Michael Goodine's Blog, page 2

My Questions on the IELTS Screw Up

Here’s what I would ask the IELTS partners regarding the ongoing issues with incorrect IELTS scores: What exactly was the problem? Exactly how many tests were affected by this problem?  “Less than 1%” sounds nice on paper, but that could mean anywhere from 1 to 70,000 tests. Were any administrations from before August 2023 impacted […]

Cambridge Issues Annual Report

Cambridge University Press & Assessment has issued an annual report. One page is dedicated to IELTS. It references the ELT Journal article we’ve discussed here many times.

Public Transit and IELTS!

Someone on Reddit shared this picture of an IELTS advert in one of the SkyTrain stops in Burnaby*, British Columbia. Passengers who scan the code can get a $25 discount on the IELTS when taken on paper at a particular test center. One of the fun quirks of the IELTS system is that discounts are […]

More on IELTS Administration Failures

The IELTS partners have set up a Zendesk page to deal with current events.  In case you missed my post earlier today, a significant number of IELTS results have been adjusted for reasons that are not immediately clear.  But here’s what we know: The results of certain IELTS tests administered between August 2023 and September […]

IELTS Administrations Messed Up?

The IELTS partners have been contacting test takers from around the world to inform them of changes to their test results.  As a result of some apparent abnormalities, test results from as far back as 2024 have been adjusted.  The British Council IELTS website has crashed under the strain of users attempting to log in […]

ETS Warn Notice, California

Here’s the WARN notice which ETS filed with California’s EDD regarding the termination of 757 employees working as raters on the CAASPP-ELPAC contract (earlier story here). I put on my fake journalist cap and requested a copy last week. It confirms that the 757 laid off employees are from around the United States, not just […]

University of Victoria to Accept Duolingo English Test Scores

The University of Victoria will accept Duolingo English Test scores starting in May of next year. I think they were the largest non-accepting school in Canada last time I did a scan of Canadian institutions.

On Notetaking

Some English tests allow test takers to take notes in a little widget on the screen, instead of on paper or on a white board.  I like this. A few thoughts come to mind: Taking notes on a whiteboard is not fun, especially at home when you are using whatever board and marker (probably way […]

LanguageCert Mailer

Speaking of paper score reports, I took the LANGUAGECERT academic test while working on a project last month.  This week I got my score report in the mail. As you can see, it is dispatched in a nice cardboard mailer.  Inside the mailer is a sealed paper envelope containing the score report itself, along with […]

Duolingo Q3 2025 Results

Duolingo published Q3 results last week.  Revenue from the Duolingo English Test amounted to $9,649,000 for the quarter.  If we divide that number by the cost of taking the test ($70) we get a total of 137,842 tests for the quarter.  That’s a decline of 17% compared to the same quarter last year.  This figure […]