While I was searching the warrens of the College Board’s website, I stumbled upon something I didn’t know I needed: this technical manual for the AP International English Language Test! Developed for the College board by ETS and offered from 1997 to 2002, the APIEL Test was used by some schools in the United States alongside TOEFL and IELTS to confirm English fluency when admitting international students.
Testing enthusiasts might find the content of the manual somewhat interesting. This was a three-hour test (plus time for instructions) and if you squint at it long enough you can see how it may have been influenced by research being done in support of the TOEFL iBT. For instance, this was the first ETS test with both a speaking section and a writing section. Meanwhile, in true AP fashion, the reading and listening items are sourced from real-world publications rather than the somewhat stilted constructions we see in tests today. I even spotted an uncredited excerpt from “The Spy Who Came in From the Cold.”
Perhaps some readers of this space contributed to the development of the test and have some memories to share.
This test actually came up in a conversation I had at DETcon 2024; another attendee reminisced about how ETS held similar events in the 90s to promote the product. Recall that back then ETS ran most of the College Board’s testing programs.
This seems to have been the College Board’s only foray into the world of high stakes English testing (aside from their early management of the TOEFL). I’ve often wondered if they have ever considered getting into this market. There is still some potential for profit, I think. Just off the top of my head I can count TEN firms trying to make money on high stakes testing for college admissions in the UK, but only four trying to profit from the much larger US market.