One of my friends that’s also an English teacher wrote me asking which international test I would recommend for one of his students, and I realized it would make for an informative blog post.
The first question I would ask someone who wants to take an international exam is the purpose. Would they like to enter a PhD program in another country? Are they looking to immigrate to an English-speaking country? Do they want to certify their level of English for a job opportunity? Their purpose will play a big part in deciding which exam to take.
In this blog post I’ll go through both tests, how they are used, their format, and other relevant information. I try to do so as concisely as possible without omitting important details.
TOEFL: Studying in the United States, Canada or Europe
As indicated in the title, studying at the undergraduate or graduate level are the main reasons for taking TOEFL.
It evaluates the four skills, and it’s offered as a computer-based format at testing centers you go to or in an online format you can take from home.
The reading section has either three or four academic passages and between 30 and 40 questions. The questions are almost all multiple choice, but there are some that require you to fill in a table. The questions are related to things like the main ideas, details, meanings of words, inferences, and the appropriate place to add a sentence. It really tests if you are able to understand academic literature at the appropriate level to succeed in an academic program.
The listening section has a combination of short classroom lectures and conversations on a college campus. Depending on the number of sections it takes between 41 and 57 minutes, and all the questions are multiple choice. People in the recordings speak very quickly, and they use idioms that you may or may not know. In addition to that, there is vocabulary around a college campus (things like TA, midterms, GPA, etc) that you should be familiar with for this section. The listening test really evaluates if you can understand academic lectures as well as more informal conversations that students encounter on an everyday basis.
The writing section has two parts. In the independent writing part, you have thirty minutes to write an essay in response to a prompt. This tests you ability to construct a coherent essay to take a position or explain a topic within a set period of time. In the integrated writing part, you read a short passage about an academic topic, and then you listen to a professor speak about that same topic. You then have twenty minutes to write a response summarizing the professor’s points and how they either support or reject the ideas presented in the reading. This part is quite structured, and it evaluates your ability to synthesize information in written form.
The speaking section consists of four tasks. The first one is an independent speaking task that requires you to answer a question, either expressing a preference between two options or explaining a personal experience such a favorite vacation. The remaining tasks are integrated speaking tasks, and they require you to listen to a conversation/academic lecture and provide a summary or read a short announcement/academic passage, listen to a conversation/academic lecture and then summarize what they spoke about in relation to the written announcement. This section intends to measure your vocabulary, fluency, and ability to organize your ideas when speaking, and listening comprehension. The advantage of this is that you can get your test scores pretty quickly and you don’t need to schedule a separate test time. The disadvantage is that speaking into a microphone is not a very normal activity, and it can cause some people to feel awkward and nervous as opposed to talking to a person.
If you’d like official information about TOEFL, you can visit https://www.ets.org/toefl.
IELTS: Studying in or immigrating to Canada, Australia, or other parts of the world
As seen in the title, taking the IELTS serves two main purposes. It is accepted by some universities in the United States, but TOEFL is more common. It is offered as a paper-based and computer-based test to be taken at official test centers.
Given the two different purposes of studying and immigrating, there is a general version of the test and an academic version. The reading and writing sections are different for the two versions.
If we first consider what is the same, the listening test has four sections with 40 questions in total. The first section has an exchange of information between two people, and you need to listen for and write down basic information such as names, phone numbers, and other details. In the second section you listen to a monologue and answer questions about it. The third section has a conversation (usually between two students), and the fourth section features a professor giving a lecture. The main question types include multiple choice, fill in the blank, and matching. In addition to testing your listening, it also evaluates your spelling and capitalization.
The speaking test is also identical for both versions of IELTS. It takes place in person with an examiner, and it has three parts. The first part is like a warmup, and you are asked about common topics like your hometown, friends and family, free time activities, etc. In the second part you are given a card with a specific topic to speak about, and you are given one minute to prepare and then two minutes to speak. The last part is a conversation with the examiner about a topic that is more abstract. That section tests your ability to express opinions, explain reasons, and elaborate on an idea. All in all it takes about 15 minutes.
If we look at how the general and academic version differ, the first area is in the reading test. The general version has short readings about general topics, informational signs and pamphlets, and similar readings. Its purpose is to evaluate your ability to read English at a sufficient level to be able to live in an English-speaking country. The academic reading test has three readings about academic topics, and you have to answer questions related to each text. They want to determine your ability to read and comprehend an academic text to gauge your future success studying in an English-speaking context. Both versions have 40 questions, and there are a variety of question types such as fill in the blank, multiple choice, matching, yes/no/not given, and true/false/not given. For both versions you have an hour to complete the reading test.
Last but not least is the writing test. Both tests require you to write an essay for writing task 2, and it requires you to take a position or explain an issue. You need to write at least 250 words. For writing task 1 the general version, you write a letter to a company or person with a specific purpose. For writing task 1 of the academic test, you are given a graphic such as a map, chart, table, or graph. You need to summarize the key changes seen in the graphic. For both versions of the test you have to write at least 150 words. For both versions of the test you have one hour to complete both tasks.
If you’d like to read more about IELTS, you can visit https://www.ielts.org.
So which test should I take?
First and foremost, you need to take the test that is accepted based on your institution’s requirements.
If you have the choice between taking both, there are some important considerations.
Do you think you would feel better having an in-person conversation with someone rather than speaking into a microphone? If that’s the case, you might prefer IELTS over TOEFL.
Are you planning on going to the United States or Canada? In that case, TOEFL would be better given the listening test. Their speaking is much closer to native speakers in terms of speed and the use of idioms compared to IELTS. Based on my experience and from what test-takers have told me, the accents found on the TOEFL test are traditional accents from the United States.
Do you feel safe going to a testing center and being around other people given the state of the pandemic? If that’s the case, IELTS is fine. If you’re not comfortable doing so, TOEFL is available to be taken from your home.
In any case, getting a passing score on IELTS or TOEFL is an important step in your language-learning journey, but it is not the end. I hope this post provides clarity about which test is right for you.
