉 If you’re new to the Duolingo English Test, I recommend your first check out our article: Duolingo English Test Ultimate Guide.

Table of Contents

1. Understand how the Duolingo English Test is scored
2. Determine what you need to focus on
3. Become familiar with the question types
4. Practice the questions that count toward the subscore you want to improve

1) Understand how the Duolingo English Test is scored

Before you spend time trying to raise your score, it’s important that you understand how the scores are calculated.

When you take the DET, you will receive 8 scores: 1 overall score and sets of 4 subscores. It sounds more complicated than it actually is.

The first set of subscores are the standard components of Reading, Writing, Lisnteing, and Speaking.

The second set are called integrated subscores and they are an average of two of the standard subscores. The 4 integrated subscores are:

1. Literacy
2. Comprehension
3. Conversation
4. Production

Here is how each one is calculated:

1. Literacy = Reading and Writing
2. Comprehension = Reading and Listening
3. Conversation = Speaking and Listening
4. Production = Writing and Speaking

So, don’t be confused: the Duolingo English Test assesses your ability to read, listen, write, and speak – just like other English tests.

The DET is adaptive. This means that Duolingo adjusts the difficulty of questions to match your level. If you get questions correct, the next questions will be harder. This is why the DET lasts around 1 hour; you don't have to waste time answering questions that are too hard or too easy for you.

👉 To learn more about how the DET is scored, check out our article: Explained: Duolingo English Test Scores

2) Determine what you need to focus on

You should identify your lowest subscore and focus on that. The lower your score, the easier it is to raise it. In other words, going from 90 to 110 is a lot easier than going from 110 to 130.

If you have already taken the DET, you can just look at your score certificate and see your lowest subscore.

But if you haven’t taken the DET yet, you should focus on improving your Production subscore, which measures your writing and speaking abilities. Most students can improve their writing and speaking skills most quickly. This is because if you learn some key vocabulary (like connecting words) and key strategies, you can use these across several writing and speaking questions.

3) Become familiar with the question types

There are apprxomiately 20 question types on the DET. Each one counts toward 2 or more subscores.

The questions that count toward Production are:

1. Write About the Photo
2. Speak About the Photo
3. Interactive Writing
4. Read, Then Speak
5. Listen, Then Speak
6. Summarize the Conversation
7. Writing Sample
8. Speaking Sample

(You can click on any of the question types to learn more about it.)

If 8 question types seems like a lot, don’t worry! Most of them are simple and similar to one another. For example, Write About the Photo and Speak About the Photo both require you to discuss a photograph. The difference is that in one you write about the photo and for the other one you speak about it!

In addition, as you improve your ability to speak and write, you will do better on all the Production questions.

If you need to focus on a different subscore, just read through the list of question types and identify the ones that count toward that subscore.

You can use Arno to do this as well. You will see how in the next section.

4) Practice the questions that count toward the subscore you want to improve

Duolingo offers an official practice test. However, it does not provide you with a lot of helpful feedback, just a single estimated overall score.

That's why we created Arno's mock test 😁 Our mock test gives you subscores, shows you which questions you got correct and incorrect, and provides scores and detailed feedback on your writing and speaking responses.

We also give every user one free mock test so that you can identify your weak areas and start to improve. Just click here to get your account and claim your free mock test.

Also for free in Arno, you get unlimited practice questions for every question type. Once you know your lowest subscores, then you can go into Arno and start practicing the most important question types for you.

If you upgrade to one of our paid plans, then you can access more mock tests as well as instant scoring and detailed feedback on your responses to practice writing and speaking questions.

This detailed feedback is like having a private tutor who is always available to review your responses. And is very cheap 😁

Conclusion

If you do practice questions in Arno and study the feedback you get on your responses, you will notice improvements very quickly! Arno is the fastest way to raise your score on the Duolingo English Test.

Just click below to start practicing in less than 30 seconds 🙂