Michael Goodine's Blog, page 41

Canada, Australia Less Popular Among International Students

An interesting tidbit from the Australian Financial Review: “A survey of 11,500 prospective, applied and current students by recruitment firm IDP Education found that there has been a sharp increase in the popularity of the US as news of more restrictive policies in Australia, as well as in Canada and in the UK, have started […]

TOEFL Complaint: Score Cancelled Due to Unauthorized Software

Someone recently posted a complaint on Reddit. You can click the image below to read it (and the boilerplate message from ETS) but basically their TOEFL scores were canceled because unauthorized software was detected during the test administration. The test taker is frustrated because the security specialist (proctor) failed to detect or shut down the […]

GregMat Youtube Channel is Offline

Some readers might have noticed that GregMat’s YouTube channel is offline.  That’s due to a copyright strike filed by ETS. If anyone at ETS is reading this, listen up.  You shouldn’t do this sort of stuff.  In order for your tests to thrive you need a vibrant community of Youtubers, prep providers and book authors.  […]

Pearson Q1 Results

Pearson’s 2024 Q1 trading update is now available. Of the PTE, it says: “Pearson Test of English declined slightly due to a strong comparator, and we expect performance will ramp through the year.” We’ll see. I’m bullish on PTE’s potential, but we are now in the brave new world of reduced admissions in Canada, the […]

On IELTS, Complaints and Test Companies Moving into the Global South

Below find a complaint from an IELTS test-taker that was shared on social media a few days ago. This individual experienced a technical problem during his online (at home) IELTS. Their test was not validated and no refund was given. They then spent a large amount of money to take the test at a test […]

You Should Read More – Part 44!

Happy April, folks! First up – new versions of the Official Guide to the TOEFL and the two Official Tests books were published this month, but my copies haven’t arrived so no news about those in this month’s column.  Maybe next month.  Meanwhile, I did read a few things.  They are… Nancy’s Isenberg’s White Trash: […]

The Saga of the Altruism Question

Amazon is now shipping copies of the new Official Guide to the TOEFL. As noted a few days ago, the guide no longer contains certain long running inaccuracies, so it’s probably a good time to record the Saga of the Altruism Question. In late 2005 the first edition of “The Official Guide to the New […]

TOEFL Test Tourism (and IELTS, too)

The Chosun published a story yesterday about exam tourism.  It reports that Chinese students are flocking to Korea to take the TOEFL and IELTS tests due to a shortage of testing centers in China.  Perhaps half of IELTS test-takers in Korea are Chinese nationals, according to the article. It is mentioned that there are only […]

Barrons TOEFL: 18th Edition Now Available!

My copy of the new TOEFL iBT Premium from Barron’s just arrived. I was really lucky to have the opportunity to contribute a little bit to this edition (the 18th). My job was mainly to revise the integrated writing questions and make them a bit more accurate. I also fact checked the boring stuff (payment […]

TOEFL iBT Paper Edition Discontinued

I just learned that the TOEFL iBT Paper Edition was quietly discontinued in January. The Paper Edition launched in December of 2021 in select cities across four countries. Test-takers took the Reading, Listening and Writing sections on paper at a test center, and took the speaking section from home on a computer. It included unlimited […]