EUROEDUCATION NET - EXAMINATION ENGLISH, ENGLISH TESTS AND EXAMS

1. Do I need to do an English exam?

You only need to do an exam if your boss or school or parents (etc.) say you must. But there can also be good reasons for doing one, even if you haven't got the pressure of need.

If you're doing an English course, why not do an exam at the end of it? There will be no better time (see Question 2, below)
"A bit of paper" (that is, a certificate) can always be useful. You never know what's going to happen in your career.
Motivation. Many people (most people?) find that the feeling that they have to pass a test gives them greater motivation to work. If you think this is true for you, don't hesitate: the money you spend on entering and doing the exam will be money very well spent, even if you don't pass it. Just think that you have bought motivation!

2. Are there any good reasons for not doing exams?

Yes, there can be good reasons for saying that you don't want to do an exam:

Some people are not motivated by the idea of doing an exam - it has the opposite effect.
Some people are motivated at the thought of doing an exam, but more by nervousness than excitement. Being nervous is not the best condition for learning a language.
There can be a difference between knowing English well and being able to do well in an exam in it. And some exams are better than others: with the good exams, if you know English well you will do well in the exam; with the bad ones, knowing how to do the exam is more important than knowing English. The more time you spend learning exam techniques, the less time you spend learning the English you're going to need in real life!

3. When is the best time to do an exam?

If you have only time to do one level, definitely at the end of an English course, and it's best to do it while you are still in an English-speaking country. It's not that you forget your English when you go home, but an exam which includes speaking or listening tests (most exams include listening) will be much easier if you do it while you are still hearing English every day.

4. Do I need to follow an exam course?

Yes, it's a good idea, but be careful! Some exam courses have a very narrow focus, and if these are long courses they are often bad even for the one job they are trying to do well - getting you through the exam. One problem is that a continuous diet of test exercises is easy and comforting: it's easy because there are many things you don't have to think about (for example in a test of grammar you don't usually have to worry about difficult vocabulary) and it's comforting because you concentrate, so you feel you are working hard. But the ease and comfort are - unfortunately - not really helping you to develop your language in the interesting but complex, demanding ways you need.

Another problem is that too much practice at a limited range of tasks makes you bored in the end, and being bored is the very worst condition for learning language well. It's natural to want more confidence in doing the kinds of questions you have to answer, but if you spend too much time getting that confidence you are taking time away from learning really useful English (which is useful in exams too!)

For a long exam preparation course (10 weeks, say) you need one which will give you a good basic diet of general English, with only a little exam work at first, intensifying as the exam gets nearer. This is the policy we have found to produce the best results in our own examination courses (see http://www.severnvale.co.uk/whyexam.htm).

If you are doing a short preparation course, however (say for just the two or three weeks before an exam) then you obviously need a much higher proportion of intensive practice - but even then some general English is a good idea.
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n any preparation for an exam, never lose sight of the basic truth: Good English + a little Exam Technique has far more chance of success than Poor English + a lot of Exam Technique

5. Which are the best exams to do?

There is only one factor which really matters when making this choice: let's call it "currency" or "currency value". This simply means that the certificate or 'score' you get when you pass an exam must have value

where you want to use it

t's no use going to a university or an employer in, for example, Whereland and saying, "...and I have a Gold-top-Super-Whizz Certificate in English , Grade 15," if the person you want to impress is going to answer, "What's that? I've never heard of it. We only accept TOEFL and IELTS." So the first thing is to find out which exams have the best "currency value" in the country you want to work or study in, for the kinds of things you want to do. Unfortunately this can sometimes be difficult to find out, and the world is so big that we can't really help you. There is usually some information on the official website of the testing services (see the table below) but basically you have to ask - ask anyone and everyone, including your language school, your own school at home, and anyone you've worked for.

Other factors are more practical, and we have made the following table to help you see for yourself.

Note: None of these exams requires that you have passed one level (or any other test) before taking a new level.