There is an interesting experiment going at the end of the DET practice test. Duolingo seems to be trying out “describe-the-picture” tasks that are based on images connected to the test taker’s locality.
I’m in Korea and received a picture of a scene containing elements that would be immediately familiar to most people here. After describing the scene I was asked how familiar I was with the image, how well I thought I did on the task, and if I would like to see similar items on the real test.
Following that, I received an image with elements that would be less familiar to people here and was asked similar questions.
I wrote a few days ago about the quick growth of some tests due to how “nimble” certain test makers are. Duolingo certainly benefits from their ability to quickly run large experiments like this via their online practice test.
