Hi everyone! I'm Teacher Luke an expert Duolingo English Test teacher,
and today's video is all about the Duolingo English Test subscores. Most other tests
like the ILETS or TOEFL exam divide your scores based on the four skills: speaking
writing reading and listening. However, the Duolingo English Test does it a bit differently,
and actually in my opinion, as a teacher, they do a much better job at dividing your scores.
And these are called the subscores. And knowing about the subscores will help you
to better understand the Duolingo English Test, so that's what we're gonna do today.
But before I start if you think this type of video is useful please give it a thumbs up and
write "yes" below in the comments. Okay then, let's take a look at what these subscores are.
You can find all of this information on the Duolingo English Test website. So there are
four different subscores: literacy, tests your reading and writing skills; comprehension, tests
your reading and listening skills; conversation, tests your listening and speaking skills;
and production, tests your writing and speaking skills. In my opinion, as an English language
teacher with over 10 years of teaching experience, dividing the four skills reading, writing,
speaking, and listening into these subscores is a much better indicator of someone's overall English
proficiency rather than separating the skills like a lot of other tests do--where they give
you a listening test, a reading test, a writing test, and a speaking test, because in real life
when you are for example having a conversation you're not just speaking, are you? You're speaking
and listening so this is one area which i believe the Duolingo English Test is doing a really good
job at. But what question types contribute to each subscore let's take a look at that now.
So here are all the different question types. I'll go through each of them individually showing you
what they look like on the test in a minute. Each question type contributes towards two subscores
and if you look at this chart, it shows you the frequency of each question type. All of
this information can be found on the Duolingo English Test website; there is a link below
in the description. So the production subscore is broken up into two sections the writing questions
and the speaking questions. Some of these speaking questions are not on the practice test so this
might be the first time you've seen some of these questions, so i hope this helps you study better.
Okay, let's start with writing for the writing there are two different question types. We have
the respond to a question in at least 50 words-for this you have five minutes and you will only get
this question type once in the whole test. The next writing question on the production sub-score
is the describe an image question type-you only have one minute to do this, which is incredibly
short, and you will get this three times on the test. So let's take a look at the speaking
questions now. The first one is to read about a topic and then speak-you have 90 seconds to do
this and you'll have this twice on the test. Next up we have listen to the question and speak-so you
have to listen to the prompt understand the prompt and then answer the question through speaking this
one in my opinion is a lot harder than reading and speaking again you only have 90 seconds to do
this, but luckily you only have this once on the test. And third, you have the describe a picture
through speaking-for this you have 90 seconds and again you only have it once on the test.
So those were the different question types that contribute towards your production subscore:
the listen about a topic and then speak and the describe a picture through speaking
are not on the practice test but they are on the real test, and you need to know that.
Unlike the other subscores assessing your production can be a little bit subjective.
There's not always a right and wrong answer. Sn how are you assessed? Well,
thankfully the Duolingo team have shared with us their criteria, so let's take a look at that now.
So for the speaking and writing tasks this is what you're being judged on.
There are seven main points: grammatical accuracy, lexical sophistication, lexical diversity, task
relevance, length, fluency, and acoustic features. Acoustic features means pronunciation. So this
criteria is a bit complicated but I have made a video discussing this in a lot of detail you
can click this card here or find the link below in the description. Watch that video if you're having
a hard time with the production subscore. Now let's take a look at the literacy question types.
there are only three question types that contribute towards your literacy subscore
they are the c-test the c-test is the "read and fill in the gaps" question type. Then you have the
select the real english words through reading not through listening just through reading in addition
to those two all of the writing tasks contribute towards your literacy subscore literacy is your
ability to read and write so it makes sense that these question types contribute towards that
sub score i have made practice videos for these types of questions as well check out my youtube
page and you can find all of these different videos to help you okay moving on to conversation
so there are four different question types that contribute towards your conversation sub score
firstly we have all of the different speaking questions of course conversation involves speaking
so it makes sense that these question types are in the conversation then we have the elicited speech
also known as the read aloud question type here you're given a sentence which you have to read
within 20 seconds you will get this question type anywhere between three and seven times in
the test like a lot of the others then moving on you have select the real words through listening
for this question type you have 90 seconds and you have to listen to all of these words and just
choose which ones are real words it sounds easy but actually it is quite difficult then moving
on you have the dictation question type where you have to listen and type out exactly what you hear
remember for the read aloud the yes no vocabulary through listening and the dictation
question types you will get these anywhere between three and seven times in the test
on average six times so definitely take the time to practice doing these question types
also again i have made videos on all of these different ones
you can find them on my youtube page okay lastly let's take a look at the comprehension sub score
remember comprehension tests your ability to read and listen so these questions will of course be
based around reading and listening the first up is the c test this question type contributes to
the comprehension and also the literacy then we have the dictation question type of course that
tests your listening skills then your ability to read a sentence out loud and lastly both of the
yes no vocabulary question types the one where you have to select the words through listening
and the other through listening both of these contribute towards your comprehension sub score
so those are the four sub scores and the different question types that contribute
towards them after you've finished the test your mark sheet will look like this
as you can see here each sub score gets its own individual points and all of those points
contribute towards your total score but since this is an adaptive test it's not simply an
average of your sub scores equals your total score it's a bit more complicated than that
so i hope this video helped you to understand what skills each sub-score is assessing and also which
question types contribute to which sub-score all of this information is really helpful to know
to help you study more efficiently for this test if you have any questions about these sub scores
please let me know down below in the comments also join my facebook group you can write your
questions in the facebook group and i will respond and also other test takers can help you out too
okay that's all for today thank you very much and i'll see you soon take care