Which English Exam is Right For You?—Exam English Site Review
What’s Exam English?
Exam English is a website for people studying or thinking of studying for an English proficiency test. It has materials covering TOEFL, TOEIC, IELTS, BULATS, CPE, ECPE, LTE, CAE, FCE, LTE, ECCE, PET, and KET exams. Exam English describes the different elements of each exam and has online practice tests simulating some parts of each exam.
What Exam English Does Well
Exam English is probably the best place to go when you are deciding which exam to take. It provides samples that cover every major international exam.
Each exam has a “Who is it for?” section that tells what each exam is for, where the exam is current, and, of course, who it is for.
On the home page, the exams are shown grouped by difficulty in plain English and by CEFR (Common European Framework of Reference for Languages: Learning, Teaching, Assessment) rating. This makes it easy to compare the exams by difficulty.
Finally, the webmaster has thoughtfully created a quick 15-question level test. At the end of the test, it shows you which exams are likely appropriate and it gives you an approximate TOEFL and TOEIC score.
What Can Be Improved
The site would be more useful as a study tool if it had more than one practice test for each exam. Once you have taken the practice test for your exam, there isn’t much else to offer.
It would also be nice if students could do a complete practice run from beginning to end. To do this, students would need someone qualified to grade written portions of the exams and someone qualified to conduct interview portions of the exams. Providing links, contact information, etc… to people qualified to grade the writing or conduct the interviews would give a complete picture of what they need to practice the most.
How to Use Exam English
Visit Exam English to choose an exam, to get information about the components of your chosen exam, and to check the progress of your studies. Have a look at the table that ranks the different exams by difficulty on the homepage and take the level test if you are choosing an exam. Read the pages dedicated to each exam to get an idea of the components of each exam. Take the practice tests for your chosen exam to check your progress.
My Favourite
That’s easy—the level test. Like a lot of computer based tests, the level test automatically adjusts in difficulty based on your answers. This sort of test is a very efficient way of evaluating skill level.
The Verdict
Exam English is an excellent site for choosing and learning about the various English exams.