ARTICLES
IELTS Half Band Scores
Scores for each part of the test will still be reported on the scale from 1 to 9, but now the Writing and Speaking tests will be reported in whole or half bands in the same way as the Reading and Listening tests. Why is score reporting for the Writing and Speaking tests being changed? This is the latest in a series of enhancements to IELTS, based on continual consultation with test takers, teachers, Recognising Organisations and other stakeholders around the world. This range of scores - using whole and half bands - is already used for Listening and Reading. We have consulted a large number of organisations that use IELTS scores, and their feedback tells us that they find the half band scores very helpful as they allow them to specify required language levels more precisely. Many teachers and test takers have also told us that they would like more detailed information on performance in each skill. What will the benefits be? There will be three main benefits: * Recognising Organisations will be able to set their requirements for admission, recruitment, etc, more precisely, based on more detailed information about the test-taker's performance in each of the four skills....
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Online translators can hurt more than help
Online automated translators may be fairly accurate for translating languages of similar origin, but the line stops there. Certainly most of you are familiar with online translators such as Babel fish. However, from what I have read, it seems that quite a few people think that these automated translators do the perfect job. In some cases this is almost true...
Languages of similar origin usually follow the same sentence structure (Romance languages for example), and with Babel Fish you will be able to get a fairly good cross language translation. And by this I mean you will still have to go back over the translated piece and re-write it into the proper grammatical form.
It is when you try and use automated translators to translate languages of different origins where you can get into trouble. Being a native English speaker and working in Japan for a translation company, I often (just for a laugh) copy and paste a Japanese sentence onto such automated translators and then have them translated into English. It truly is a scary thought to think that people actually believe this will yield a true cross language translation to any degree.
First of all, most English speaking countries use an...
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