[photopress:mba_ielts.jpg,full,alignright]The International English Language Testing System (IELTS) is one of the ways in which students are judged for English language proficiency test. They need a rating in either this or the American based TOEFL to get into most universities abroad.
There is, of course, a demand for these ratings. IELTS will open three more centers in East and North China later this year to see the number of IELTS test centers at 33.
James Shipton, director of exam services at the British Council in China said the cities for the three new centers have not been decided yet.
A temporary center has also been planned for Hangzhou of Zhejiang province, from next month to September, to meet greater demand over the summer vacation.
James Shipton said, ‘IELTS has seen rapid development in China and kept an average annual increase rate of about 50% in recent years.’
Last year, 210,000 Chinese reportedly took the IELTS. China has also had the world’s largest number of IELTS candidates for the past two consecutive years.[photopress:MBA_SF_ibt_toefl.jpg,full,alignleft]
The test is jointly managed by the British Council, IDP Education Australia and the University of Cambridge ESOL Examinations so there should be no jiggery-pokery.
There are other similar English-language tests such as TOEFL and TOEIC, which also attract large number of candidates.
Chinese candidates’ average score was 5.45 last year — 5.5 is seen as the score sufficient for immigration and entry to many universities.
Source: English People’s Daily Online