The construct of reading is presented in language assessment. Previous studies have focused on reading issues encountered by English learners, most of which are manifested by certain linguistic features: lexical bundles (LBs). Addressing this, the study aims to analyze LBs in reading comprehension passages in the Chinese National Matriculation…

I analyzed a corpus of the international English language testing system (IELTS) comprising 256 listening sections (1996-2021). The primary objective of the study was to gain insights into the assumptions made by test designers regarding the real-life contexts that test-takers will encounter. Overall, 15 superordinate topic areas and 300 subtopics…

Thousands of education institutions worldwide rely on IELTS scores as criteria for accepting international students whose first language is not English. Individual studies have found varying degrees of strength of correlations and conflicting results between IELTS entry scores and subsequent academic success. These conflicting results were…

Personal Learning Environment (PLE) represents a shift of learning paradigm towards learner-centered pedagogy, where users become masters of their own learning. PLEs are best used by learners with Self-Regulated Learning (SRL) abilities. Previous research showed that learners felt lost or socially isolated in PLEs due to their limited SRL…

Comparing language tests and test preparation materials holds important implications for the latter's validity and reliability. However, not enough studies compare such materials across a wide range of indices. Therefore, this study investigated the text complexity of IELTS academic reading tests (IRT) and IELTS reading practice tests (IRPrT).…

For institutions where English is the primary language of instruction, English assessments for admissions such as the Test of English as a Foreign Language (TOEFL) and International English Language Testing System (IELTS) give admissions decision-makers a sense of a student's skills in academic English. Despite this explicit purpose, these exams…

This review synthesizes the findings of research compiled between the relationship on international student success and the International English Language Testing System (IELTS). Increasingly, within higher education, IELTS test scores have become not only a benchmark for testing the language proficiency of international students who speak English…