The most recent edition of the EL Gazette indicates the growing popularity of the IELTS test for college and university applicants.
Two million people took the IELTS test over the past year, reflecting its constant growth over the past two decades, writes Rafaela Peteanu. IELTS is jointly owned by the British Council, IDP: IELTS Australia and Cambridge English Language Assessment.
It took almost twenty years for IELTS to reach a million testers a year (in 2007), and only five more for it to get to two million. The test comes in two formats, Academic and General Training, each consisting of four modules. Both formats include the same listening and speaking modules, but the Reading and Writing ones differ. The most recent data (2011) shows more than three out of four IELTS test-takers opting for the Academic format.
Zach Johnson, CEO of IELTS USA, said that “of the two million tests, the numbers of people taking IELTS to go to the US continues to grow and all of the top 25 US universities accepting foreign students accept IELTS as proof of English proficiency”, making it a strong rival to the TOEFL test, which was traditionally accepted by US colleges and universities as proof of English language skills.
Currently, over 8,000 academic and professional organizations and government bodies accept IELTS as proof of English language proficiency.
“EL Gazette” August 2013, page 4.
