Someone contacted me once again to report that their TOEFL scores were cancelled (no refund) because they increased too much over the span of seven months. This is what ETS refers to as “an extremely unusual difference between” two test dates. Or perhaps “Inconsistent performance in your responses between” two test dates.
I wrote a very funny and sarcastic post about this (I even made a silly meme) but deleted it because I love all my friends at ETS very much and I don’t want to be insulting. But listen:
- One one hand, the marketing folks at ETS mention potential score increases all over social media to sell test registrations to repeaters.
- On the other hand, the product development folks have created all these wonderful new test prep products which are supposed to help people get higher scores. They enable students target the exact microfeatures that are costing them points on test day.
- On the third hand, the OTI folks still cancel scores if they change too much.
Do you see why my hair is falling out? I don’t think the firm should give students the tools to achieve large improvements in their scores, but also penalize students for achieving large improvements.
Leave a comment below if you have gone through something similar.