Duolingo English Test: Everything you Need to Know

What is the Duolingo English Test?

The Duolingo English Test is an online language test that a candidate can take on their personal computers. Like IELTS and TOEFL, it is also an English language skill assessment that proves candidates’ proficiency in English. Hence, even if you want to study in UK without IELTS, you can appear in the Duolingo Test from the comfort of your home.

Like IELTS and TOEFL, it also tests four skills of English, viz, reading, listening, speaking, and writing. You don’t need to go to the exam centre. Instead, you must have a PC and good internet connectivity. If you have these two things, you can appear in the exam from anywhere as per convenience.

What are the pros and cons of the Duolingo English Test?

PROS

• Cheaper test: As compared to IELTS and TOEFL, which charge 300 and 245 dollars respectively, the cost of the Duolingo English Test approx 49-63 dollars per test.
• Give tests from the comfort zone of your house: One of the perks of this test is that you can give it on your PC from any part of the world. Moreover, it does not take much time. The test merely takes one hour to complete, unlike IELTS and TOEFL, which take approximately 3 hours.
• Send to unlimited colleges: You can study in Australia without IELTS with the merit score of Duolingo. You can send these scores to various colleges for free; in the case of IELTS and TOEFL it is restricted to five and four universities, respectively. Besides these limits, IELTS or TOEFL costs around 20 dollars per university. Duolingo saves extra costs while permitting you to send the scores to many colleges.
• Result within 48 hours: Duolingo updates your result within 48 hours of conducting a test, which is computer-generated. Moreover, one gets ample number of chances to appear if one fails in the first chance.

CONS

• Quick speaking tasks: Duolingo’s speaking task is quicker, thereby not providing enough time to respond
• Not enough study materials: You can avail various practice sets and study materials for IELTS preparation. However, the Duolingo English test does not have a vast range of practice material sets.
• Technical issues: One should have over 1 Mbps of internet connectivity to participate in the test. In big cities, internet connectivity is quite good. However, in small towns and rural areas, steady connectivity can be a challenge.

What is the Process of the Duolingo Test?

• Duration: The total Duolingo test duration is 1 hour. 45 minutes is for an adaptive test, while 10 minutes is for a video interview.
• Exam Pattern: The Duolingo English test has two sections, adaptive and video interview. The adaptive section is the graded part, which analyses reading, writing, speaking, and listening skills. The video interview is an ungraded section that records the answers to open-ended questions.
• Take the sample test: You can visit the Duolingo site to take sample tests before taking part in the exam. The sample test provides you with a precise idea about the question pattern of the Duolingo English Test.
• Things required to take a test: Apart from internet connectivity and a PC, you must have a government-issued ID and a photo, a quiet and a properly lit room, one hour without interruptions. It will prevent you from encountering any issues while taking the test.
• Know the rules: After the test is over, a proctor reviews the test video to check you have followed the rules. One should not wear earphones, not interact with anyone, not look offscreen, and not use any devices or cellphones while participating in the test.
• The scoring pattern of the test: Being a computer-based test, the experts design the test to assess the real-world language skill of the candidates. The test taker’s proficiency is measured between 10-160, which is the overall score. Generally, universities consider more than 120 a decent score for UG admissions.

Thousands of universities abroad accept Duolingo scores as an admission requirement. Some of the top universities of the world which accept the Duolingo English test scores are the University of Chicago, Yale University, Columbia University, Duke University, and alike. Test your English proficiency skill at a cheaper rate while taking the Duolingo test, and get a golden chance to pursue UG degrees in a foreign country.