Here’s my latest roundup of news from the world of English testing. All the news that’s fit to print, I think.
Month: August 2025
I was quoted a few times in this PIE News article about TOEFL Essentials being approved by IRCC. I have a few thoughts:
- Like most things in Canada, English tests are terribly expensive. As is often the case, this is partially due to a lack of competition. In introducing a whole new product to the market, ETS has the opportunity to really shake things up in terms of pricing.
- Some readers may already know that Canada is a fairly large country. The introduction of a new test with a pre-existing network of test centers could mean the difference between some poor bastard taking a test close to home versus having to drive three hours to do so. Remember that ETS can offer the iBT and Essentials tests in the same test centers (and at the same time). That’s what Pearson does with the PTE-A and the PTE-Core tests.
- ETS currently has a 0% share of this market, so the introduction of the TOEFL Essentials test is a huge win for the testing giant. This is notable because ETS doesn’t get a lot of wins nowadays. Kudos to the team that put this together.
- Keep an eye on the specifications once the test is officially available for this purpose. It wouldn’t surprise me to see a few minor modifications get made. For instance, the test probably doesn’t need three adaptive levels, nor an adaptive writing section, nor an unscored video statement. The final version could more closely resemble the 2026 version of the TOEFL iBT.
The 2024 “Test and Score Data” summary for the TOEFL iBT is now available. This represents the first full year of the revised two-hour TOEFL test. A few notes:
The mean score (overall) is 86 points. That’s a one-point drop from last year.
The mean reading score is 21.9 (-0.4), the mean listening score is 22.1 (-0.2), the mean speaking score is 20.8 (-0.1), and the mean writing score is 21.1 (-0.1).
Among countries of interest (to me):
- The mean score in China was 85 (-1)
- The mean score in Korea was 86 (no change)
- The mean score in Japan was 72 (-1)
- The mean score in Brazil was 88 (no change)
- The mean score in India was 94 (+1)
- The mean score in Iran was 93 (-2)
- The mean score in the USA was 91 (-1)
IDP Education Ltd has released Full Year Financial results for FY 2025.
IELTS volumes are down 18% for the year for a total volume of 1,293,800 tests. Last year’s volume was 1.5 million tests. The peak for IDP was 2022, when 1.9 million tests were administered.
IELTS volumes are down 50% in India for the year. This comes after a 42% drop in India back in 2024.
Outside of India, IELTS volumes are up 2%. This is attributed to onshore testing in Canada and Australia.
IDP failed in its goal to launch IDP IELTS in China in the fiscal year.
Shares are up 31% on the news.
A new study aligns Duolingo English Test scores with the Canadian Language Benchmarks.
I read some stuff this month!
First up, I read a wonderful book called “How Scholars Write.” It’s a guide to good writing that is often assigned to first year students at Columbia University. It’s meant to give readers an understanding of how to approach academic writing early in their careers as students. It could be a little challenging for high schoolers (and even freshmen) but there is a lot to love here. The central idea is that writers should seek a “scholarly problem” to explore in their work. This refers to gaps in understanding that can be explored. I guess it is the difference between observing something and seeking out something new.
Next, I read Mark Fisher’s “Capitalist Realism.” Many readers have written about this book, so I’ll narrow my focus to something in Chapter 5. Here Fisher refers to the lifelong skilling and reskilling that workers were expected to do at the time he wrote this book (2008). This trend has become acute since then. It seems like all of the young people I talk to now know they need to keep learning for their whole careers. If they don’t keep learning they’ll be left behind. The trouble is, no one can tell them what, of all the things they could learn, is most useful to focus on. To make matters worse, that what is forever changing. It might be different every day they get out of bed. It’s almost kafkaesque.
Then I continued my readalong with the Norton Library Podcast, and read the Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass. Interested readers can tune into the first episode over here.
Finally, I read the 7 March 2024 issue of the London Review of Books. An article called “Impossible Desires” describes the love we have of books. And the fear we have of them. I’m almost done with my large stack of LRB issues.
Duolingo has published a new “Demographic and Score Properties” document, tracking Duolingo English Test takers for the year ending June 2025.
Notably, China now accounts for the largest percentage of test takers per test taker ID, at 12.88% of all test takers (down from 15.88% last year). India now accounts for the second largest percentage, at 12.43% (down from 18.91% last year).
Here are the top ten countries, with last year’s percentage in parentheses.
- China: 12.88% (15.88)
- India: 12.43% (18.91)
- Canada: 5.49% (4.35)
- USA: 4.23% (3.34)
- Brazil: 3.49% (3.42)
- Korea, Good: 3.39% (3.51)
- Mexico: 3.36% (3.12)
- France: 2.95% (2.09)
- Nepal: 2.71% (new to list)
- Pakistan: 2.40% (1.94)
Last year, China and India accounted for about 35% of all test takers. This year they account for about 25% of all test takers.
About 49% of test takers took the test to facilitate undergraduate studies, while about 35% took it to facilitate graduate studies.
Anyway. The document contains quite a lot of additional data. Do check it out. You can read about last year’s document over here.
I wrote a few weeks ago about an at-home test taker who was contacted on social media by a proctor who tracked her down using the personal information he had access to during the test. He then sent inappropriate messages to the test taker. I didn’t mention the specific test at the time, but most people could figure out that it was an ETS product.
According to updates from the test taker, ETS has now terminated that proctor. It is easy to single out ETS in this case (and they should be singled out). But this case speaks to the need for increased transparency across the whole industry regarding who has access to the personal information of test takers in an era where key functions are increasingly being outsourced and offshored. More and more, it seems, people who aren’t even directly employed by testing firms have access to sensitive information. It is unclear if they are subject to even the most cursory background checks.
This case was not an isolated incident, of course. Test followers have been hearing about them since remote testing went mainstream in 2020. In this particular case, the test taker hesitated to file a complaint out of a concern that ETS might retaliate against her in some way. This should not be happening.
I noticed that since last month most of the popular pharmacy tech programs in Ontario (Canada) have stopped accepting TOEFL scores for admissions. This brings them in line with the National Association of Pharmacy Regulatory Authorities, which dropped TOEFL from its list of acceptable English tests in 2024.
See, for instance, Sheridan College, which I think has the most popular pharm-tech program in the country:
A new 990 form for the non-profit that used to be called ACT, Inc. is now available via Propublica. This form reveals that the organization (now called “IntermediaryEd”) received 240 million dollars when it sold the ACT test (and related products) to private equity. The form also notes that 4.6 million dollars was the selling price of ACT’s Iowa City campus.
In the last full year of ACT’s ownership of the test, the organization brought in revenues of 234 million dollars related to educational assessment. That figure includes fees from about 1.3 million ACT test takers. Exact figures aren’t available, but I think about one third of those students also took the optional writing task. The fee for the base test that year was $62, while the writing test came in at $25. Note that in a majority of cases the fees were covered by state and local authorities, who probably got a discount.
I guess if you are a testing organization seeking to unload a frustratingly directionless legacy product, that’s the new benchmark to keep in mind as offers come in.
The former ACT, Inc now has assets valued at 416 million dollars (up from 246 million dollars) alongside a reason for existing that has not yet been determined.
The GRE snapshot for 2019-2024 is now available (or maybe I missed it when researching earlier this week). A few things are worth noting:
- The total number of tests taken in 2023/24 is actually lower than my earlier estimate. The total is actually 256,215 tests for the year. That’s the lowest figure (by far) for years in which data is readily available.
- The drop in India between 2022/23 (110,512 tests) and 2023/24 (59,113 tests) is staggering. I think you have to go back to 2013 to find such a low number from India.
It really seems like ETS’s hyper-fixation on the Indian market has produced little of value when it comes to revenues. I don’t like to pick on an organization when it’s down*, but it is worth mentioning.
Remember that spending is only possible insofar as ETS keeps collecting test taker fees. Those fees are often exorbitant. And those test takers are often young people from modest backgrounds.
When the next round of leadership changes inevitably hit, it might be worth cataloging some of the most puzzling uses of test taker fees over the past three or four years.
*Fact check: He does.
Note that the TOEFL program has instituted a “country change fee.” If test takers who have completed a home edition test wish to change the address in their TOEFL account to a new country they are now required to pay a $99 “country change” fee. I repeat: the fee is charged if you want to change your address after taking the test.
Needless to say, this is the stupidest thing I’ve heard all week.
The pop-up message (pictured) from ETS is so poorly worded as to be incomprehensible. But test takers have reported that declining to pay the fee after changing their address has resulted in them being locked out of accessing (or sending) any existing TOEFL score reports.
As many readers know, the TOEFL test is often taken by individuals seeking to study at an educational institution outside of their country of origin. As a result, it is not uncommon for test takers to change their address sometime after completing a TOEFL test.
ETS has now officially announced that it has been named a recognized testing organization by Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada and that the TOEFL Essentials Test will soon be accepted for immigration purposes. The press release confirms that the test will be offered at testing centers at that time.
ETS will be in competition with the IELTS General, PTE Core and CELPIP tests in this space.