BEST Test of English Proficiency - website

● The BESTEP is designed to meet the needs of college and university students for further education and employment. BESTEP aims to understand the current English proficiency of college students, track their learning, and provide feedback to the teaching of English courses in colleges and universities, driving the cycle of testing, teaching, learning, and employment in a positive direction.

● Other English tests in the market are not developed for higher education contexts, and do not correspond with domestic academic English/workplace competencies. The BESTEP is the first of its kind to be developed specifically for domestic higher education and related contexts. It is an English proficiency test for domestic academic programs. The communication skills tested can be linked to the needs of further education and workplace (please refer to the following questions for details).

● We emphasize the concept of "learning-oriented assessment". For example, in an attempt to help enhance students' motivation to plan their own learning, the test taker’s score report provides not only the overall score of the test but also the achievement rate of each component and the descriptors of the competency, which is rare for large standardized tests.

This test is designed to measure the core English communication competency required in colleges and universities and under related contexts. The speaking test, for example, includes such functions as answering questions, giving a presentation while the writing test includes such functions as expressing opinions, writing an integrated essay. All questions are designed according to clear competency indicators and real-life communication situations, with difficulty levels ranging from CEFR A (Elementary) to C (Advanced). The aim is to motivate students to apply what they have learned in their regular English courses to achieve common listening, reading, speaking and writing communication tasks. The communication language functions measured in this test are also applicable to workplace situations that college and university students often encounter, such as answering questions in English, capturing the main points of graphs, integrating graphical information, and expressing opinions to agree or disagree. The English communication skills tested are essential not only for further education but also for internship and employment in the workplace.

Please visit: CEFR Video

The listening & reading and writing tests are paper-based.
The speaking test is administered in an audio-visual or a computer classroom where each test taker sits in front of a computer and all test takers are recorded at the same time.

This test will be first launched for the colleges and universities participating in the campus-based program.

The results of this test can be used to understand a test taker's current English proficiency, track their learning, and serve as an indicator of their English proficiency prior to graduation as well as for purposes related to further education and employment.