Hey friends, we're incredibly lucky today to have Caroline, a representative from the Duolingo English
Test. Come onto this YouTube channel to talk about the rules behind the Duolingo English Test. She's going to
be answering some of my questions and some of yours, so let's get right to it. Okay. Hi, Caroline. Thank you
for coming on to this channel. I'm sharing all of your thoughts about the Duolingo English test. How are you
doing today?
Hi, Luke. I'm super excited to be here. I love your channel. I'm a longtime watcher, as well as many other
people on the Duolingo English test team. I'm coming to you here from Duolingo headquarters in Pittsburgh,
Pennsylvania in the USA. And hi test takers. I'm excited to talk to you guys about rules and
requirements and help you get ready to test your best.
Yeah, exactly. Today's video is all about the rules and requirements to help you to avoid an uncertified, which
is really important. Because actually, when you take the Duolingo test you as the test taker is in control,
it's your responsibility to make sure you follow the rules correctly.
Yes. And I think one thing to remember is not to be stressed, because if you are genuinely taking the test,
honestly, and you're following all those rules and requirements, it is very possible to get a certified
result, we certify a great number of tests every day. So don't worry if you are honestly taking the test as
yourself and doing your best to follow those rules and requirements, you will be able to get a certified
result.
Yeah, exactly. And we will jump into some questions I have for you, Caroline, and also some questions from
different test takers. But before we do that, would you like to introduce yourself and what you do at Duolingo?
Sure. So again, my name is Karolina, I work here at Duolingo in Pittsburgh, and I work on the Duolingo
English test team, of course, and I work specifically on test taker relations. So I work on things like our
social media accounts, I helped to write a lot of the test readiness guide, if you're familiar with that. And
I also do things like run our student advisory group and conduct user research to really hear the voice of
test takers and make sure that's heard on our team. So that's what I do here. And I'm very excited again to be
on YouTube, because I know that many test takers use YouTube to get ready for the test, and especially with
creators, like teacher, Luke are making lots and lots of resources for you guys. So yeah, that's what I do.
Excellent. And you also go into head the YouTube channel for Duolingo test, right?
Yes, I am really excited to start creating YouTube videos on our own channel over on Duolingo English
test. So go subscribe to our channel. And maybe one day we'll see Luke over there on our channel.
Excellent. Yeah, I'll definitely put a link to that below so everyone can find it easily. Okay, so shall we
jump into these questions? Yeah. So the first one I have is about the test rules, obviously, where can
students learn about the rules and requirements?
Yeah, this is a great question. So I mentioned a bit earlier, I worked on the test readiness guide, which
you can find at English test.duolingo.com/readiness. This is a free resource, if you don't know about it
that lives on our website. And it has a lot of details about the rules and requirements. And it's easy to find
in the table of contents where you can look up those rules and requirements. So I would start there. The
other really great resource, it's on our website is our Frequently Asked Questions section. And we actually
have a great article in the FAQ, that's called for tips to get your test certified. So make sure to read that
because it does cover a lot of the commonly broken rules and how to avoid them. And Luke and I will talk a
little bit about those rules as well in this video. But if you want to read an article, that's where you can
find it. And the last thing I'll say is, you can always ask our support team, if you have questions, they're
here to help you. And even if you haven't taken the test yet, you can reach out to them via email or on the
chat button on our website. And you can ask those clarifying questions that you have and get a good
answer. And that's a great way to be ready when the test begins. And finally, once you're ready to take the
test, the setup of the test will actually remind you of those rules and requirements. So you will have it in
top of your mind when you're taking the test.
Yeah, great. I actually think that the Help button or the chat button on the website is a really great
feature. And I often direct students to that to that chat feature.
Thanks. Yeah, that's that's a great way to get instant support and responses. And they can ask for students,
you can ask clarifying questions there.
Yeah, excellent. So there are quite a few rules that students have to follow when they're taking the test.
And a lot of students get a bit worried about breaking them accidentally. So if a student does break a rule
accidentally, what is the result?
This is a great question. And also we understand that breaking rules accidentally does happen. This is a
brand new type of test format in the last couple of years that's entirely administered online. And that
requires a new set of rules and requirements that students might not be familiar with. So we do know that
it occasionally does happen that you may accidentally break a rule if you do accidentally break a rule and
you're tested. is not certified, you will receive an explanation of what happens. So you can find that
logged in on your test taker homepage. And you will also get an email detailing what rule was broken and
why the test was not certified. So depending on what that rule is, and what the circumstances are, you may
be offered a chance to test again. So an example is like if your mom comes in and asks if you want dinner,
that is obviously not a malicious rule breaking incident, that is an accident that happened and you may
be offered a chance to test again. On the other hand, if you have a constant interruption, or someone who's
clearly in the room with you for the whole test, or someone who's helping you, then that in that case, you
may not be offered the chance to test again. So it really depends on the specific circumstances. And we'll
talk a little bit later about how we do proctoring and also how the appeals process works in case you receive
an uncertified result and you want to appeal it.
Great. Well, that leads me nicely to my next question. Well, how do you judge if a rule was broken
accidentally, by a test taker? Or if the test taker was intentionally attempted to cheat?
Yeah, this is a great question. And we have lots of teams here at the Duolingo English test who work
exactly on this topic. They include people who work on things like security operations, proctoring, even
assessment research, which is the field of testing research that helps us build the test, actually, all of
our tests go through human AI and human proctoring. So that is the that would be the process, regardless of
whether or not a rule was broken. But the AI does help to flag those broken rules in the initial, first pre
proctoring round, and it tells Proctor's what to look for and what to investigate.
So what rules lead to the most uncertified tests? And what advice do you have to help test takers avoid this?
Yeah, this is a great question. And again, I'm actually going to cover the four tips to make sure your test is
certified that's written down in our FAQ. So if you want to go back and double check, that's a great
article to read. But I'll tell you about them now. Okay, so the first one that I'll talk about, which I
see a lot of comments about on social media, is you looked away from the screen for an extended period of
time. Again, I understand that this one might be something that feels unnatural to test takers. But it's
really important to make sure that your testing environment is secure. Because we can't see anything
except you looking at the test. So we need you to be focusing on the test as much as you possibly can. So
one question we see a lot is, if I look down to type, will my test VM certified? And the answer to that is
probably not. If you're looking down very occasionally to type we understand that that's a natural action
you're going to take, it sort of depends on how frequently you're doing it, and how much you look down.
So in especially in questions where you're not typing like questions where you're speaking, make sure you're
making direct eye contact with your web camera and keeping your focus on that test at all times. Some tips
I like to give students to avoid breaking this rule are things like remove distracting things from your
environment. So let's say there's like a poster or a piece of art on your wall that you might be looking at,
when you're lost in thought, make sure you just have a calm, clean environment around you and you will be less
likely to get distracted. So yes, in order to get your test certified, it is really important to try to keep
your eyes focused on the test for the entirety of the one hour that the test takes. So another common rule
that's broken is that we could not verify the security of your environment because a software was detected to
be running at the same time that you're taking the Duolingo English test. So it's really important that
when you're ready to take the test, you make sure to close all programs on your computer. So think about
things like browsers, close your Chrome, close your Firefox, close your safari, think about messaging and
chat software, close your Skype. And also think about things like screen sharing or teamwork. Those are those
are programs that are absolutely not not allowed. So anything like any desk, or TeamViewer, make sure all of
that is shut down and not running on Windows, make sure that those programs are not appearing in your bottom
bar. And on Mac, make sure that there's no dot under the program that indicates it's running. Even if you're
not using that program, if it is running in the background on your computer that can result in an
uncertified test. So make sure that everything is closed, and you're only on the dual Duolingo English
test desktop app. Another one is that someone was detected in the room while you were testing. Again, it
goes without saying that no one can help you with your test. You have to do this on your own with no outside
resources or help from anyone else. So just again, make sure that you make it clear to your family members,
your roommates, whoever might be sharing your space that they absolutely cannot enter the testing area at
any time. You can even print or make a sign to put on your door and just really remind them that this will
result in an uncertified test and it could sort of jeopardize your chances here. So make sure that
everybody knows to leave you alone and make sure that you really do have that private quiet space. It doesn't
have to be in your house. But it does need to be a room that is able to be private and have no interruptions
from the outside. Also, for this one, it's best to put your phone or smartwatch or any other connected
devices, even in a separate room just so that you're not tempted to look at them so that we don't hear them
ringing in the background of your recording. Just make sure to put those devices away. Another one we'll talk
about is that it appears you are reading a written response during your speaking answers. And we received
many questions about this rule. This rule is really about the fact that the Duolingo English test is a test
of your natural English speaking capabilities. So you want to answer each question as authentically and as
naturally as possible. Even if you've practiced doing speaking questions before with different prompts, you
want to really make sure you're paying attention to what the topic is that's asked of you, and that you're
really responding to that topic. So you want to speak conversationally, naturally, you don't want to appear
as though you are reading or, or speaking something that's been rehearsed in advance, because that can also
result in an uncertified test. So when you see those speaking prompts, really think about the question and
think about what you actually have to say, it's better to speak naturally than it is to do do sort of a
rehearsed response there.
Okay, great. Okay. And that's all the questions from me. But do you have any final suggestions for test
takers?
Yeah, I think again, just want to reiterate, make sure to research those rules and requirements in advance,
use the resources that I mentioned, watch videos, check out our website. And remember that at the end of the
day, we want to give you a certified test results. So don't stress if you are following all the rules and
requirements, it is very possible to achieve a certified result. And I know you're going to do great
on your Duolingo English tests.
Okay, that's great. Thank you. Those are all the questions from me and my audience. Thank you so much,
Caroline for coming onto my YouTube channel and sharing all your thoughts about the rules and requirements for
the Duolingo English test.
Luke, thanks so much for having me on. Test takers comm follow us over on the Duolingo English test YouTube
channel. Best of luck on your tests, and we'll see you soon.
Okay, guys, thank you so much for watching, and I'll see you soon. Bye.