By Philip Yeung
Dear IELTS designer,
I am writing to register my bitter disappointment with IELTS. Across Asia and much of the world, it is the gateway foreign students must pass through to higher education. But universities, both local and overseas, are complaining that students who are admitted on high IELTS scores are unable to write essays and articulate themselves in class. University gatekeepers can be forgiven for taking the IELTS results with a large pinch of salt.
It is an open secret that IELTS is waging a war against cram schools who try to predict and reverse-engineer IELTS test questions, giving their clients templates and memorized answers. The test-maker, in an attempt to outwit them, makes the test content niche and unpredictable.
Sadly, smart test-taking strategies do not translate into linguistic improvement. I know because I have been invited to provide writing workshops by universities in the Greater Bay Area where students are admitted with high IELTS scores but struggle academically with their speaking and writing skills. IELTS is a poor predictor of their linguistic competence. Universities want genuine language proficiency, not clever test-takers.
IELTS is flawed. But because it is designed by Cambridge, it remains unchallenged as a tool for measuring English language ability. No one has yet openly called into question the validity and suitability of these tests.
IELTS is now everywhere. The British empire might have collapsed, but its linguistic dominance is alive and kicking. From the China market alone, IELTS siphons off more than RMB 17 billion a year, with the average test-taker redoing it three times, at 2 K RMB a pop. This cash cow, however, offers questionable benefit to higher education. It is not accurately predicting the linguistic preparedness of applicants.
For MBA applicants, the test is seriously misaligned with their business education given its down-to-earth communication style. IELTS cannot be a one-size-fits-all test for all disciplines. Business applicants are a special breed with their own needs.
In the Listening paper, test-takers are given a long, recorded passage followed by multiple-choice questions. The key skill required here is shorthand or note-taking. It is a memory test and a race against the clock. In the old days, test-takers were given 10 minutes to transcribe their answers. Now they must do real-time answering.
Many MBA applicants are business executives with adequate functional knowledge of English. They are not seeking another academic degree. They want to boost their business, managerial, and practical communicative skills. Instead, they are forced into hard-boning exam skills. This is an uneconomical use of their precious time. It is anti-educational.
To outsmart cram schools, IELTS designers are constantly searching for unfamiliar materials to deny cram school clients any unfair advantage. Consequently, the Reading paper, for one, is becoming esoteric, alien and more abstract, thus raising the anxiety level of Asian test-takers and adversely affecting their test performance. This is a vicious circle. The harder Cambridge tries to win this cat-and-mouse game, the more intimidating the test becomes.
Even native English speakers suffer a shock of non-recognition when confronted with the material.
Here is a sample of the topics in recent IELTS Reading tests: 1. "The Kakapo"—a nocturnal, flightless parrot that is critically endangered and native to New Zealand. 2. "Manatees"—known as sea cows which are aquatic mammals that belong to a group of animals called Sirenia that include dugongs". 3. "Mapungubwe"—an ancient kingdom located in southern Africa just below the Limpopo River that flourished in the 11th and 13th centuries."
These topics, so far removed from the everyday world, leave Chinese test-takers feeling disoriented and intimidated.
The unfamiliarity of these subjects conspires with strict time limits, high anxiety and high stakes to contribute to poor test performance.
As for the Writing paper, Part 1 requires test-takers to describe or otherwise make sense of a pie chart, diagram or graph. I question why this is considered an essential skill, especially for MBA students. With only 20 minutes for the task, this unfamiliar format becomes a nerve-racking race against the clock. It tests time management skills which are unrelated to language proficiency. As for the essay itself, it is all about meeting rubrics of little value in sharpening writing skills.
The key to IELTS success lies in doing round after round of tedious practice-with zero impact on improving practical language skills.
Then comes the examiner factor. It is believed that examiners in the China region are more intimidating. After multiple failures, many test-takers began "shopping around" for an easier test center in south-east Asia. Thankfully, cross-border "shopping around" is now banned. But does this forecast an even higher failure rate in China?
So, what are the alternatives? Duolingo is one. This test only costs 70 US dollars. Its score of 110 is equivalent to 6.5 in IELTS. Duolingo test results are now accepted by elite universities including Harvard, Princeton, Yale, Stanford and the Imperial College of London. But the test-preparation industry is hooked on IELTS. Now more than just a cottage industry, these tutorial centers number in the thousands across China. They are a big business with deep roots.
Undoubtedly, test questions drive the direction of student learning. I wonder why designers do not focus on alphabetical literacy, creative wordplay and rhetorical techniques in writing and speaking—the bread-and-butter skills in academic communication. Why waste time on honing exam skills that add little value.
The University of Hong Kong is beginning to make adjustments to reality, giving its MBA applicants an IELTS waiver with just a band 6, provided that no paper is scored below 5.5.
Other options beckon. Universities can charge applicants a fee that includes a three-day fundamental language training where applicants can be accurately assessed as to their linguistic readiness for their studies. Universities get extra revenue while getting linguistically qualified applicants. This is killing two birds with one stone. It beats a blanket IELTS test that is light on language proficiency but heavy on exam tactics.
The views do not necessarily reflect those of DotDotNews.
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