 It's the fresh smell of exam season. All around the world, people are getting ready to send their college applications or to get the credentials to back up their college applications by taking standardized tests, especially when it comes to English. But when it comes to actually taking a test and figuring out which test to take, a lot of people get confused. And that's why today we're going to focus on answering three questions. First, how do these tests work? And which test should you take? Third, how can you raise your score on these important exams? Let's start with how these tests work. All language tests do essentially the same thing, which is test the four key language skills. Those are reading, listening, speaking, and writing. So most of your English tests are going to have four parts, one for each of these four skills, and you'll get a grade in each of the four skills. You've heard me say at some point or another that you need a B2 or a C1 or even B1. What do those mean? They come from the common European framework of reference, basically a way to standardize different levels of language proficiency. So what this means for university applications is that many times you will see on websites that they ask for a B2 or a C1, but maybe they don't specify exactly which test you need to take. And that brings us to our next question. Which test should you take? In this corner weighing 17 stone and four pebbles, Her Majesty's official English testing service born in 1848 from the University of Cambridge. We have the IOC muscle born in New Jersey, so you know he hits hard, crushing opponents since 1947. Ladies and gentlemen, who's going to take those? Cambridge Assessment and the Educational Testing Service administer the world's two most popular English tests, the IELTS and TOEFL respectively. Now before we talk about which of these two tests you should take, it would be good to know a little bit about the similarities and differences. Let's start with what's the same. Both tests can certify you anywhere between a B1 and C1 level. You'll get a grade in each of the four main skills and you'll also get a final grade that kind of represents the average or the sum of all of those skills. Now this is where they start to separate a little bit. The IELTS gives you a score between 1 and 9. Meanwhile, the TOEFL gives you a score between 0 and 120. Each of the four skills is worth 30 points. Most universities will ask for you to get somewhere between a 6 and 7 on the IELTS. Similarly, universities typically ask you to get anywhere between 90 and 100 points on the TOEFL with minimums in each category. In general, the IELTS is the easier test and here's why. The TOEFL uses what they call integrated tasks. Integrated tasks integrate reading and listening and writing and speaking altogether in the same task. Ready to form Voltron! You may have to read, then listen, then speak. The same thing happens in the writing where you're expected to do the first part of the writing by reading an article and then listening to a lecture about that article. System systems across the country are devoting resources. And then finally answering the question given. These integrated tasks generally are more challenging because they require you to remember more information, take more notes, and ultimately they make the TOEFL harder than the IELTS. That's not to say that the IELTS doesn't have any challenges. The IELTS adds difficulty to its test by taking away multiple choice options wherever possible. The majority of the test requires you to actually write in the answer in a blank. That answer could even be multiple words. This means that spelling also comes into play when we take the IELTS and that can make it a little bit more difficult for some people. The thing about the IELTS is that you can probably take it anywhere. The TOEFL is generally more acceptable in the United States and Canada, but it's not as common to accept it in Europe. So if you're thinking about applying to both European and American universities, you should look at taking the IELTS and not the TOEFL unless you find a university that only accepts the TOEFL. Now if you decide to take the IELTS, be aware that there are multiple flavors of the IELTS. One is the academic version, while there's also a general version. And you should always take the academic one, don't even think about taking the general. But there's also a third variant called the IELTS indicator test. Now this indicator test is an online only version of the IELTS, which was released recently in response to the situation that we're all living in. Putting 40 people in a room together to take a test doesn't suddenly seem like a good idea anymore, so we don't do that now. Now you may be able to take the IELTS indicator for admissions to universities, but you do need to be mindful that it's a relatively new format of the test to make sure you check with the university website to make sure that they actually accept the IELTS indicator test. The bottom line is this. If you take the IELTS academic test on paper, you can go anywhere. So take that test. If you're unable to take tests in person for reasons, then we would recommend that you take a look at each university's website and see whether they will support the TOEFL online or the IELTS indicator test online. Oh my God! There is another. I've been talking about these two tests like there's no competition, but guess what, people, there is. Ring that bell. Duolingo has entered the chat. That's right, Duolingo. The little laugh that you download on your phone that teaches you how to speak another language, that Duolingo, they have their own language test now. And they're trying to disrupt the entire system. That's exactly what Duolingo's doing, by the way. Thousands of institutions, most of them in the U.S., but not all, have already said that they'll take the Duolingo test results. What they do is force you to record yourself taking the whole test. They then go through and review your video recording. You do need to like keep your eyes locked onto your screen and you can't have anyone around you, can't have anything in your ears. Your ears need to be nicely uncovered, so if you've got some really long hair over those, you might want to, you know, do something about that. Both the IELTS and the TOEFL will cost you about $200 to take. But this Duolingo test is coming in at literally less than a quarter of that. So should you take the Duolingo test and forget everything I said about the IELTS? Well, not so fast. It is a brand new test. It's the new kid on the block. And so not every university has signed up for Duolingo yet. If you take a look at your college list and they all say Duolingo, maybe you should. How can you raise your score on these English tests? Now, obviously the easiest way to do this would be to go to prepwiscor.com and then call us up and see how we can help you. But if you're looking just for some free advice, I've got that too. Here are some tips that you can use to raise your score on all four of the skills of any English test. When it comes to reading, this is going to be very disappointing, but read. If you never read books, articles or anything in English, how are you going to get good at reading for a test? When it comes to listening, the advice is similar. Podcasts are a great way to do this, especially if you have some kind of commute to and from school or to and from work. This is the best way to do it. Just put on a podcast and listen to some people talk to you in English. I highly recommend the Stuff You Should Know podcast. You can also work on listening for specific accents because tests like the IELTS love to introduce you to the whole breadth of English accents, including people from Scotland, Ireland and Australia. My personal favorite suggestion is to check out Netflix comedy series called Comedians of the World. Instead of displaying different seasons, displays different countries. So you can actually sit there and listen to stand-up comedy from Canada or New Zealand or South Africa for like an hour and get more familiar with their accents. When it comes to writing, every single English test is going to have some kind of essay. And usually it will ask you to take your side on a debatable topic. Always pick a side and stay firm to that side. One of the biggest mistakes I see people make on these English tests is that they try to explore the nuances and grey areas and exceptions of everything. And the problem is, ain't nobody got time for that. You really need to just focus on one side of the argument and really defend that side with all of your life. With speaking, obviously I can tell you to just go practice speaking and talk as much as you can, but when it comes to these tests, the key is time management. Every speaking task on an English test has some sort of time limit and you need to practice working with that time limit. So for the TOEFL, you have to speak for 60 seconds, practice speaking 60 seconds, set a timer to 60 seconds and start talking. When you're able to sense somewhere around here that it's time for you to stop talking, then you're good to go. If only I had that in real life. That sort of sixth sense is going to tell you that, hey, okay, it's time for me to wrap it up with a conclusion. That way you never get, I'm gonna let you finish. Cut off in the middle of an idea. Your entire speaking section will sound more coherent and organized because you're aware of how much time is left on the clock. Another tip for speaking is maybe to imbibe a little bit of liquid courage before you start because that's a great way to kill the nerves. Know what I'm saying? What we always recommend people do is try to prepare their best for taking the test one time and one time only. And if you need help with that, you can go to prepwithscore.com and see how we can help you prepare for any English test.