Pearson is coming in red hot this morning with a new advertising campaign that extols the virtues of the PTE’s AI scoring and raises some pointed criticisms of the human scoring used in other tests. The above link is to one of the campaign’s Instagram videos (which is way more effective than anything found in the Youtube component of the campaign). If you watch one Internet video today, this should be the one. It tugs at the heartstrings.
Some test takers who experience issues with human raters complain that they feel unheard and ignored. On social media and the other places test takers go to seek help, complaints about biased or impolite interlocutors are quickly brushed aside by experts who believe they know better. Time and time again, these test takers are basically told that their complaints are all in their head. It really gets my goat.
Personally, I love humans.* But I agree that giving a voice to individuals who feel they are disadvantaged due to bias is probably a smart way to market a test.
*And I don’t care who knows it.