The Early IELTS Exam

The International English Language Testing System (IELTS) was organized and established during the 1980s and first administered to test takers in 1989. In the beginning the test had moderate success, but quickly grew around the world. The inventors and administrators were the British Council, Cambridge English Language Assessment, among others.  

The IELTS has always had two types (academic and general training) a four-part structure (reading, writing, speaking, and listening) in which has been the form ever since. The speaking and listening modules were general, and there was only one version of these two sections. The reading and writing sections were intended to test these skills in academic disciplines that were as close as possible to a given student’s intended courses, and there were three available versions of these modules (science and technology, life science, and social science). The annual number of IELTS test-takers quickly surpassed the number of students who had sat the IELTS. By 1995, there were 210 test centers worldwide, and about 43,000 students took the IELTS each year.

First Changes

The IELTS was substantially checked out and updated in 1995. The first change was cutting out of the field-specific writing and reading modules and their assimilation into a single module for each. Other significant adjustments were administrative and structural. The speaking assessment had been a significant challenge, but permitting students to take this part of the test at a different time largely solved this problem. The reading and writing modules of the general training test were also set up to those of the academic test in terms of timing and response length.

Second Revisions

Strong efforts to improve the IELTS have moved into the 21st century. In 2001, the speaking section was phased down to include less tasks, examiner scripts and more specific scoring criteria were also integrated into the IELTS speaking paper. The evaluation of the writing section was updated in 2005. Once a pen and paper test only, the first virtual IELTS was carried out in 2005.

The IELTS Today

The IELTS is now taken by more than 2.5 million students in over 140 countries annually, making it one of the world’s top standardized evaluations. It is available at over 1,100 test centers, and is commonly accepted by universities and other organizations in all of the major English-speaking countries.