Hi there! It's Asiya and I've found a way to study abroad without taking an IELTS or
TOEFL test, which are currently suspended. There is a test you can take from home in
less than one hour, get your results in two days,
and go and study abroad. It's already accepted by over 500 universities
worldwide and it's called Duolingo Test. So let's talk about it in more detail.
basically Duolingo Test has been around for a while but I personally
haven't heard about it because only some universities accept and many others
don't but in our current circumstances it's still a fantastic option
moreover more and more universities are saying that they will accept duolingo
results for this year it's already accepted by over 600 universities or
institutions in the US some universities some a lot over 70
universities in Canada in other countries not as many units accepted but
he can still find very good options let's say in the UK there are only six
or seven universities accepting it at the moment but UCL Birmingham Bristol
among them and these are top universities in the US you can go to
Yale Columbia UCLA University of California Los Angeles with duolingo
test and appreciate that the university you really want to go to may not be on
the list I will give you a link with all the universities accepting this test so
your university may not accept it and I hope you will be able to take an IELTS
exam in the coming weeks but we don't really know and I just want you to bear
in mind that you need time to get your study
visa and you need more time than you might expect let's take the UK as an
example because I know it well so theoretically you can
pay for the premium visa service and get it in five days however in August when
many people apply students still often wait for like over two weeks for this
five-day service and then we still need to get the visa letter from University
you need to pay the deposit and so on and universities have like thousands of
students so they can't do things fast every time you need something you get to
the end of the queue and you have to wait that's why you need time and if you
don't have a firm offer yet and you depend on the IELTS test I would say
explore your other options perhaps the meat and application to another
university accepting duolingo take the test
let it be your backup option let's talk about the test itself because it's not
what you might expect Oh first of all you get a new one score
it's not split into reading writing listening just one score up to 160
points so you can roughly compare it with IELTS if you get a hundred in
duolingo it's a six in IELTS 120 is a seven but some universities require
slightly more points in duolingo so you should really check what the
requirements are and this test takes only one hour to complete if you compare
it with IELTS which is three hours long so it's much easier to do you only need
to concentrate for one hour and that's because this test is adaptive it means
you get a task if you answer correctly the next task would be more difficult if
you answer correctly again the next task will be even more difficult or if you
answer incorrectly the next task will be simpler and then this way the test can
determine what your level is much more quickly than IELTS all you need to take
this test is a laptop with a camera and a microphone and a quiet room the whole
session will be recorded so you must not click away from the test so you can't
open a dictionary quickly you can't have anyone in the room
you can't look around your recording will be checked for any signs of
cheating the format of the test is quite unusual - let me show you some of the
tasks in this task you simply need to type in missing letters and as you can
see there is a timer for each task next you hear a number of words and you need
to say if some words are real and exist in English or not sometimes you see
words written and again we need to select real English words so they check
how wide your vocabulary is or you may be given a sentence and you need to
record yourself saying it you will have a bit of time to prepare or you hear
sentence and you need to type it and you can replay the record twice so you will
hear the sentence through any times have a look at this one it's like IELTS
speaking part 2 you're given a topic and you need to talk about it there was a
similar task about writing you're given a topic and five minutes and you need to
type more than 50 words so here the test is more concentrated on your English
skills unlike in IELTS where they also check
your ability to write good essays there was another interesting task which I
forgot to print screen where I was given a photo and I needed to describe it in
in writing so this is the first part of the test which is graded you get a score
there is a second part which is not graded
it's called interview and writing sample so you're given a choice between two
topics and then you need to talk about it for one to three minutes and then
again you have a choice and you need to right answer to this topic and you have
five minutes this part is not graded it simply sent directly to your
universities and they can check how you perform to be honest I don't know if
units really do that I checked requirements on the number of
websites but they simply state what score they require in duolingo test they
don't say anything like plus satisfactory performance in the
interview stage there is a practice test it takes 15 minutes and you'll be given
a score but the score will not be correct because the practice test is
much shorter than the real test but if you take it please post yours out in
comments below and if you've taken IELTS exam before please post that score too
it will be really interesting to compare them I personally found the practice
test a little bit tricky because I didn't always expect what I need to do
and sometimes for example the screen changed and I didn't stop talking
straight away because I didn't expect it so you should really take the practice
test before the real test but duolingo test is an option you should consider thank you for
watching me today all the best
bye