Progress tests (online tests)

Progress tests as diagnostic tools are designed to evaluate a student’s language level according to the CEFR. When taking the test, students start from level A1 and move from low level questions towards higher level ones.

The James Cook Languages Progress Test consists of a database of 4000 questions - with 800 questions for each level. From this database, a test containing 100 questions is generated by the system on an individual basis - each language level is covered by 20 questions.

The time limit for completing the test is the same for all students no matter their level, every student has 65 minutes to finish. Students whose language abilities are at a lower level do not reach higher levels due to two aspects- first, they do not have the required knowledge and second, they are slower when working on the tasks. Both of these aspects are crucial for assessing a student’s language level. Students need to focus not only on the quality of their performance, but also have the ability to perform within a certain time.

The Progress Test doesn’t reflect the current content of lessons and is not designed to assess a certain language level in more depth - these are areas evaluated by revision tests or language level tests.

The test type chosen for the assessment period is based on discussions between the language school and the client. As a language school, we are able to recommend a certain type of test to a client based on the client’s needs, aims and objectives.