TOEIC® Listening and Reading Test to Receive Updates

Updates to reflect changing use of English in the workplace; but with no change to score scale, test difficulty, number of items or test length

PRINCETON, New Jersey, Feb. 14, 2018 /PRNewswire/ -- Educational Testing Service (ETS), the creator of the TOEIC^® Program, announced updates to the format of questions used in the TOEIC ^® Listening and Reading test. The changes will take effect in Europe, the Middle East and Africa beginning with the June 2018 test administrations.

Background

The TOEIC test was first launched in 1979 to measure English-language proficiency in the global workplace. The test was last revised in 2006. The updated question formats will reflect the changing use of English and the ways in which individuals commonly communicate in everyday social and work situations around the world.

The updated test questions first appeared in TOEIC public test administrations held in Japan and Korea on May 29, 2016. Following the successful launch in Japan and Korea, the updated test questions will appear in TOEIC public test administrations beginning April 2018.

Impact of the Updates 

With these updates, the overall quality and difficulty of the TOEIC Listening and Reading test will remain the same and as such the test will continue to be a fair, valid and reliable assessment of everyday and workplace English. There will be no change to the difficulty level or total testing time. There will be no changes in the administration of the test. The score report will remain unchanged with the exception of one additional Listening Ability Measured: Understanding a speaker's purpose or implied meaning in a phrase or sentence. The addition of the new Listening Ability Measured does not affect a test taker's overall score. Scores will continue to be comparable across test administrations.

For more information on the TOEIC Listening and Reading test, visit https://www.etsglobal.org. To contact your local ETS Preferred Network office, please visit toeicglobal.com/contact.

About the TOEIC^® Test
For more than 35 years, the TOEIC program has been the global standard for measuring workplace English-language communication skills. The TOEIC  Assessments, including the TOEIC ^® Listening and Reading test, the TOEIC ^® Speaking and Writing tests and the TOEIC Bridge™ test, are trusted by over 14,000 organizations in more than 160 countries and are widely recognized as the gold standard in English-language assessment for the workplace. For more information on the TOEIC Program, visit www.toeicglobal.com.

About ETS
At ETS, we advance quality and equity in education for people worldwide by creating assessments based on rigorous research. ETS serves individuals, educational institutions and government agencies by providing customized solutions for teacher certification, English language learning, and elementary, secondary and postsecondary education, and by conducting education research, analysis and policy studies. Founded as a nonprofit in 1947, ETS develops, administers and scores more than 50 million tests annually — including the TOEFL^® and TOEIC ^® tests, the GRE ^® tests and The Praxis Series ^® assessments — in more than 180 countries, at over 10,000 locations worldwide. www.ets.org