In case you are curious what a “Skills for English: SELT” Test Report Form looks like, here’s mine. A couple of points are worth mentioning:
My results arrived in about 48 hours. Quick!
While “Skills for English” is a pass/fail test for specific CEFR levels, the report indicates that I achieved B2 “with merit.” I suppose that the “with merit” indication is a way for high-performing test takers to show off a bit for score users. That’s a nice touch. I haven’t seen this documented anywhere.
The mug shot is huge. I was photographed by the test center administrator himself, which I think is a feature of the SELT requirements.
The report features the signature ofIsabelle Gonthier, PhD, ICE-CCP, who hosts one of my favorite podcasts about this sort of thing. How nice!
I’ve also attached a screenshot of my blissfully simple and straightforward account page for this test.
Continuing along with the Norton Library Podcast, this month I read Jane Austen’s “Emma.” You can find the podcast episodes on Youtube. I haven’t read a huge amount of Austen’s work, but since I enjoy the whole “comedy of manners” genre, she has always been on my to-read list. Interestingly, this story of the “idle rich” ties in nicely with a book I’ll write about next month (spoiler: it’s “The Meritocracy Trap”). Let me know if the comments if you’d rather be rich and busy or rich and carefree.
Meanwhile, I spent my time digging into TOEFL books. Most importantly, I finished my examination of changes in the latest editions of the three official TOEFL books from ETS. You can find my blog posts below:
As I’ve indicated on the blog a few times, I’m really happy with these new editions. They have been updated to match the new version of the TOEFL, and great number of small errors and annoyances have been removed. Buy them!
I also continued my exploration of all the random TOEFL stuff that pops up in places like Hoopla. This month I read Jackie Bolan’s “TOEFL iBT Reading Practice.” I posted the following review on my Goodreads page (follow me!):
Not a fan of this one. The cover says “TOEFL iBT Reading Practice” but the content is just general academic reading practice. The articles are superficially like what one would find in the TOEFL reading section, but the questions are not even close.
The cover says that this book might help one to “master the reading section of the TOEFL Exam.” While it is true that it might improve one’s academic reading skills in a general sense, mastery requires more accurate practice materials.
Following that, I read Daniel Smith’s “TOEFL Words Vocabulary Enhancer.” My review went like this:
This book contains about 4000 words, each with a very short definition and sample sentence. There isn’t anything specific to the TOEFL here. There aren’t any practice TOEFL questions. This probably isn’t the best way to study vocabulary for the TOEFL, but I guess it could be used as a supplemental test prep source.
I also read Smith’s “TOEFL Grammar with Answer Key” and wrote:
Not recommended. The book is just 1300 multiple choice grammar and vocabulary questions. There is no categorization, no answer explanations and no lessons. Just a bunch of random questions.
There is nothing that connects this content to the TOEFL, except for the fact that improving your grammar will increase your writing score. But if your goal is to improve your grammar in a general way, it is better to reach for something like “English Grammar in Use” from Cambridge.
That’s all for this month. I’ll be back in August with proper non-fiction and academic stuff. Stay tuned.
Ten years ago today, Duolingo launched a project called “Test Center.” Shortly thereafter, “Test Center” morphed into the Duolingo English Test. That test is now taken more than 800,000 times per year. That’s quite an accomplishment.
Many people think of the DET as a fairly new product, but ten years is a long time. When I write about the legacy testing firms being technologically far behind their competition (Duolingo and Pearson, mostly) I mean that they are more than a decade behind. It will not be easy to close that gap. It may be impossible.
Here’s a TechCrunch article from 2014 where the project was announced. The message of 2014 is similar to the message of today – testing monopolies are bad for test takers and are prone to fraud.
The success of the DET is mostly due to the work of some very bright researchers, engineers and psychometricians (former ETS employees, in many cases). But the single-mindedness of Duolingo co-founder Luis von Ahn seems to play a pretty big part. That guy does not like the testing monopolies at all.
The DET is now a major player in the admissions process for American universities. The monopoly once enjoyed by ETS in that market has come to an end. As recent reports have indicated, times are tough at ETS.
Currently, the folks at Duolingo are heavily promoting their test to students headed to the UK, Australia and Canada. These efforts are partly why IDP Education recently announced that IELTS test volumes will decline by 15-20% in fiscal year 2024.
As part of an ongoing mission to expand my knowledge of testing options in 2024, I took the B2 version of the “Skills for English” test yesterday. While everything is still fresh in my mind, I’ll share a few thoughts. Before I begin, I should mention that PSI gave me a voucher to take this test at no cost.
Note that I took the B2 version since it is likely the most widely-taken version of the “Skills for English” suite of tests. This is the level one needs to demonstrate in order to get a UK student visa for studies at the degree level. Note, also, that like the other versions, this is a pass/fail test. You either prove that you are at the B2 level, or you don’t.
Okay. Here are my initial thoughts:
The registration process is fairly straightforward and painless. This is an area where the newer tests seem to outshine their “legacy” competitors. Younger test takers really don’t like a test registration process that feels like buying an airplane ticket. They want to get it done quickly! I’d love to see the stats (for all of the tests) on how many would-be test takers abandon their carts before making a purchase.
An adequate amount of free test prep is provided by PSI. Accessing that material can be tricky, however. It involves passing through an email funnel that results in a link to the “PSI Online Store,” which doesn’t seem to contain the desired materials. This certainly frustrated me. If anyone from PSI wants to know more about this issue, just reach out.
Here in Korea, “Skills for English” costs a bit less than the IELTS (UKVI) and a bit more than the PTE-Academic (UKVI). It is offered at two test centers in the country. I was alone when I took the test, so perhaps there isn’t much demand for it in Korea at this time.
There is quite a lot of speaking in this test. Test takers have the opportunity to speak for just over ten minutes. Spoken responses to test items range from 30 seconds to 5 minutes. This approach is common among the newer tests and I think it is is appealing to test takers who desire an opportunity to “bounce back” from a single bad answer. Compare this test to the TOEFL iBT, which involves just three minutes and forty-five seconds of speaking. Many individuals taking that test fear that a single flubbed response might heavily impact their final score.
This is advertised as a 190-minute test. That’s longer than most tests in 2024. The length could certainly turn off some prospective test takers and I’m surprised that the folks at PSI have maintained it. That said, students at the C1 or C2 levels will probably not use all of the time given in the reading and writing sections and perhaps lower-level students will appreciate the sometimes leisurely pace of the test.
The test includes a hard cap on the length of written responses. That is, once the test taker hits the maximum word count, they aren’t allowed to write any more. I like that.
My test form contained a whole lot of Britishisms. Knowledge of these won’t impact one’s score, but it seems like the folks at PSI went out of their way to put in as many as possible in the reading and listening items. One of them made me laugh out loud. Another made me wonder “do they really say that across the pond?!”
Preparing students for this test might involve teaching them how to paraphrase or reformulate ideas. On my test form, picking correct listening and reading answers often depended on knowing that the words used in the answer choice (or gap-fill) expressed the same thing as different words used in the reading or listening content.
The test content is mostly general English, with a small amount of academic English. This is a quirk of the SELT program, I think.
I chatted with the test center operator about the tests people pop in for. He mentioned that he does a ton of PSI tests, including ones for accountants and pilates instructors. This reinforced my firm belief that PSI of 2024 is just like ETS in the golden era. No wonder they made the purchase!
ETS will send a new “TOEFL Official Beginner’s Guide” to people who register for the TOEFL test in India. I’ll do my best to snag a copy. If anyone has an extra, you know how to reach me…
Via this week’s issue of “The Cheat Sheet” I learned about a cheating ring (well, three folks) in Florida that enabled at least 820 people to cheat on an at-home test for an insurance-selling license operated by Pearson.
The cheating involved the same method that people have (allegedly) used to cheat on at-home English tests, including (allegedly) those operated by Pearson. Says the article:
“The independent witnesses’ statements all concurred that Peralta would take their pictures and instruct them to remove their watches and phones before directing them to sit in a soundproof room adjacent to where Salas would be sitting… Salas would subsequently enter and place a MacBook laptop logged into the witness’s [Pearson Vue] account on the desk. Salas would tell them that if a proctor asks them to show the room, they should lift the laptop computer, turn to show the room, place it back on the desk, place their hands on the sides, and not move, and he would be controlling the computer from next door… authorities said the elder Salas would then leave the room as the clients observed the testing begin on the computer. The questions populate the screen, the mouse moves and answers are selected without their control… the reports state.”
And:
“subjects would pay approximately $400 to $2,000 for the license they were attempting to acquire”
That’s the same way that cheating on at-home English tests is (allegedly) done. The test-taker pays a fee and on test day reports to a certain location. Upon arrival they are given a laptop with remote-access software installed. The test-taker then sits in front of the laptop and pretends to take the test while someone from the cheating ring actually answers the questions.
Allegedly.
That’s the high-tech way, anyhow. I’ve written here before about the analog way, which is also effective. And really enjoyable if you love feet.
I’m super bullish on the likelihood of at-home testing being accepted by governments in the next 5 to 10 years. But it isn’t going to happen unless providers like Pearson step up their security protocols. Recall that it was about this time last year that Pearson withdrew the at-home version of the PTE test from the China market altogether due to concerns about cheating.
I don’t know how long this cheating ring operated, but they did rack up 820 successful attempts. That suggests they were at it for some time before being detected.
A bit delayed, but here is a list of all the changes (that I could spot) in the fourth edition of “Official TOEFL iBT Tests, Volume 2.” You can find the changes in Volume 1 over here.
In addition to the changes listed below, note that the independent writing task has been replaced with an academic discussion task in each test.
By the way: this is an excellent book for TOEFL preparation. I recommend it to literally everyone I teach.
Test One
Reading:
“Colonizing the Americas” removed
“Reflection in Teaching” removed (it had a weird question about “how is paragraph 4 related to…”)
“The Impact of Industrialization on Labor Systems” added
Test Two
Reading:
“Variations in the Climate” removed
Test Three
Reading:
“17th Century European Economic Growth” removed
Test Four
Reading:
“What Hand Did They use?” removed
“Water in the Desert” removed (it had a chart)
“The Chaco Phenomenon” added (surprisingly, more Chaco)
Listening:
A lecture about music history removed
A lecture about architecture added
Test Five
Reading:
“Types of Social Groups” removed (it had a chart)
“Biological Clocks” removed (it had only three giant paragraphs)
“Steel and the United States Industrial Economy” added
Listening:
A really dated campus encounter about going to the language lab to watch a video removed
A campus encounter at the financial aid office added.
I did not spot changes to the speaking questions in any of the tests.
Scattered reports over the past couple of weeks of problems when attempting to create a profile on the official TOEFL site. Affected users say that they get stuck on the page with “Search Service” at the top. Whatever the user selects, they just get sent back to the same page. That renders them unable to progress in the registration process.
It seems to affect only users who already have a GRE account. This has been a problem area (in my estimation) for ETS’s registration system going back many years… but this particular manifestation of the problem is new.
I mention it here because students have expressed some feelings of urgency regarding a fix, and some ETSers follow me on this platform. If something was adjusted “under the hood” maybe take a moment to ensure that it was adjusted properly. Feel free to shoot me a message if you want a bit more information.
If you are experiencing this as a user, leave a comment below. I’ll try to find out more.
I wrote yesterday about my sample of 16 international students admitted to Columbia University. I mentioned that 15 took the Duolingo English Test, and one took the TOEFL.
What does that mean in terms of revenues at testing firms?
Well, that one dude who was admitted with a TOEFL score took the test three times, paying $400 USD for each attempt. He generated $1200 in revenue for ETS.
It is not uncommon for students applying to Ivy League schools to take the TOEFL two or three times.
I didn’t ask, but he might have spent a few extra bucks to get his scores to a raft of backup schools. And he may have accidentally clicked to join the “TOEFL Search Service” which is still a fairly lucrative source of revenue for ETS, I think.
The other 15 students took the Duolingo test and paid $59 per attempt. Most of them took the test only once. There may have been a few repeaters who paid $49 per attempt (after taking advantage of the two-test deal). They sent their scores to all of their target schools without paying additional fees.
My point is that it is quite possible that the ONE guy who took the TOEFL generated more revenue than the 15 people who took the DET.
This highlights one of the struggles that the legacy firms are facing. They know, I’m sure, that one of these days they’ll have to introduce a cheap test. But when is the best time to do it? From a business perspective, it is certainly possible to introduce the next-gen test too early, especially if it means losing out on that $400 registration fee. Even while under immense pressure from competitors (and while possibly losing market share), both the TOEFL and IELTS tests are revenue generating machines.
(Notes: the price of the Duolingo test was recently hiked to $65. The price of the TOEFL ranges from $185 to $450 depending on the country.)
Including the last few stragglers, 16 international students at Columbia University reached out to me for help with the ALP Essay Exam (need help? Contact me!) for this year’s fall term. As always, I asked them what tests they used to get admitted to the school in the first place. The results were:
Duolingo English Test – 15
TOEFL – 1
IELTS – 0
When I ask questions like “what went wrong with TOEFL?” I am sometimes accused of being too harsh. But clearly something has changed. Pre-pandemic, there is a good chance that every one of those students would have taken the TOEFL.
Individuals who don’t talk to test takers every day and who don’t teach this stuff one-on-one can miss trends in the industry that ought to be obvious to everyone. Speaking of what went wrong at the legacy testing firms… that might have something to do with it. There may be too many degrees of separation between executives and customers.
Anyway. Of course I asked why they all took the DET. Most mentioned the price and convenience. One mentioned that the cute characters put her at ease. Another said that the university told him to take the DET.
A few poor souls might sit for the placement test in August. I’ll update this post if I talk to any of them.
