Friday 1 June 2007

More on IELTS banding and CEFR

Thanks to Cambridge ESOL for providing clarification:

"The issue of how IELTS band scores align with the CEFR levels is not quite as straightforward as the tables on your website imply - but this could be due in some part to the format of the tables, which, being a grid, necessarily implies a definite relationship between IELTS bands and CEFR levels, by placing them in specific regions of the grid.

However, since IELTS and the CEFR developed separately, such a definite relationship should not really be expected to exist.

We deliberately haven't made strong claims on the IELTS website about exact equivalence between assessment products or the scores they generate, but what the table shows is our perception that C2 performance would come in a little above the band 7 threshold (though not as high as 7.5).It is very difficult to give exact comparisons between IELTS and CPE due to the different design, purpose and format of the examinations. It is also the case that a candidate's aptitude and preparation for a particular type of test will vary from individual to individual and some candidates are more likely to perform better in certain kinds of test that others."

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